Pardon me if this is not an appropriate forum to ask this question.

I've a dual boot machine running XP Pro and openSuse 10.3 using GRUB as booloading. Recently I developed some problems in windows after a virus attack and windows is not working. When I try to start in safe mode 'safe mode' appears at the four corners of the screen and the screen remains black.

Linux is working fine.

I've decided to repair windows. I've changed the BIOS option to boot from my DVD drive first. But even though from the GRUB option when I choose windows it's not booting at all. The XP CD is fine and working perfectly in another computer.

Is it a GRUB problem or anything else? Do I need to modify the conf file to boot from the CD?

Please help

Thanks in advance

Try hitting F12 at the POST screen, that is the logo screen at boot time. By the sounds of it, your machine is not booting from the CD/DVD drive. If it were, it would not get to the GRUB menu.

BTW, please remember that if you reinstall or repair windows, it will overwrite your GRUB configuration, so be careful! At worst, it could completely remove your linux install. Backup Backup!!

Maybe the CD actually is booting, but not doing anything. From a Linux terminal run this and post the results

su -c 'fdisk -l' is giving:


Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x77777777

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 2486 19968763+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 2487 7296 38636325 f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 2487 4972 19968763+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda6 4973 5037 522081 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda7 5038 7296 18145386 83 Linux



The content is showing as BLANK CD-R. Though other data CDs are showing all their contents

Dear irishbitte,

while pressing the F12 boot option appears and I choose to boot from my DVD drive but followed that it goes to GRUB

hmm, for some reason your machine not letting you boot from CD. Is it locked by an administrator or something?

The boot options are in order of:

1. IDE ODD
2. IDE HDD
3. PCI LAN

and I'm booting from IDE ODD

I'm the administrator of the machine. If so, what you've told, how to change the administrator setting?

I guess I've found the problem. The combo drive has problem in reading the XP CD. Though the same drive can read some data CD and DVDs, I've tried two copies of the XP CD written in different CDs but none of them can be read by the linux. While both of the XP CDs work fine in another windows machine.

Can anybody suggest any remedy?

Not a Linux problem but a hardware/BIOS problem. If it can't be read at boot time, you'll have to find another driver and/or controller; Linux doesn't get involved until much later.

Many many thanks to all who have replied. The problem is solved. The Laser lens in the combo drive was possibly dirty. I just cleaned it lightly with a lint-free cloth ( normally used for cleaning camera lens) and everything went fine.

I had virus infection with spyware guard 2008 and google redirect virus
(possibly when I went to the site avaxhome.ru) and they are rectified now