yesterday while in windows(2000) which im duel booting with rh8 (until i get rh working correctly) i was playing around with partition magic8.. after installing it, i was given a message that there was free space between partitions that could be divided up and returned to the active partitions for more space... i thought 'cool' and ran the program... well the computer robooted and ran under win2k before actually reachign windows... well partition magic is unable to touch linux file system information so it was halted once it reached my linux partitions... the task completed early, only assigning some extra previously unassigned space to my win2k partition... Now after rebooting im immediatly taken to 'grub' which looks to be a pre-linux command type thing... did i wipe out my mbr? does anybody know how i can get my operating systems back? this grub thing comes up before the floppy drive reads so i was unable to use a boot disk... help!! tia -james

Sounds like you did wipe out the MBR. You could use the RH disk 1 to boot your system. type "linux rescue" once the CD boots and then re-install your MBR. basically, you will want to chroot to the linux installation, then run "grub-install /dev/hda" to re-install your MBR. Exit the chroot session, then reboot your system and you should be good.

HTH

In what way were you dual-booting? Were you booting Linux from a floppy, or were you using the W2K ntldr/boot.ini method?

Grub is a boot manager, and a very good one fully capable of booting Linux and Windoze OSes. You would so very well to use it for a good dual-booting environment.

And BTW it's "dual", not "duel" !!

He might have been talking about staging a show-down between Windows 2000 and Linux at ten paces.

You never know.

Bert

oh my gosh.. im so behind in my work (now using public computer)

Ok.. im still down.. i booted from cd but am unable to simply use the linux repair command since i have to use the linux nousb in order to make it through without freezing.. so from the cd i went to " repair (f5)" and once in there i run linux nousb.. the system then loads and brings me to the linux install menu.. at that menu with the type of installations available ie: personal, workstation server custom.... i chose the very last option which i think was restore or upgrade existing system.. in there i chose to create a new boot manager and chose lilo to be installed on the mbr.. in order for this change to be made i MUST select atleast one item from the system tab to be installed.. i chose smp (for multi cpus... i have two anyway....) so it installs and restarts.. but still brings me to the grub screen.... what am i doing wrong? do i need to use the linux rescue command? tia! -james

Yes, at the point where you are pressing "F5", type "linux rescue nousb" instead of pressing F5. Somebody help me if you can't use the two options together on the same line.

You should get a command line, not a install menu if this works correctly.

OK. No disrespect to LILO users but use GRUB. It's far more flexible and boots quickly from floppies too.

Do you have a boot floppy? Or not? Does your BIOS allow you to boot from media other than the HDD (I'm sure it does, try pressing f2 or f12).

If you don't have a boot floppy for either Windows or Linux, well that'll learn ya! Try doing the reinstall and check the option for "No bootloader", and make a boot floppy at the end of the install wizard.

At the risk of sounding facetious, always make a boot floppy for both OSs before you moving partitions.

got it!!! thanks a ton guys... i was able to rebuild my mbr.. windows was saved.. but partition magic caused a few problems with linux.. not a problem though, i want to try the ftp based installation.. thanks again guys -james