win xp gone after mandrake 10.0
 

HI,
first i had windows xp,after the mandrake 10.0 installation LILO works well.
but when boot to wndows xp there is a error

ntldr file missing
press any key to reboot

enter through the linux and i see that windows having ntldr file .....

now to boot through xp ....please help me i have so many data...

Hi,
Possibly lilo overwrote the MBR..There are many ways to get your MBR back..The easiest would be to use a win98 start up disk and boot into it..When at the A:\ prompt type"fdisk/mbr" no quotes..This will restore your windows MBR..However you will not be able
to boot back into Linux ...So I would first find a way to boot linux ie: create Linux boot floppies..Other ways are to repair lilo or use grub to dual boot..Lastly you can get third party software such as Vcom's system commander to multiboot..I am sure there are even easier ways so lets see if others can suggest something better...
Goodluck,
jolphil

The problem here is most likely Mdk10.0. If you did a normal installation, letting the installer create the partitions for you, it screwed up your partition table. :(

There was a bug with the aerly versions of the 2.6 kernel and the ntfsresize tool that most distros use. Because you installed Linux using it, it works fine there, but Windows expects to see a different scheme in the partition table, and aborts on startup.

The *fix* is to make a boot floppy to boot your Mandrake from temporarily, and then get out your Windows CD and boot from it and run "fixmbr" (or "fdisk /mbr"). Then boot back into Linux using your floppy, and rerun lilo. If that *doesn't* fix it, report back here and we can dig deeper.

Edit: this bug was fixed in Mandrake 10.1, and other contemperaneous distros.

sir now i can see the LILO it loads the linux (mandrake 10.0)
when i chose windows the out put is
a disk read error has occured
press CTRL+ALT+DEL tp reboot

using the win98 boot floppy
A:>fdisk /mbr
A:>

i done when i reboot it the same error has come.
when i give
A:>fixmbr
bad command or file
A:>fixboot
bad command or file

ntldr is the file that starts loading Windows XP. You're not going to be able to use a Win98 boot floppy to restore ntldr because it uses different technology than Windows XP to boot up (Io.sys instead of ntldr). I'm guessing LILO overwrote it, but all is not lost! You can set up LILO to dual boot or else if you install LILO to the Mandrake partition you can use another boot loader such as GAG to dual boot. I personally use GAG and like it a lot, but there are other programs too like the ones mentioned before. GAG is free software, however, and it just so happens to be free as in price as well :) It installs to the MBR and it's really simple to add/remove operating systems from the boot list. You might want to check it out!

edit:
If you do want to restore the XP loader (ntldr) and overwrite LILO (rendering Mandrake unbootable from hard drive means), then you can use your XP install cd in recovery mode. Then you can run your fixboot and fixmbr.

So Mr Bruse, Suguname or Navaladi do you have any more aliases?

Could you please drop all but one or at least stick to using one per thread (and don't post the same questions
from multiple users as you did here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=294298
and here http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...hreadid=294255).

- Peder

The problem wasn't ntfsresize but Parted. Windows boot problem occurs if one edited the partition table by Parted/libparted version less than 1.6.12 based partitioning tool. This is especially true if a Linux 2.6 kernel was used. The Linux 2.6 kernels report different disk geometries as previously for the same disk an incompatible way therefore fooling softwares like Parted. Unluckily many partitioning tools weren't adjusted accordingly thus in some cases they might render Windows unbootable and even your data inaccessible by saving an incorrect partition table. Known major distributions having this problem are but not limited to Mandrake 10, SUSE 9.1, Fedora 2.

But it's right that Mandrake fixed this filesystem independent, partitioning problem in DiskDrake. The solution is here:
https://qa.mandrakesoft.com/show_bug.cgi?id=7959