I have recently installed SuSE 9.3 on a machine that I used to dual boot between Win XP and Mandrake 10.1. I deleted the Mandrake 10.1 partitions and let the SuSE installer recreate what was needed. Everything went well, SuSE boots and runs like a champ, and I love this release. This is the best Linux release I have used yet - runs rings around Mandrake 10.1.

HOWEVER, today I finally decided to boot into Win XP (which I keep around because I use Photoshop quite a bit - GIMP is good, but not as good as Photoshop). This is the first time I had tried to boot Win XP since the SuSE installation. I wasn't expecting trouble, as I had been successfully dual booting with Mandrake 10.1, but I *got* trouble.

When I select the Win XP item in the grub boot menu, all I get is this:

filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
chainloader +1

and it just stalls out. I have to cycle the power to get it back.

This is pretty serious! I have checked from SuSE by mounting the Win XP partition (NTFS) and it is just fine - everything seems to be there as it was.

Something must have damaged the partition table, or something...

Is there any previous experience on this? I reviewed the topic in the forum and found a few related posts, but nothing that directly addresses this scenario. Has anyone else had a similar problem? Any known solutions that don't involve re-installing either Win XP or SuSE? Thanks!

Check the file /boot/grub/menu.lst

You should have an entry like ...
title Windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

This means Windows is on your first (C) drive first (0) partition.
If it does not start with this you can make a copy of the MBR with dd to a FLOP.

Start up with the windows cd and let it repair. It will probably overwrite your MBR.

If this works, and you can start up with windows, use the flop to start Suse.
(select in your Bios flop as first medium to start)

Now make again a copy from the MBR (with another flop and mark it win)
Just in case.....

Then you can write the MBR back with DD and now you should be able to start.

Cloud Builder

Thanks. Yes, I do have the grub entry for Windows still there, and it looks just as you describe. Since grub runs, I am assuming that the disk's MBR is OK, and that the boot sector on the Win XP partition has been damaged. I was hoping that this was a perhaps a common problem with SuSE 9.3 and dual boot, and there was a common fix. I guess not, huh? :-)

I am unfamiliar with dd - can you post the form of the command you would use to make a copy of the MBR to floppy? That would be good to know. I was planning to have SuSE make a boot floppy, which is a much more tedious process, and then once I was running SuSE again, reinstall grub. Simply copying and restoring the MBR via dd would be MUCH easier! I would be very interested in seeing how to do that. Thanks again.

Hallo Mac57,

No it is not a common problem. On the contrary, I have installed all versions from 7 and up and never had any problem. The last version 9.3 does a very good job in recognizing all systems that are on the HD ( at this moment I have 5).

Before you start you should have a dos formatted FLOP. Put it in the drive after you have started SUSE.

You have to choose system/terminal from the main task bar. A terminal is opened and then you type exactly in it :
dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1 (followed by enter)

You hear the access to the drive and the writing is confirmed.

After that you can simply close the console(terminal).

Leave the flop in the drive. Restart. Check if your Bios is booting from Flop first.
Restart again and check if the restart is done well.

OK now you can change anything you want, as long as you don't change the partition where Suse is on.
You can always start with the FLOP.

To write the MBR back you open again the console in Suse and type :
dd if=/dev/fdo of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1 (followed by enter)

You see its almost the same command except hda en fdo (zero) are reversed.

Have a lot of fun,

CloudBuilder

Thanks CloudBuilder! This will certainly make things simpler.

By the way, at this point I believe that what has happened is that my partition table has been damaged. After I installed SuSE 9.3 I used QtParted from a Knoppix live CD to add one more partition to the disk (a FAT32 partition as it happens). I am wondering if SuSE's partitioner and QtParted dont "play nice" with each other. I found myself a Win XP boot diskette and tried it out - it complained that it couldn't find file hal.dll. I can see that the file is there - I deduce that the partition is not visible for some reason to systems less capable than SuSE 9.3 - the partition *is* clearly visible from SuSE, and I can see that all files are there.

Any pointers on good tools to rebuild the partition table? After poking around, I am guessing that cfdisk is the best one - I will do a VERY complete backup before doing this though!!!

Try using LILO instead of Grub: > Yast2 > Bootloader Configuration > Change> BootLoader Type>LILO then run from terminal ,as root, /sbin/lilo see if your windows partition shows up

quick and dirty, but works for me!

good luck to you!


thechronixaggression

http://www.shoutcast.com/newwaradio....re=Alternative

I had no problems so far with QTparted and Suse partitioning, I used both, but there is an issue with XP. As you now XP uses NTFS. Linux can only read NTFS, only with special tools or drivers you can write. It is however possible to change partitions, but before you do this, Suse advises strongly that you defragment the XP partition. QTparted is in my opinion the better tool, I used it often and I personally didn't have a problem with half a dozen systems, but I always did it just after I had installed XP or after a defragment. It is very important that you know what you are doing! Nowedays, I always make a guess how much XP should get and I reserve the rest. You can always ad a vfat partition if you need more room and you can read vfat from XP and Linux, so you can exchange data without any problem.

Concerning the missing DLL, it can also be damaged. Try to rename it in something like hal.old and then copy it back to it original name, or better unpack it from the CD (or perhaps it is on the net).

I thought that the XP CD also had a rescue mode, but I don't use it that often....

There may be a chance that your partition has the wrong mark. The partitions have all there own signature so it could be that the signature has changed. I would not try LILO because it does not add anything in solving the problem. I have a kind of utility cd it is called Hiren Boot(or rescue) CD. I found it on the net, it has all kind of partition and test utilities and is very usefull since it can boot itself. With such utilitys you can see if there is something wrong with the partition, but be careful some of the tools are realy dangerous, I always tell - if you don't know what you are doing, don't do it!

Hope this will help you getting the problem solved.

CloudBuilder

OK folks, I am starting to think that "loss of access to XP after a SuSE install" is one of SuSE's dirty little secrets. I spent a lot of time google'ing on the net last night on this topic, and have discovered that it is VERY common indeed. I read numerous accounts just like mine, up to and including SuSE 9.3 (despite SuSE saying that it was fixed after 9.1). Installing SuSE frequently leads to loss of access to Win XP, with the infamous

filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

error from GRUB being the telltale indication that you too have fallen prey to this problem.

I tried out all the tricks I learned in all the posts and all the articles I read and NOTHING worked. Ultimately, like so many folks I had read about, I resorted to re-installing Win XP to get back my access to Windows (if only they would bring out Adobe Photoshop for Linux - then I wouldn't need Windows at all!). Following Cloudbuilder's lead, I used the dd command to save off a copy of the original GRUB MBR prior to the Win XP reinstall, and write it out onto a floppy. Essentially, I created a GRUB boot floppy.

HOURS later, when the dust settled and Win XP was happily booting again, secure in the knowledge that it was the only OS on the box (or at least that is what the newly installed MBR thought! <grin>) I popped the GRUB boot floppy into the box and rebooted. Nirvana! I could boot both Win XP *and* SuSE 9.3 from the GRUB menu.

Now for the real fun. As a last step, I decided to put the original MBR back (the MBR from the GRUB boot floppy). It was happily booting every OS in sight when invoked from the floppy, so I reasoned it would continue to do so if it was tucked back onto the MBR area of my hard drive. Then I wouldn't need a boot floppy any more. Just in case though, I used dd again, this time to save off the newly installed Win XP MBR... just in case...

I am VERY glad I did that! As you will soon see, it saved the day. I used dd to place the MBR from the GRUB boot floppy back onto the hard disk and confidently rebooted. Grub came up as expected, and I selected Win XP from the menu. ACKKKK!!! The dreaded

filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7

error reared its ugly head again! After suitably foul words were uttered, I took my life in my hands, rebooted SuSE using the GRUB boot floppy and used dd to restore the Win XP MBR that I had just saved off back to the MBR area of the hard disk. Holding my breath, and with all fingers and toes crossed, I rebooted. Bingo! No problems. Without the GRUB boot floppy in place, Win XP booted as expected. With the GRUB boot floppy in place, I could select Win XP and it would also boot without problems.

So, lets review: With the SuSE generated GRUB MBR installed on the hard drive, Win XP won't boot, and the "file system type unknown, partition type 0x7" errror shows up. With the SAME MBR on a boot floppy, and with the Win XP MBR in place on the hard drive, Win XP boots just fine.

I can make the dreaded "filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7" error come and go at will now, simply by placing either the Win XP or the SuSE GRUB MBR onto the hard drive. The Windows installation itself is obviously just fine - something else is wrong instead. I am guessing that it is not enough to *just* replace the hard drive MBR when SuSE installs GRUB. There must be some other consistency type data elsewhere on the drive that must be updated as well, that SuSE is failing to update. Alternately, perhaps the later stages of GRUB (from which I am assuming the " filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7" message comes) check for this other consistency data - is this perhaps a GRUB issue?

As a final wrinkle though, prior to SuSE 9.3, I was happily dual booting Mandrake 10.1 on this box. Whatever is wrong, Mandrake wasn't doing it, and it was using GRUB as well. Don'take this statement as a plug for Mandrake - I *love* SuSE 9.3 - I have gone to all this trouble to be able to use *it* alongside Win XP, not Mandrake. In fact I deleted Mandrake and replaced it with SuSE 9.3.

So, my problem is solved, I have a shiny new copy of Win XP on my disk and I can boot either it or SuSE 9.3 AS LONG AS I use a boot floppy. I can't seem to use the GRUB MBR on the hard drive and have it work. Any thoughts on what the root issue is here?

i'm just curious
right now i'm on a win box - but as far as i remember there is a feature in yast - boot configuration, where you can try to reset the boot by selecting the system to suggest new boot-loader..
i've tried that many times - and it comes up with a new boot including the missing win..
you can always delete the double records that will also show up..

btw - mac57 - i fully concur - if adobe would make a package for linux - i would scrab win too..

You are right - there is a section in YaST for this, but at this point, I don't trust SuSE's handling of partition tables and MBRs any more, and so I am not going to try. My setup is fully functional again, aside from the fact that I am stuck with using a boot floppy forever more - a small price to pay for SuSE 9.3 I guess. I will visit this whole area again when SuSE 10.0 or SuSE 10.1 comes out - which ever one I find compelling enough to want to install.

Only one question. How old is your motherboard and is the xp partition bigger then 120GB? There is an issue over installing linux after the first 120GB (I thought it was 120GB).

Perhaps it is usefull to check this out.

Then next 8 days I have no internet access, but after that time I'll check my mail to see if you made any progress.

CloudBuilder

Win XP partition is only 40 GB, and the computer is only 2 years old - 3 GHz P4, 1 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive, plus all the usual toys (CD-RW, DVD-RW, Zip 250, USB2.0, Firewire, etc. etc. etc.). The machine is fairly new and "stacked".

Thanks for all your help CloudBuilder - your tip on use of "dd" saved my bacon. However, at this point, I don't plan on making any more progress. The situation is stable - I can boot all of Win XP, SuSE and the other "experimental" Linux I am playing with on the box (CCux-Linux - a 686 optimized release out of Germany. Fast, but not very well thought through - LOTS of things don't work very well) via a boot floppy. I am done! Time to start working with and enjoying SuSE 9.3 instead of configuring it!! Thanks again!

Photoshop in Linux: http://www.desktoplinux.com/articles/AT7770280571.html