I'm having some trouble with my computer. I used to run Win Xp. I then installed Mandrake 9.2 to test it. It was installed correctly. I played around a while and then booted in Xp. Out of curiosity I ran Partition Magic to see the new partitions for linux.

Next day I went to turn on the computer and it didn't boot. It starts to the point that i can select an OS but then it does nothing.

I tried parted on the disks and the partition tables are there. but I can seem to access them.

Any ideas.

THKS

So what exactly did you do while using
partition magic, and which version do
you have?


Cheers,
Tink

Do you get a boot prompt?
Look at boot time for either a LILO or GRUB printout...
And what do you mean by does nothing? What's the last thing you get on screen?

the last thing i get on the linux screen is kernel panic...

And in windows it says it cant find a file so i have to reinstall.

That's all because it's not seeing the data. I booted with a floppy in DOS and it just detects de pri and ext partition, but with no data on it. Also all the logicals that conform the extended are not there. It is as if the logical didn't exist.

If it is a ntfs partition, or fat32 with old dos disk, it can't read it.
Try accessing it from the mdk boot cd (don't know if it has a rescue cd, too).
As for the kernel panic, are you sure you didn't mess with any of the partitions? However since it was a freshly installed distro, maybe the easiest thing would be reinstalling.

I recommend Ranish Partition Manager(www.ranish.com) as a good hands-on (free) tool for partition work . Ideally it is to be used before problems occur to save the partition table.
The problem with 'automatic' tools is they sometimes do things we didn't ask for : Trust me ! Push the button ! - and they trashes the drive and they can't even undo the changes..
For that matter MS fdisk is to be avoided at all cost : it has no qualms of squashing other OSes partitions !
Often that's just the partition table that's damaged. All the data on the partitions is still there in perfect condition. That's why it is interesting to keep the partition size/boundaries handy. With them, Ranish's tool can put things right again in no time at all. Perhaps the logical partitions are still there that's just the extended that was moved around. Have a go with Ranish Partition Manager.
Before launching rescue disks , that can destroy the system even more, i would try to see what is still there. Try to boot with the linux boot floppy (if you got one) with the boot from floppy option (this is when the kernel image is on the floppy). If this is not possible you can use a single floppy linux distro.
The idea is to boot not from the drive but from somewhere else (you could even jack the drive as 2nd drive into another pc..) and then to have a look at the drive from the outside : using linux fdisk, mounting partitions to see what's on them..
Avoiding to write any data on it before being absolutely sure.
Sometimes a bit of thinking can solve things with no sweat at all , sometimes not..
But you also have to balance the efforts required with the value of the data to recover..

In giving closure to the subject, what I did was I downloaded an utility disk called PAUD (very good). It's based on the program Parted and i decided to erase all the partitions Mandrake made for it's instalation. The remedy was right there. With Parted I could even rebuild the ntfs partitions on the disk. So After doing that XP booted up.
I think the problem was that linux created 6 partitions on the extended partition. I already had 2, for a total of 8 partitions. I believe, win went nuts, for if my memory doesn't fail me I believe the maximum partitions on an extended partition, at least in windows, is 4.
So back to the drawing board and to start again installing mandrake.

Thxs for the help.

Uncas.

I'm happy the hear the good news.
But sorry to contradict you : i have currently 15 partitions in all with 11 on my extended partition..The only advice is to put anything [win]dos before anything else on the extended partition.

I've installed MDK again, let's see what happens...

thks.