Windows Screwed my computer over
 

Well, I had my computer dual booting Windows and linux for a while, but that's over. Windows just kept getting worse and worse. It was giving me registry errors when I would try to install new programs and things like that.

Anyways, I decided it was time to reinstall windows. Windows was installed on c: (/dev/hda1), my data was on d: (/dev/hda2), and linux was installed on multiple partitions on the rest of the drive. I popped in the windows cd, chose to format the C: drive, and it decided to format the whole hard disk. Luckily I had backed up my data recently. :eek:

That was the last straw, and windows is never touching this computer again. I installed mdk 8.2 a couple days ago, and I'm very happy with how easy it is to configure everything.

I believe you are in the wrong room... the Windoze casualty support group is 2 doors down on the right.

just kidding :) welcome to the club!

Reinstall Windows doesn't exist to me.

I regularly ghost my Windows partition onto another. In the even of disaster, it takes me 5-10 mins to go back to the previous stage. And if that's screwed too, I have a CDR of the fresh install.

You needed tools to help you go along with Windows. Registry can be a mess if never taken care of. There are free tools: Easy Cleaner & RegCleaner. They're excellent. I back up the registry and run 'em both regularly. Beside registry cleaning, Windows needs to be scandisked and defragged. There are also free AV proggies.

I think this thread belongs in rant room or something.

read this
 

This is what probably happened
You had Windows and Linux installed on the same machine right?
Well if you re-istall windows, it will over-write a section of your hard drive called the Master Boot record (MBR).
The problem is that the Linux Loader (boot menu) called LiLO for short also uses the MBR, so if windows resets the MBR, guess what? Your computer doesn't even know the Linux OS was installed.
If you created a Linux boot disk when you first installed Mandrake, you can use it to boot linux, then run lilo to re-instantiate it on your MBR!

So for future reference:

1.) using the boot disk(s) you ceated, boot to a Linux command prompt
2.) type in the command: lilo

this should take care of re-writing your Linux loader infor mation back on to the MBR.

good luck! :)

I must agree with the last post, windows would not be able to simply distroy the linux partition to my knowledge. It would have installed to the fat32 partition.

yes, but...
 

Yes, BUT If its Windows 2000 or XP we're talking about here you CAN actually delete the Linux partition, BUT that would mean that the user INTENTIONALLY deleted such partitions in the set up.

Any way DavidPhillips thanx for the support. I still stick to my story with the Master Boot Record (MBR) :)

Hi, original poster here.

I'll tell you what happened. Windows 98 was the operating system cd in question. It never actually gave me the option to choose where to install windows, and gave me a message that there were non-windows partitions on the drive. I clicked a button to "set up hard drive", thinking that it would allow me to set the partition to install windows to, and it decided to format the whole thing as a single partition without any warning. I did the linux boot disk thing, and all other partitions were gone....

On the bright side I'm glad this happened, because I've been trying to ween myself off of windows for a while.

I See. Windows 98 sux in all respects! You should try Windows 2000 or Windows XP. They're waaaaaaay better!

Yea, it's too bad they don't show you the partitions. Most people do not realize that the warning is your last chance.

But now you know, never trust windows...


:D

not really, windows IS trustworthy
 

[QUOTE]
Yea, it's too bad they don't show you the partitions. Most people do not realize that the warning is your last chance.

But now you know, never trust windows...
[/QUOTE[

Actually Windows 2000 and XP DO show you partitions during setup and explicitly ask you where to install! You can even delete them IF yuou want! :)

Windows 2000 / XP are waaay better, give Win2k/XP a chance! :)

The Upgrade to XP Pro costs $200.

There is no way I'm forking out $200 for a patched copy of Win 2000.

:Pengy:

After trying to do something I shouldn't have done I messed up Lilo also and because you have to install Windoze before Linux I went to re-install ME and it didn't recognize my non-DOS partitions. So I was able to format, re-install ME and then re-install Mandy. I'm waiting until after April 15th to get rid of ME completely cause that's where I have my income tax software! :D

I had a very experienced System Administrator tell me that if you're going to run dual-OS it's best to use two different drives. I didn't think it was worth spending the money on another drive since my current drive is 30 gigs.

If you're going to continue running Windoze I would recommend using Norton System Works for clean up. I've used it for a long time and IMO it's far superior to Windoze system tools.

hmmm
 

Norton SystemWorks (NSW) SOMETIMES does more damage than good. Use it with a LOT of care!

DavidPhilips, what you SHOULD do is get Windows 2000. Windows 2000 is not obsolete, and is a bit more stable than XP, plus the fact that you may be able to get it for a decent price. check on www.pricewatch.com for a full PROFESSIONAL copy of it and it shouldn't be that bad. :)

Is it true that through Norton SW live update microsoft is scanning those illegal windows software and turns them into a completely innoperant OS ? if this is true , down here in BRZL is going to be caos as most people can buy $5 windows cd anywhere eheh...bill doesn´t have much of a market here ,in fact, linux is becomming quite popular you know (connectiva rules).BTW i have win98 because microsoft didn't care tomake a diamond stealth driver for ME , don´t know about xp tough.

Well if that were true about SW then I'd have been in trouble a LONG, LONG time ago! And I've never had any problems with any of the Norton products and I've used them a lot. My husband does have this theory though that anti-virus software companies probably create viruses cause they're the ones that profit off of them. It's only a theory, not an accusation, so I don't want any lawsuits! LOL

And IMO you're better off with 98 than you are with ME. ME has lots of problems. What really makes me mad is that you cannot un-install Internet Explorer from ME. Even Miro$oft has that on their web site. I tried using Norton Cleansweep to uninstall it and switch to Netscape and I finally gave up and just re-insatlled the whole thing. I would have gone back to 98 at the time but I needed some of the software bundled in the OEM package with ME. There's absolutely no way I will upgrade to XP. I know it's supposed to be stable and the best OS MS has put out but I have a lot of friends that use it and hate it. Besides, I've bought my last MS product. I'll stick to Linux!