Ok i will use fdisk...and still no luck with getting the PM disks to boot...

Do you have ANY disks that will boot a 'doze OS?

i only have one harddrive, but i was hoping to re-partition my linux partition and format it as fat32 and install windows me and see if i can access those gibberish folders and files..

and moses do you know of a GUI partitioning program, instead of fdisk, feels safer, don't know why...

i have a feeling my reply before this wasn't quite what you were asking?

maybe you wish to re-phrase it ?

sorry hehe

Sorry.
Do you have any floppies or CDs which will allow you to boot into
a windows OS? If you can't see the files from a simple boot disk, then I
fear the problem has to do with the hard drive (and whatever PM did to it).
Installing windows on another partition probably won't fix it.

My guess is that XP got confused about where the boot files are when
you changed the size of the partition. I'm betting that the easiest way to
FIX this is to try to get the system information back on that partition. That
is, try booting with a boot floppy or CD, and run "sys c:". Don't worry
about making backups of the files, if their encrypted by XP, you won't
be able to restore them correctly anyway. . .

If you don't have the '98 boot disk, I can probably find one around here
and put it up on the web for you to try (it sounds like the ME sys c:
command may be pickier than 98).

If you've got the XP boot disk, attempt to start up with XP and go into
recovery mode:
http://support.microsoft.com/default...EN-US;q315233&

I'm guessing you've already been to that site, but I don't recall seeing
anything posted that said you've tried this specific step.

"4. NOTE: Alternatively, after you run the sys c: command, you can boot
to the Recovery Console, and then use the fixboot command to rewrite
the Windows XP boot code. This procedure enables the original installation
to proceed typically."

Yeh it wasn't posted here, but i went searching around Linux Google before i posted the question and couldn't find it...ok if you can get the windows 98 bootdisks that would be great...and i know i have said this before, but i can't get the PM bootdisks to boot ....

Ok, try this:
pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~mmilazzo/98boot.html

Once you download the file (98boot), do the following:

insert a good, blank floppy into the floppy drive
dd if=98boot of=/dev/fd0

You should get:

2880+0 records in
2880+0 records out

(I assume your floppy drive if /dev/fd0, and that you are using a 1.44 MB
floppy disk drive, though I think this will work regardless)

If this works w/o errors, you are good to boot into 98. . .

url doesnt work....i get a 'the requested file was not found on the server.'

Ok i had a search my self and found www.bootdisk.com, problem is that its win 98 bootdisk is in an .exe 'boot98.exe' hmmmmm don't know what to do here...

Huh. It works for me. . . Did you copy and paste, or did you retype?
With copy/paste, it works fine for me. . .

http://pirlwww.lpl.arizona.edu/~mmilazzo/98boot.html

woops i re-typed it hehe, well its downloading now...i will try boot and do that thing you told me 'sys c:' i think it was....and i would like to thank EVERYONE who have helped me on this thread...but i just want to say i may not get this fixed FOR A WHILE

Yeah, let us know how it goes. . .

Don't forget the next step, which may require you to have an XP bootable:

4. Restart the computer to Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Me, and then try the Windows XP installation or upgrade procedure again.

NOTE: Alternatively, after you run the sys c: command, you can boot to the Recovery Console, and then use the fixboot command to rewrite the Windows XP boot code. This procedure enables the original installation to proceed typically.

Ok done i'm going to re-boot now, by the way what does the command 'dd' do ? Does it make disks bootable or something like that, could i use that command for maybe the PM boot disks?

If you get that win98se bootdisk and are able to boot with it the 2nd pmdisk might work.
If you get an A:\ prompt,take out the bootdisk and insert pmdisk-2,then type:

pqmagic

and hit enter.
I made a bootdisk from the stuff I made for you and it wouldnt boot either.I think I know another way to do this to make it work.Let us know if the above idea works.
Off to work.
lynch

dd does a "Data Dump", which just copies the 1s and 0s from a file to
another. Since everything in UNIX can be thought of as a file, this works
just fine for floppies, if you need to make a boot disk for a different OS,
for example. It also works for everything else, though for CDs, it
sometimes doesn't do exactly what you expect (size issues. . .). If you
had the space, that's what I would suggest you do to backup your 'doze
drive. However, it would "copy" the entire partition, not just the files in it.

You could, for example, do a
mount -o loop 98boot /mnt/floppy
and it would mount the file as though it were a floppy disk. . .

man dd

Also, lynch could do a
dd if=/dev/fd0 of=pmdisk1

to copy the Partition Magic disks to files, then send them to you and you
could dd to floppy and it should work just fine. . .