WinXP won't boot after installing MDK 10.0

Just wanted to post that I've had no problems with Mandrake 10.0 and Windows XP.

I use to use RedHat a bit but uninstalled it. Was getting very frustrated with Windows (runs like garbage unless you reformat it every 6 months or so, at least for me) so decided I'd try out Linux again. =) Mandrake looked like one of the more popular and easier to use distributions.

Anyways, I have two hard drives. The main one with windows on it then the second one with two partitions, one that I use for storage and the other I had open for Linux. I installed linux on that partition. Everything installed normally, didn't do anything special. First time I booted the computer, brought me to the Lilo boot loader thing and it allows me to boot up however I want. First thing I did was try WIndows XP and it worked fine.

Just for the record I'm running Windows XP Pro with SP2.

Hope everyone else can find a solution to their problem. Good luck!

Glad everything went okay for you!

The problem with installing new OSes, is that you are making a major change to how your system operates. Its not like just adding a new version of a piece of software - you really could screw up your machine.

In the case of LBA (sorry spelt it wrong), I think it stands for 'Logical Block Address/Allocation' my ICT manager at work wasn't sure. Essentially XP and MDK were having a bit of a tiff. MDK was getting first dibs at the way files are allowcated on the drive, and XP was having a paddy because it couldn't address what was on there! Or at least I think that is what the problem was.

Very much enjoying playing with MDK, just wish it would talk to my Router/ADSL Modem/Switch as I can't get it to log on automatically like windows does.

It would be nice if we can pick our solution...

The one I prefer having read some of the foregoing is to change BIOS from Auto to LBA.

Wish it were that easy, and I weren't quite so green. None of my bios settings fitted these descriptions? what am i missing?

I found boot 1, boot 2 etc, but nothing with an 'auto' option, nor one that looked anything likely.

Lets go through the sequence...

Switch on
press del to edit bios settings
select second option, 'advance bios settings'
now what? - none of these settings, nor cmos nor anything else seems to match the suggestions.

Yes, I must be missing the point? help please

What menus your bios gives you will differ from PC to PC.

To be honest I can't remember what I went into, but I will have a look at home (at work now).

It was connected with the drives and it was quite a few menus in. When you click on the 'AUTO' setting another DOS window pops up with lots of choices about your Primary Hard Drive.

I will try to put another post up at home.

Thanks Webchem. really appreciated.

The auto option didn't appear anywhere i looked.
PC is equally at home, without net connection yet.

id look at the paths to each OS in lilo to make sure they are correct before i did anything else

Okay, had a look in my bios settings to remind me where the 'AUTO' setting is.

I go into Advanced CMOS

Then there is a screen with some horrifying information including the date and time on the top.

2 lines down is the Primary Local Drive (or words to that effect). The cursor moves down into and highlights the numbers that are there.

On the right hand side I get a whole load in information about what to do next.

Hitting enter when these numbers are highlighted gets me into the drive settings.

One of them should say AUTO - change this to LBA, and bingo all your booting (well most of them) worries are gone - Hurray!

The thing is with this problem, is that it doesn't matter what you do to your lilo or grub or other boot settings, by installing Linux on some machines, the way the booting works has been fundamentally changed. Windows hates this, as Linux gets to set how the Hard Drive partitions are accessed (I think) so it has a paddy.

It also doesn't matter how many times (and foolishly it seems) you reformat your hard drive or play about with fdisk /mdr. XP and most other Windows installations are VERY particular about how they boot.

This is just one of thos idiosyncracies that MDK (and maybe other Linux distros) shoudl warn us n00bs about!

Cheers
Jools

Well Webchem Jools, what can I say?

A very big thank you - that's excellent

Isn't it sad getting all this excited over getting Windows to work?!

Give my regards to Town Quay

Cheers

Ian

WOW!

glad to see I wasnt the only one with this problem when I installed Mandrake 10 on my home machine. It completed ruined my XP HDD and I had 2 reinstall



Anyway's . . . I have just installed mandrake10 on my work machine and required it to dual boot with XP, heres the problem:

In the begining I had XP installed on a master(single) 40gig drive
I disconnected the drive
I installed a 30gig drive as the new master
I installed mandrake10 on it
I then went into the boot loader options and added windows to boot from /dev/hdb1
I then installed the 40gig back in but made it the slave
On bootup mandrake will run fine but i get the blinking cursor of death when i select windows


The funny thing is: When i remove the linux HDD and make the winXP one master again windows runs fine!!!

Any ideas?

1racerx
Read my earlier post. If I'm right, then this problem isn't limited to mandrake, it's a 2.6 kernel problem, because it did the same to me when I installed debian. There's no need to reinstall windows. Here's the link:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?postid=1092633#post1092633
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...33#post1092633

Originally posted by 1racerx The funny thing is: When i remove the linux HDD and make the winXP one master again windows runs fine!!! Any ideas?

Yes, try looking at BIOS
- your symptons sound identical to mine, it worked for me - easier than aspirin! (when you know how?!)

For instructions, lookat these comments:
Post #163 - Webchem
Post #172 - Webchem

i think that is what i did on my home machine to fix it . . .

but my work machine has a crappy AMI BIOS and doesnt give you that option like a standard award BIOS would.

It has LBA ON or OFF

Its forced on when the harddrive is set to auto, but when i change it to user and punch in the specs (cyl,heads,sectors) I can turn LBA off or on but it makes nooooo differeance!

OK, that's me out of my depth! Good luck
Anybody else?

1racerx I'm not the expert but I've always heard Windows pretty much needs to be the first drive first partition. I would try making your Win HD the master and your mandy drive the slave. That would explain why your win drive works without the mandy one.

Originally posted by 1racerx i think that is what i did on my home machine to fix it . . . but my work machine has a crappy AMI BIOS and doesnt give you that option like a standard award BIOS would. It has LBA ON or OFF Its forced on when the harddrive is set to auto, but when i change it to user and punch in the specs (cyl,heads,sectors) I can turn LBA off or on but it makes nooooo differeance!

This is a tough one I think, have you tried flash upgrading your bios - very scary, but might sort it out.

Are you saying that windoze doesn't boot with either LBA on or off?

Essentially you need to change how the system boots and addresses the hard drive. I think as Lilo or Grub are controlling the boot, they get to decide how the hard drive is addressed. Windows doesn't know what is happening and needs to be told in no uncertain terms how the bootloader is addressing the drive. If it doesn't know - then it shrivels up and hides in a corner.

At least thats how I think our ICT Guru at work described it (and he's a Server 2003 man - damn fine too).

Try the flash upgrade - should be on the vendors website - you will need the serial no. of the PC to make sure you have the correct version.

In my bios I found two settings one was a very scary manual one (like you have above) and I had to wade through a couple of menu systems to get to the one I wanted.

Good luck!

Jools