Help!! Bootloader wont load Windows!!
I'm almost at the point of flipping out right now.. I had Linux installed on my machine before, and my bootloader always loaded both windows and linux just fine. Now, I installed mandrake 10.1 cause I havent used linux in a while and wanted a new distro..
It WONT load windows xp.. the partition is there, havent changed it at all. When I choose windows, I get a black screen with messed up text and colored blocks all over it. I'm going crazy.. I've tried changing the bootloader and it still doesnt work... I cannot lose my windows partition, I have too many important files.. Please, somebody help. |
If you installed a bootloader with Mdk, it overwrote the previous one, which might be causing the problem. If Mdk is your active Linux partition, post (in Mdk) the output of
Code:
cat /etc/lilo.conf If you're using grub as a bootloader, I can't help you, but there are plenty of other people here who can. |
There is a problem with Mandrake 10 and Fedora Core 2 (caused by the 2.6 kernel) which uses the partition table a little differently to windows - I had this exact same problem and it is fairly easy to resolve if it is what I think it is.
I know grub (I learned it because of this problem) so if you are using grub paste the output of /etc/grub.conf (or /boot/grub.conf depending on distro). If it is the problem with the way the 2.6 kernel messes with the partition table it can be resolved by doing the following as root: Code:
sfdisk -d /dev/hda | sfdisk --no-reread -H255 /dev/hda --force I highly recommend pasting the contents of your lilo.conf or grub.conf file first before you try that though - even though it isn't damaging, It's worthwhile making sure if it isn't something much simpler. |
Here is my lilo.conf output. I do not gave grub installed, but I did switch to it via the mandrake control panel at one point and I got the same errors with trying to load windows.
default="linux" boot=/dev/hda map=/boot/map keytable=/boot/us.klt prompt nowarn timeout=100 message=/boot/message menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw image=/boot/vmlinuz label="linux" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=nomount acpi=ht splash=silent" vga=788 read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="linux-nonfb" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="devfs=nomount acpi=ht" read-only image=/boot/vmlinuz label="failsafe" root=/dev/hda5 initrd=/boot/initrd.img append="failsafe acpi=ht devfs=nomount" read-only other=/dev/hda1 label="windows" table=/dev/hda |
Bump.. seriously, I'm in trouble here..
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try changing table=/dev/hda to root=/dev/hda
HTH Mathew |
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