Hello!

First things first.... I love this webpage! You guys have helped me out with a lot of my linux questions!!! u rock!

Now, on to my problem. I used Mandrake 7.1 two years ago, but got rid of it because my 1 GB harddrive was getting full. Now, I decited to download the 9.0 isos and try linux again. Well, it worked great until I install Mandrake 9.

I have two Hard Drives, both 80GB. A Maxtor for our main C drive, and a Western Digital for backup purposes. Both are NTFS Formatted with Windows XP Pro installed on the Maxtor main. I installed linux on my Western Digital Backup drive (resized -- left 3GB for linux). It installed LILO automatically....which I didn't want. So I went into the mandrake control center and tried to remove it. Well, I just made it worse because not only was LILO on the MBR, but also GRUB was on my Main Hard Drive's Boot Section. So I tried the FDisk thing and erased the MBR, but now I couldn't but into XP because GRUB was saying "Load Second Stage..." and kept looping itself. I tried pulling out the main hard drive off my computer and putting in my other Compaq (450MHZ, 256MB Ram, etc.) and booted XP on my Compaq. When I went to access the main drive, it asked me to format it!!! When I went into XP's Disk Management Thing, it said that it had a 76GB Partition, but the file system wasn't listed. I tried to load PartitionMagic, but it gave me an error message while the splash screen was loading (Cannot find Partition Letter). So, now I have access to mandrake, but not XP.. and I know my data is still there, I just need it!!! HELP!!!

And by the way.... I also tried to figure out how to access NTFS Partitions for linux and cannot figure it out. I tried logging on as root and adding user to the settings, etc. but I still can't access it.

HELP ME PEOPLE! Thanks..

i can answer one question for u. to access NTFS u need to d/l a module for it. and u can only read, not write. do a search on for NTFS Linux Module and u will find the module.
edit: here u go:

http://linux-ntfs.sourceforge.net/info/redhat.html

Ok, I had to read the post a few times to get it right but I think I got it now. First, again if I'm reading this right, you need to fix the mbr on your main computer so you can access xp again. This is pretty easy to do.
If you have your XP disk, doesn't matter if it's oem or not, stick it in your maind cd drive and re-boot your machine.

Make sure you have your bios set to first or second boot from disk. When the windows set up window comes up, let it run through it's crap. You'll then have a choice to install, repair or exit. Pick repair, in the next list you should see an option that looks something like, Repair mbr, just choose that and follow the directions. This shoud fix your mbr so you can now boot properly into windows.

Now if you want to keep mandrake, on a side note if you have 2 80 gig drives seriously give some thought to handing linux a little more the 3 gigs including swap, all you need too do is boot to linux using a mandrake boot disk, once your in, install the grub package and you should be fine from there on end.

Now I may have typed all this out for now reason because I completely misunderstand your questions but I hope it helps, let me know.

Anna.

Ok. On the NTFS Problem, I have Linux Mandrake with linux kernel version 2.4.19-16mdk. Which package do I need?

Now, I am going to try the XP recovery.....

Got It!!! Thank you Anna!!

I put in the XP Disk and loaded the recovery console. I then used the fixMBR and the fixBOOT commands and it worked like magic! Thanks you guys!

Now, I just still need to figure out how to access NTFS from Mandrake 9 and I will be all set. Thanks again!

Jeff