Mandrake installed, but it won't load
 

I have just installed Mandrake 10.0 on a system with 2 other OS's, and I can't figure out how to boot into Mandrake. My C drive is MS-DOS 7.1, And my D drive is Windows Xp Professional. I installed Mandrake on a logical partition that Mandrake setup created from unallocated space. The first time I installed MDK, I told it to load the bootloader on my mbr. Not only did Mandrake not boot, it destroyed my MBR and rendered my Windows installations useless. The only thing that came up on boot was:

L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99

I restored my MBR and reinstalled Mandrake, this time telling setup to load the bootloader in the first sector of the root partition. Now I can't figure out how to boot into Mandrake. I tried installing "Acronis OS Selector", but it wouldn't recognize my Mandrake install. Can anyone help me? I tried searching the net for a boot floppy, but still haven't found one that will boot the actual OS.

Thanks in advance,

E-ball:newbie:

Knoppix. It's a live-cd distro. Use it and reinstall lilo

I'm downloading Knoppix now, thanks for your advice. I'll try it as soon as the download completes.

E-ball

You can also use the Mandrake install cd (I think the first) to reinstall lilo. Just boot from it and choose something like rescue. You then have options to reinstall lilo.

Forgive my ignorance, but I've downloaded and burnt the Knoppix CD and am currently running in Knoppix, but can't figure out how to re-install Lilo. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

E-ball

You need to mount your Mandrake partition (maybe Knoppix does this for you), chroot to it and then just type lilo and enter. That should do it.

Yay, I actually get to help somebody instead of asking for help.

Anyway, just use the mandrake install CD as if you are going to install mandrake. However, when it comes to the screen, select upgrade instead of install. Go throught the entire setup process and it will reinstall LILO.

it's a weird error that one you get. Lilo can't fint /boot/boot.b (the second stage loader)... but I don't get what 99 means... it appears to be a disk error code... anyone?

I've figured everything out now, re-installed Lilo and life is great once again. Thanks for your all you guy's help, I was lost.

E-ball