Grub won't boot properly
 

My computer is dual booted between Windows XP and Fedora Core 3. There is only one physical disk. Windows is on the first partition and Fedora Core is on the second partition (all of the Linux file system is on the same partition).

I'm using GRUB for the bootloader which defaults to Windows (long story).

My co-worker (ya. this is my work computer) just discovered you can remotely shutdown a Windows computer from another Windows computer with the following command:
-s: shutdown
-m \\computername: machine name
-t xx: time in seconds
-f: force running applications to close

There I was, peacefully typing away when I see the shutdown message. His first attempt didn't have a time so I just typedin the command prompt (abort the system shutdown). So his second try used the time limit of one second which left me no time to stop it.

OK. So I waited for my computer to shutdown.

The problem was when it started up again. GRUB didn't show me the normal screen; instead, it had a command line prompt. I tried using a few Unix commands like ls, cd, shutdown, ...

It only worked when I looked up a couple of commands on the internet. Namely,Then it booted into Windows. Good! But when I restarted, it still booted into the GRUB command line.

It boots... but I want to fix it so it worked like it did before. What do I do? How do I boot into the second partition? (hd0,1) didn't work.

thanks in advance,
ian

Boot up with the Mandrake cdrom1 and type: rescue or linux rescue
There should be an option to repair the boot loader.

Then I would let the co-worker know that crashing the machines will stop or management will know about it.

Ok. I think I have a Mandrake CD somewhere.

lol. At first I was quiet because I felt like punching his face in, but when I saw it was still bootable I just gave him the guilt trip. <grins />
He felt really bad, although next time he might loose his network privileges. :)

Rats, I was looking at the info on the side when I said to use the Mandrake cd.
tumana
Distribution: Mandrake

If you do have FC3 installed, use the Fedora cdrom1 and type: linux rescue
Allow it to detect and mount the Fedora system as /mnt/sysimage.
Then
type: chroot /mnt/sysimage
type: grub-install /dev/hda
type: reboot

haha... I haven't updated that in a while. :) That's cool.

I think I found the problem! I used KNOPPIX and it only detected my Windows partition (hda1)! hda2 is no where to be found! GRUB can't find its configuration file so of course it won't boot correctly. :) I've never seen this, but my buddy's little shutdown prank completely unallocated any partition other than the Windows one (hda1).

All in all, I think I'm going to install another distro and hopefully the installation will overwrite the present bootloader. It's about time I test another Linux distro.

Thanks. Let me find my Gentoo CD. It's been a while I've used it.

You must be a good natured person as you are taking the whole thing with a smile. :)
I'd be so mad that I couldn't see straight for a month. Maybe...

But then, I have backup images so it wouldn't be any real issue.

:p I didn't loose any data. If he had wiped out my server at home he would have been picking up pieces of his computer on the highway. Plus, this is strike one. lol

Thanks for the help.