let me start by saying I'm a total newbie, to get that out of the way. without any further ado, let me begin. I tend to go on, so I'll try and have a summary at the end if you wanna skip the story part.

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I was (am?) interested in linux. my friend recommended SuSE, and the website advertised that their installation would put in the partitions that linux needed without erasing data. as shady as this proposition sounded, I went ahead. now, my windows will not boot.

I had two partitions _before_ installing it: one with the windows functionality and all my installed programs, the other full of music, images, movie files, etc. I split up the latter partition to install linux. not being of a very patient bent, I shuddered in the face of the daunting task of backing up so many gigs of data. since I had much of it on cd anyway (I had reformatted a couple months earlier), I entrusted the fate of my files to the makers of SuSE.

a mistake? time will tell.

I'm still getting used to working in linux, and after overcoming all kinds of problems (including my keyboard somehow being recognized as a german variant and spewing all manner of nonsense when I tried to type) I kinda know my way around it. my next priority before perfecting things, though, is getting my files and my windows back.

by the way, I know charging into this was a foolish move. spare me your admonitions. I was eager to get started.

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to recap: I had two partitions, one with windows, one with files. I installed suse linux, splitting up the file partition, and now my windows won't boot.

mounting the windows partition is easy, and I can see that my old C: (windows + installed programs) is intact. mounting my old D: (music, imagery, etc.) is problematic. but, from what I've read, ntfs is tough, and I'm holding out hope my data is recoverable.

my suspicion is this partition is screwed up. I know nothing of partitions, but I gather that the partition table is invalid and I must fix it.

when I try to boot windows, it goes nowhere fast and tells me this:

when I used ntfsresize to figure it out, it told me /dev/hda5 doesn't have a valid ntfs. according to the NTFS Resize FAQ's (can't link to it on account of the 5 post rule) this also suggests partition trouble.

I did fdisk -l /dev/hda5, like that FAQ told me to, and got this output:

this language of partition tables is new and frightening to me. I implore you, oh venerable linux community, lend aid to your newest convert! help me recover my files, if possible, and get my windows up and running without the pain of tracking down my xp cd and reformatting.

I'll burden you with one more output. I used cfdisk to analyze the partition table, and this is what I got.


although this whole console thing is still foreign to me, I'm ready and willing to venture into it 20 more times if there's more information I should collect. I realize that I could be way off here, so any advice is appreciated. thanks to anyone who even considers helping me.

That 'fdisk' command wasn't completely correct, /dev/hda5 is a partition not a disk.
#fdisk -l /dev/hda
But cfdisk is ok too, although it doesn't give you correct info about everything - I do wonder if it reads the disk correctly?
You have one primary partition, one extended which holds 3 logical volumes - 1 NTFS 2 Linux
So far, so good.

Now I need to know your boot-configuration.
Start Linux, I think SuSe has some GUI-tool for checking boot config.
I want to know what bootloader you use (grub, right?) and what /boot/grub/menu.lst looks like (if it is grub)

I am having the same exact problem. using GRUB. I haven't tried fdisk, but I am getting the same error message when trying to boot my Windows partition. I had windows only installed on the disk, ran SuSE 9.1 Pro install, chose default options except for changing the partition size for SuSE and now XP won't boot. I used the XP CD to create an 8GB partition for itself, left the rest blank for the SuSE install.

I thought surely if I deleted everything and started over it would fix it. I booted with SytemrescueCD and ran QTparted, deleted all the partitions on the disk. Next I reinstalled XP. XP booted and ran fine by itself. Installed SuSE again, and now I have the same problem as before. This time GRUB has 2 windows sections (Windows1 and Windows2) even though there is only 1 Windows partition. Why does it have 2? Wouldn't XP have overwritten the boot sector during its install? Could it be that GRUB picked up my second hard drive (NTFS partition) and thinks it is bootable? During the first XP install windows decided to change the drive letters around on it's own and make what was the C: drive the E: drive and vice versa. For the second XP install I unhooked the second drive, but had it hooked up when I installed SuSE.

I'm proud to say that I'm posting this from windows, and my problem is (somewhat) solved. I posted this problem on a couple other forums, and one of them came up with a link. I guess I never found it because SuSE's search tool is so lousy.

http://portal.suse.com/sdb/en/2004/0...booting91.html

My Windows now boots up no problem. Sadly, it doesn't recognize the partition with all my files, so I'm gonna try a couple things to salvage it before I format the thing. Still have to tread lightly so I don't wipe my whole linux in the process (though I'm starting to think that wouldn't be a bad thing). Anyway, that's not an issue for you since I take it you already reformatted anyway. Good luck.

I must say I'm amazed of all the problems SuSe creates!
I have used several distro's, SuSe is really weird. It's very much "Microsoft in Linux".
I know people have different likes, but my advice is to put any distro but SuSe on your computer be it a laptop or not. If you really want something like Suse - use the original, it's called "Windows".

Awesome link! I am trying that tonight if I get a chance! SuSE might have some weird stuff about it, but I still like it. What other linux distro offers such a complete package for Windows/Linux domain integration or migration? Novell directory services running on Linux, Ximian Evolution email client that now has the connector for free to connect to MS Exchange server, SuSE OpenExchange server which can have MS Outlook clients connect to it. WINErack if they release a new version....

If you like SuSe, good for you!
I just got fedup with it completely, not only because of what I wrote above. It is also so extremely bad at detecting hardware - it is the only distro that can't use my modem (besides Debian, of course, but this is a "feature" not a bug..), says nic is installed and working when it isn't, won't install my soundcard properly & I can only change it with their GUI-tool removing and reinstalling. Also lots of programs on the menu that doesn't work...
Running SuSe, I felt like being taken back to that Windows I fled from some 3-4 years ago!

But I choose my way, you choose yours. That's what Linux is about!

The link posted above fixed my boot problem! SuSE is one of the few distros that have worked with my Cisco 350 card out of the box. I'm still pretty new so I'm not familiar with compiling drivers for whatever I need. Installing software from the disto CD's is easy, but installing stuff not already packaged for it can be a hassle. I hope it isn't that bad for other distros. I eventually want to learn Debian, but for now this gives me a starting point.

Gentlemen,
For you to boot a windows partition from grub, you need to set in the "/boot/grub/grub.conf" the followingThe partition specification is "rootnoverify" because grub doesn't know it and doesn't need to know it.

Good luck!

I had tried modifying mine like the example you give after reading previous threads on the topic, but it was the driver update that fixed it along with the fixpart=1 option it describes. I'm up and running again!

I've editted the grub.conf before, but I can't remember how?? I can view the file in the Root Midnight Commander, but how do I edit it?

I was pointed to this thread by osvaldomarques. But my problem isn't quite the same. Any suggestions are greatfully welcomed.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=205954

Thanks everyone

Hi ece30675,

To born is hard but is worth. I never flamed about editors, but when I first introduced myself into the *nix things, in 1989, I felt myself lost. In dos world, I had the "sidekick" editor which was an wonderful tool and it was an extension of my fingers. So, first, I thought to write a version of it for the xenix I was starting to use. But, after some thinking, I came to a conclusion which I couldn't bring my editor to all *nix someday I would touch in my life. So, I started to learn "vi". I know today there are several wonderful editors which many people love and hate but, in all their machines there is a copy of "vi" lost and forgotten in their directories. And, if there is "vi" there, I'm home! Today, 15 years after starting with it, I don't know yet all the commands, I'm not an expert in it, but I can do anything very fast with little repetition of commands.
So, I suggest you start with it. I did google for "vi tutorial" and it returned me 3,310,000 results so it's too easy to learn it. If you need assistance you can count on me.