my computer is toast, linux partition wont boot because of program i downloaded for windows called ext2 companion.when i tried to acces my linux partition from windows my computer crashed (displayed dos error screen [to fast to read] then it rebooted) so i tried pasting a file just a .txt file at first and it seemed to work but then i tried a bigger file 48mb (wine) then it opened copy dialog box and half way through it displayed the same dos error screen and rebooted. upon reboot my linux partition wont boot at all not even with cd support or boot disk.
help anyone.
hda1=windows xp partition
hda2=slackware linux partition (lilo installed)
hda3=swap nuff said
hda4=i use when i want to copy files from windows to linux or vice versa this partition is visible from both windows and linux so its perfect

hda1 Primary NTFS 11104.13
hda2 Boot Primary Linux ext2 9409.73
hda3 Primary Linux swap 16.46
hda4 Primary W95 FAT16 16.46
when hda2 is set as active or bootable partition and the computer is starting up it says "error loading operating system"

distro slackware9.1
im a newbie 14 year old please help

This sounds pretty bad: this program might have completely hosed your partition. There's some directions for using the CollegeLinux CD to fix an unbootable installation: http://collegelinux.org/docs.php?jed...&id=1073020032 . This only applies if it's just lilo that's gotten messed up, like I said, I suspect it could actually be corrupted. Before you run the mount command run 'fsck /dev/hda2' to check the filesystem for errors, it might be able to fix it if some have occurred. Good Luck.

This does sound pretty bad. This is why one is advised to make a special FAT32 partition to share files between the 2 OSes (which I see you have, so why did you need this program at all, much less to transfer files?).

And naturally, one is generally encouraged to only attempt the transfer of reasonably appropriate files (you tried to copy the Wine binary, of all things, to your Windows partition? or just the zip? No, even that isn't 48MB. Unless you tried to copy the entire /usr/lib/wine directory, which contains symlinks, which Windows cannot read, even if it could read the files and understand the file formats, which it also can't... oh dear).

What the heck were you trying to accomplish?

In any case, when I had the occasional necessity to check my Linux partition layout, or check the contents of a configuration file so I could post the contents to a forum, I used Explore2fs, which never gave me any problems for the few files I might have exported (very few), and certainly allowed me to open files in /etc in notepad, which was usually all I needed it for, in order to view or copy and paste the relevant text. All my major file accessiblity needs were met by the FAT32 partition which was readable and writeable under both Windows and Linux, so I saved downloaded files and the like there, for that very reason.

What I would suggest is similar to misterfibble's idea, but I'd say just get a real LiveCD distro like Knoppix, Mandrake Move, MEPIS, Morphix, PCLinuxOS, or Slax, (SLAX will obviously be most familiar to you) and boot from that. Do try fsck-ing the bad partition, but if that doesn't help, you should hopefully be able to mount the partition and see if there's anything you need to try to back up from it to the shared partition before you reformat and reinstall Slackware.

What were you thinking? And I can't even find this program in a Google search.... where did you get it from?

what i was trying to accomplish is copy wine from windows to linux i just downloaded wine from the internet and needed it on linux. my fat32 partition (hda4) was to small to just put it in that partition and open it in linux the reason why i didnt download wine while in linux is because im still trying to configure my modem

I tryed fscking the partition and it semmed to work but it still said error loading o/s then i used the slackware cd to boot from and mounted my linux partition and got it working but some things are screwed up all my desktop pictures are gone (not to worried about that though) but my whole task bar is gone (the one with the start bar like menus from kde 3.1.4) and i desparately need that in order to fix all the problems (because browsing the / directory is complicated; giving folders names like, bin lib opt usr and sh was a bad idea for browsing your hd)

and i need lilo back i dont want to have to use the cd to start linux ever time

SUPREME, i'm having trouble configuring my modem also. I was considering using WINE too because i have an Intel 537 modem with no drivers that work on Linux, and my isp dick want work on linux...i wanted to know if WINE worked for you?

wine is screwed up too i just formated and started over with linux and wine wont install either

Error messages?

there arent any the help file refers to a folder that dosent exist
it says open the tools folder and run install but there arent any tools folder

This would seem to bring us rather neatly to the following questions:

1) what is the filename of the Wine file you are trying to install?

2) how are you trying to install it?

It sounds like you're following instructions for installing a source tarball when you have a binary installer file. If you've downloaded the SlackPack (the *.tgz file listed as being compiled for Slackware), all you need to do is install it with pkgtool. If you've downloaded the source tarball, there would be a ./tools folder in the extracted tarball, containing the wineinstall script.