I have Windows 98SE installed on hda1 and Mepis on other partitions of my hard drive. I say Windows is installed, but I receive the message:

Invalid system disc
Replace the disc, and then press any key

when I choose to boot Windows. I can put in a Windows Boot disk and boot, but I still can't run Windows after the computer boots. Therefore I assume Windows is the problem. This happened after I manipulated some files, some on hda1. I would like to avoid a reinstallation of Windows, if possible.

When I installed Mepis I installed grub in the root directory of my Mepis installation.

How do I get the computer to ignore grub and just boot Windows, i.e., get the computer to run as if only Windows were installed? I want be able, though to return to booting my Mepis, because, right now, that is the only thing that works!!


James Oliver

Using a Windows 98 rescue disk and entering "fdisk /mbr" will restore the mbr on the active drive, however, you probably want to get grub or lilo working so that you can boot either.

The error message you are getting indicates that there is no boot loader installed on the active drive. One thing that can cause this is if the wrong drive is being used to boot up with. After repartitioning a drive, it can sometimes happen that the wrong hard disk is selected for booting in the bios setup.

If the windows installation is on a separate drive, you might try restoring the windows MBR on that drive. I bet that after doing so, the mephis boot menu will boot up windows successfully without changing grub, but checking your /boot/grub/menu.lst file would be a good idea anyway.

Thanks for your quick reply, jschiwal.

I have more questions, though.

"Using a Windows 98 rescue disk and entering "fdisk /mbr" will restore the mbr on the active drive."

Does this restore the partition information? Where does 'fdisk /mbr' get its information?


"The error message you are getting indicates that there is no boot loader installed on the active drive."

Where is the boot loader stored? Which partition - root or hda1?

James Oliver

No, using "fdisk /mbr" installs a generic boot loader. The partition table is just above that, so this doesn't wipe out the partition information. ( If I remember correctly, the first 240 bytes are for the boot-strap loader. The partition information is contained somewhere above that but below 256 bytes) If you were using a XP instead, there is a program called "fixmbr" that you would use instead. It is possible that there is a backup file of the original mbr information saved in the /boot partition of the Mephis installation. I don't know what the original mbr information contained before you installed Mephis, so I don't know if this contains the original Windows 98 boot loader.

The boot loader is stored in the beginning at work. ) After installing a new hard drive, you might see this message because the Hard Drive boot order was changed by bios. Perhaps the loader is on /hda and would work, but /hdb is being used instead by bios. Checking your bios setting would be the first thing to try, and the easiest to fix.

Hi jschiwal,

Quote:
No, using "fdisk /mbr" installs a generic boot loader. The partition table is just above that, so this doesn't wipe out the partition information.

Thanks for the information. I'm a lot more confident with using the command. I would like to know, though, exactly what is in the 'MBR' file and where it is stored. I'll 'google' MBR.

I've restored my autoexec.bat and config.sys file and I'm almost back to where I was before I messed things up.

My machine boots to the 'C:' prompt when I select the 'Windows 98' option in grub, and I have to use the command 'win' to get into Windows from the prompt. (At least I can get to Windows!!) Mepis works, as usual.

I know this is a Mepis forum, but if you have any ideas about how to bypass the C: prompt, please comment.

James Oliver

Make sure your /boot/grub/menu.lst under the Windows section contains
chainloader +1
and looks like that
About MBR, see Wikipedia