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pc with linux and xp send a L 99 99 error and can not start

Hi friends i have a pc with linux and xp yesterday just because when i turn on it, shows L 99 99 99.... and thats all!!!

before this i could chooses beteewn linux and xp but now this screen does not appears if this is not enough my wife wants to kill me becouse her information please help!!

Sounds like LILO isn't happy anymore; any number of reasons why that might have changed if it worked before. Something touched the MBR.

However, in the interest of preventing spousal homicide, probably booting with a Knoppix CD or equivalent will let you reinstall LILO or restore the original XP MBR or at least temporarily get access to the Windows partition. Just don't do anything hasty, and if you haven't backed up, that should be your first act upon accessing the XP partition.

Try man lilo for documentation (and then there''s google too.) If you don't have a boot CD, then... get one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by franpazmx (Post 3143557)

from http://joshhighland.com/blog/2006/02...9-99-99-99-99/

When the computer was booting, after the POST, I would get "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" on the screen, and the computer would halt. What an awesome and useful error message!

I found a temporary way around the problem. During boot, I could go into the BIOS, and hit "save and exit", and I was good for one boot. But that's not a solution, that's a hack!

After looking around online, I found that the problem comes from a damaged Master Boot Record (MBR). It can be fixed by booting up from a Windows 2000, or Windows XP CD, going into the Repair Console, and running the "FIXMBR" command.

Yep, and you will 'loose' your linux when you use the windows approach. To get Linux back you need to do the next step anyway, so why not do that straight away?

The Linux approach (a little more detail than post 2):
boot from a linux CD
mount the HD (if not already done) and chroot to the root partition
run the lilo command (you might have to give the full path) to restore the MBR

And your wife has no reason to kill you, she can always restore the backups that she has made in case you have to do a re-install :D