A japanese version ofWin Me was originally on my laptop. I installed mandrake 9.0 and all was going well. WinMe fell over and had a total nervous breakdown. As I have a new MiniDV Camcorder and mdk wasnt recognising my ieee1394 ports I decided to update my windows partition to XP Pro and to use Movie Maker.

Now when I boot up there's no Lilo. It just goes straight to XP.

Mdk 10 discs are completely ignored on boot (i tried using disk 2 first).

My BIOS is still in Japanese so if thats where the problem lies then im screwed.

Before installing XP, all my data and docs were rescued from within mdk stored on the linux partition and because linux doesn't recognise the networkcard, smartmedia card adapter and wouldn't burn cd's I haven't been able to backup the data.

I don't have a boot floppy or the original 9.0 disks as i'm an untidy fecker and they're buried somewhere.... maybe.

Am I screwed? Is all my data gone for good? WIll i have to format and re-install? Am I really pi$$ed off with XP. Well i can answer the last one myself. More than a little.

Your problem is that XP overwrites the MasterBootRecord (MBR) of your harddisk with its own bootloader.
That's why your lilo bootloader has been overwritten and therefor doesn't work anymore.
What you have to do now is to restore the lilo bootloader.
You won't get around using a boot cd or boot floppy, from where you can do that. So start to search for it... :-)

Hi,

Not much luck until now : ) . As Charalambos said xp overwrite the first sector (master boot record (mbr). You've got to find an image of a boot floppy with lilo (or grub) to be able to write lilo on mbr and access you linux partition again. I *strongly* suggest that once done you make a floppy to acccess that partition just in case it hapens again.

You could also fix this with a Knoppix cd or any linux-rescue tool if you've got one.

Marc A

i am not sue about it
but u can try thsi oujt
boot with a knoppix cd or any LINUX cd

#chroot /mnt/dev/hdax

x=no.of ur root partiton of ur distro

then
#lilo

haven't used it but read it on this forum only
give it a try

regards
gaurav

If you have a dial-up internet connection, you can use the Mandrake install CDs and boot them in rescue mode. It will be something like "linux rescue" at the prompt. Though you will have to go into the BIOS and make sure the CD-ROM is first. If you can not read the BIOS, you will have to discharge the CMOS hoping it defaults to english or your native langauge. To do this turn off your computer and unplug the computer from the AC outlet or take out the notebook battery. Then move the CMOS jumper or remove the coin battery. If you do this while the computer is still connected to the AC outlet or the notebook battery is still in the notebook and it is powered off, the standby voltage in the system will fry the motherboard or create more problems when discharging the CMOS or removing the battery.

Mandrake comes with img files on the CD and a DOS utility called rawrite to make a boot disk. Use that to boot into Linux.

You can always take the hard drive out carefully and attach it to a desktop computer. You can then put either LILO or GRUB. You will have to buy a 44 pin to 40 pin converter.

If the BIOS is removable or can be reprogrammed, you can change it so you can get a readable BIOS chip. Call the notebook manufacture about this.

i think u should get onworking with lilo if u expierencing problems with lilo as describes earlier


regards
gaurav