Installed Windows 7 & lost access to earlier CentOS :(
 

Hi All,

I had windows 7 and centos 5.5 dual boot earlier working fine.
Today I had to format the windows partition and reinstall windows 7. Now I cannot access to my earlier CentOS partition :( .
I need to access it without loosing anything on it. I tried with EasyBCD at Windows but it didn't help.
Also tried to get files using an Ubuntu live CD but there that partition shows as LVM.
What else I can do to boot CentOS again?

Experts please help me!

Thanks in advance!

Don't worry, very probably only the bootloader was overwritten in the MBR. Fix is to re-install your bootloader (Grub, I assume). For that you'll need a bootable system, for example a live-cd distribution--Ubuntu live cd would do fine. LVM does mean you'll have to do some steps more than without it, but it shouldn't be too difficult to activate the volume groups using the live-cd, and then use it to re-install Grub. For precise instructions, see for example this article which deals with the exact same issue. Note that it shouldn't matter which distribution (or OS for that matter) you use to recover the system, because you're merely reinstalling a bootloader that can boot that system. In fact you could probably use the Windows bootloader to do that as well, if you wanted to. If you have Ubuntu live cd available, that should be good: the requirements are that there are tools available that you need (for LVM and Grub installation), and that it can recognize your hardware etc.

Thanks b0uncer, problem solved! Used the CentOS DVD and did somethings to GRUB and it worked!
:)