ok..im using suse 10 and windows xp (dual boot), and somehow, my c drive (windows installation partition) and D drive (windows restore partition) were switched around by linux (what happened is i ran repair from the linux install dvd because i had some problems with linux, and it said i had some kind of errors (fstab errors or something like that), so i said repair, and it basically switched my c and d partitions around! so now when i try to run windows, it says it is missing some files, so i think what is happening is linux put my d drive where my c drive was, and my c drive where my d drive was!!, i really need help fast, i have important things to take care of on my computer, and i wanted to know how i could fix this?


thanks,
-Dylan M

Has the output of fdisk -l changed for the drive since the repair? If you were deleting/creating partitions with fdisk during the repair, fdisk has an option on the advanced menu to fix the ordering of partitions.

i'm very inexperienced with linux, what do you mean by fdisk -l? i didnt create or delete any partitions when repairing, all i know is on the partitions for my drive (the sectors where each partition starts and ends), my recovery drive starts at 0 and ends around 430 now, and my C drive starts at 431, and i'm pretty sure the C drive should start at 0 and the other drives start after that, considering that's where my installation for windows is. it's trying to read off of my d drive, instead of my C drive, because it is saying it is missing some files or something, and my recovery options arent there. here, i uploaded a screenshot of my partitions.

http://img365.imageshack.us/img365/9...shot7cu.th.png

Can you post a larger screenshot than that one? It's 152x130 pixels and I can't blow it up properly to see it here...

this should work, it looks right.
http://img55.imageshack.us/img55/2838/screenshot8qd.png

sorry to double post, but someone please help me, i really need to quickly resolve this problem, i have things to attend to in windows that i really cant wait for, i would greatly appreciate it!

Hi there,

I really couldn't see how Linux could physically "swap" your partitions.

I think what you are seeing in the screenshot there is simply where Linux is mounting your C and D partitions - The important thing to note here is that hda1 still starts at 0 and ends at 430, and hda2 starts again from 431. Under a windows based system (typically) hda1 would be C, hda2 would be D etc..

Can you give us some more information - what bootloader are you using? What is the exact error message you get when trying to boot windows?

To be more specific, we need to see the contents of /boot/grub/menu.lst and /etc/fstab.

Menu.lst is the bootloader config file, which tells the bootloader where to look for the rest of the Linux bootloader, or where to pass the boot process to for Windows bootloader.

Fstab is the File System Table, a list of mountable partitions and devices.

It usually boils down to a simple edit of menu.lst to point to the partitions in fstab (and their mount poits) to correct such a situation.

Usually, but not always. Give us more information. Perhaps we can help.

well, basically what it did is take my c drive (normally hda1) and my d drive (normally hda2) and switch them around, and now my c drive is hda2, so when windows tries to boot (whether i use grub or not), it tries to read from my D drive, which contains no system files. when i boot it says it is missing the file "<windows root>/system/hal.dll" and to install a copy of this wile. in order to fix this, i believe i need to switch the order of these partitions. i dont know how linux decided to do this in the first place, but it was somewhere in the automatic repair sequence of the installer, when i originally had some minor issues with the linux installation. any ideas on how to switch these partitions back in place? sorry, i was typing this at the time you posted your reply. ill see if i can get a log of the files in here in a few minutes.

These recovery partitions are usually marked "hidden" so they won't mess with Windows booting. Just fire up your favorite fdisk from some LiveCD and set the hda1 partition type "hidden". And set bootable flag for hda2. This hal.dll is a separate Windows-specific problem, do a Google search for solution.

ok here is my menu.lst
"
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Sat Jun 10 13:44:24 CDT 2006

color white/blue black/light-gray
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,5)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title SUSE LINUX 10.0
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=0x314 selinux=0 resume=/dev/hda5 splash=silent showopts
initrd /boot/initrd

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: windows###
title Windows
chainloader (hd0,1)+1

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: failsafe###
title Failsafe -- SUSE LINUX 10.0
root (hd0,5)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 vga=normal showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume selinux=0 nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 edd=off 3
initrd /boot/initrd

"


----and here is my fstab file:
"
/dev/hda6 / reiserfs acl,user_xattr 1 1
/dev/hda5 swap swap defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs noauto 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
/dev/cdrecorder /media/cdrecorder subfs noauto,fs=cdfss,ro,procuid,nosuid,nodev,exec,iocharset=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda7 /windows/W ntfs ro,users,gid=users,umask=0002,nls=utf8 0 0
/dev/hda2 /windows/C ntfs users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0
/dev/hda3 /windows/F ntfs users,gid=users,umask=0002,utf8=true 0 0

"

i do have a suse livecd but what is an fdisk?

OK, now we're getting somewhere...

Try editing your grub.conf (menu.lst) file.

Add this to the end of the file:

Reboot and you will have another option to choose from, "Windows XP" select it and see if it boots Windows correctly.

If it works, you can replace your "windows" boot option with this one.

couldn't i just use grub to hide my hda1, and have it boot windows from the hda2 partition? how would i edit this into my grub config?


PS i did what you said, and it boots what is on my hda1 (d drive, recovery partition)

As far as I know, you can't "hide" a partition within grub - and it wouldn't make sense to do so anyhow as grub will only use the partition you specify. After grub does it's thing, its all up to what is on your MBR that will determine what happens next.

What exactly is on your recovery partition? What did it actually boot?

I don't think this is the case, but if you truly believe Linux has physically swapped your partitions, you could change the line rootnoverify (hd0,0) to rootnoverify (hd0,1) - this will make grub try to boot from the second partition on the first drive on your system.