Strange Dual boot Windows/Linux Problem
 

Hey all
I'm running Mandrake 10 in dual boot with Windows Xp. Everything was absolutely fine until yesterday when my PSU decided to die suddenly, anyway, i installed a new one and since that when i select Windows in LILO it won't boot and all i get is a flashing "_" on a black screen. I have Partition Magic 8.0 installed so i used my recovery disks to look at the partition. It said there was 2 problems and asked me if i wanted to fix them so naturally i said yes. Then i rebooted and it did the same thing, so back into partition magic i went. This time all it gave me was that the partition is bad and my only option was to format, which is a big no because there's too much stuff on there that i need to keep and far too much to backup to cd. I know that the partition being bad is not entirely the case as i can access everything just fine on my windows partition from mandrake. I remember there being a command in DOS to reset the MBR, i'm thinking of giving this a try but i don't remember the command, and then after that providing it works i'll have to re-install LILO which i also can't remember how to do. I also need to know how to make a linux boot disk. If anyone could give me any idea's at all on this it would be much appreciated.

no problem...boot with your WinXP cd...when it asks you if you want to install windows or rescue an installed version hit r for rescue...in this console type fixmbr and it will ask you "are you sure?" just hit y and enter and your master boot record will be rewritten windows style and your drive will NOT be formatted.
To get back lilo just boot with Mandrake 10 disc 1 type rescue at the prompt. A window will pop up with restore bootloader as a choice, choose it and lilo is back just like it was. I've had to do this several times myself so I know it's easy and it works.

have fun

There is an app on my system called 'install-mbr', which may do what you want. The standard MSDOS MBR is apparently non-free. If you have your original MBR I believe you can whack it back on the disk with

dd if=my-old-mbr of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

Or if you can boot into DOS, then fdisk.exe /mbr.

As a rescue disk maybe you can use your original installation CD?

Please don't take this as any sort of expert advice! This is vague recollection + 2 mins on Google. Before you do anything drastic, consider how much your data is worth, and see if you can't beg, borrow or even buy a second HD to copy your files onto.

Edit: Uh-oh, upstaged while writing my post. Looks like better advice too :)

Thanx!
 

Thanx a lot guys, the install disc method worked a treat, much appreciated!