my goal is to have ntloader handle a multi-boot single IDE drive XP / mdk9 system.

I read a tutorial on how to make this work. It suggested installing LILO on the ext3 partition and boot with a floppy, then extract the bootloader to a msdos floppy and copy that to c: and edit boot.ini to include mdk. However, mdk did not prompt me before simply overwriting my MBR, nor did it ask me to create a bootdisk. I had prepared my XP system for the linux install using partition magic 8. At the end of its "install another OS" Wizard, it hid my c: drive and set the newly created ext3 partition to active.

Now I cannot get back into xp.. my former c: drive has become h: to the xp recovery console. How to I get back on track for my original goal? XP diskpart command does not allow activating a partition, only creating/deleting. Where is the old fdisk on xp?? my pm8 rescue disk 1 is corrupted and I cannot access program files folder from recovery console.

Thanks anyone for your help. It is greatly appreciated!

So you need to remove Linux bootloader and change the active partition, right?
1) To remove Linux bootloader:
lilo -U
(from console)
But make sure you have a boot floppy before. The command to create a boot disk is 'mkbootdisk' (or you can use Manddrake Control Ceneter).
2) Active partition can be changed using Linux fdisk. When you run it (fdisk /dev/hda) you can do this using 'a' option. First list the partitions ('p' option) and note down the XP partition to use when you choose 'a'.

thank you for your quick reply, mara. I did as you said, but:

- should both, the linux and the xp partition set to be active or only the xp one? (I figured it would not be possible to have both set to active but it was)

- with both set to active and lilo removed, xp still wont start, and recovery console still reports the c drive inactive and its bootloader as "os/2 boot man". Linux only starts with the bootdisk anymore so I know lilo removal from mbr was effective.

Is my mbr empty now? How can I make it so xp starts again?

thanks!

Did you install (or upgrade to) XP using an XP installer CD?
or
Did your computer come preloaded with XP?

In the former case, you can pop the XP install CD in, boot from it, and choose manual repair to go to the recovery console. The commands 'fixmbr' (and 'fixboot' perhaps) should help replace the MBR with Windows bootcode.

If you fall under the latter category ( which is more likely ) the recovery console that you are booting into may have these commands built in. Generally, a fixmbr should solve your problems.

On Mandrake you have rescue mode which will restore your winbloze boot loader. Boot into rescue mode by:
Pop in your install CD, get to the screen where you "press enter to continue or F1 for more options"

So press F1, then type "rescue" at the line there. Hit enter, you'll boot into rescue mode. One of your options at the first screen sould be to restore the old boot loader, go for it.

Cool

Cool!! mandy has a bootloader revert option?!! I havent seen that with RH, good to know MasterC.

@nx..

my xp is a clean install. I am scared of fixmbr as I believe it corresponds to the former undocumented fdisk /mbr which is said to have been undocumented for a reason (wipes out partitions but I dont want to lose my partitions).

there is another command, named fixboot.. would it work, too? it doesnt seem as dangerous..

@the other guy

I am going to try rescue mode now.. hope it wont just offer me the option to restore lilo into the mbr which is where I have just removed it from following mara´s post.

thanks..

ok.. it turns out I had not completed the setting of the active partition (I had quit the program instead of applying changes first with the w option). so I did it now and XP does start up from the hd again. However it indicates autochk cannot be found and that therefore autocheck was being skipped. Then it BSODs on me saying something about session manager initialization process failing. How pretty..

To recovery console, my c drive still shows as hidden, so I am starting to think that what I really need is a way to unhide my c drive. Can Mandy do this? XP cannot.

The F1 thing did not seem to have accomplished anything more than lilo -U had done.

I just came to think about this.. could it be that it is impossible to use ntloader for multibooting when the two OS´s are on two separate primary partitions on the same hd (this is my case)? Wouldnt I have to use some other bootmanager soft that dynamically hides one primary partition and unhides the other depending on my choice during startup?

thanks

NT loader is an inflexible black box. Is there a specific reason you want to use the NT loader? I'd prefer lilo or grub any day.

in a first step, please tell me how I can unhide my c drive from linux (or any other way) so I can boot into xp again. In a second step, I will consider using either bootmagic or lilo.

Could you post your fstab and lilo.conf so we can avoid speculation and consequent screwups?

First of all, (AFAIK) you dont need to hide/unhide partitions dynamically/otherwise unless you have multiple primary FAT partitions on your hdd. Multiple versions of Windows is an example. So if any of your partitions have the hidden bit set, you can unset it using grub or whatever s/w you used to hide it in the first place.

Write lilo/grub to the MBR and let it handle all your booting needs. It is much simpler than people seem to think.

ok.. here's what happened. I used grub to unhide my c drive and there went xp starting up again. However, mandy now started up with a severe graphics bug when booted from floppy.

Its partition was reported to be damaged in some way by partition magic as well, so I formatted it over and made it larger as I had originally configured it too small. Now I am looking at re-installing mandy, but before I do so, I was going to ask for some advice on setting up my partitions for best performance/stability.

Here's how they currently look:

c: ntfs primary 6,5 gb XP with all programs
ext3 primary 2 gb mdk9
linuxswap logical 500mb
f: ntfs logical 9gb data, mp3, etc
h: ntfs logical more data, etc.

some questions that are on my mind are : wouldn't it be best to have the XP swap on a dedicated partition as well and shouldn't the linux swap partition best be primary? I would like to install a backup partition at the end of my drive. Should I have one for xp and one for linux or one for both? Thanks.

What is an XP swap? I didn't know we could control where the swap area is with windows. I've heard about hibernate partitions, but that's about it.

As far as linux is concerned, it doesnt really matter if your swap is primary or extended. The only performance difference the location of a swap partition would possibly make is probably when all your linux data is on the beginnig of the disk and the swap area is towards the end or vice-versa. Again that depends on how much swapping you do.

A backup partition that can be shared by both linux and XP is what you have in mind, right? Yes, make sure you format it FAT32.

windows swap:

control panel -> advanced -> performance settings -> advanced -> virtual memory -> change

configure min and max size and location of pagefile.sys (by default placed under root of the partition holding the xp installation).

So you are recommending the linux installation and linux swap partitions be neighboring partitions for best performance, correct? Cool, as that's already the case. What about the size of the swap?

If I make the backup partition fat32, then I cannot use access control and any low-level user can touch my backups, right?