So I installed Ubuntu to test it out, and decided that I didn't really like it. So I tried to get back into my Windows partition, and during the bootloader, the screen reads:

root (hd0,0)
Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
chainloader +1

It hangs there until I cue it to restart. I also installed SuSE over Ubuntu and I'm very impressed with it, but it still shows the same error. I was hoping that installing a bootloader again would fix it, but it didn't. There is some very important information on my windows drive, so if you guys could help me get it booting again I would be exceptionally grateful! Thanks!!

If you are on Win2K/XP, boot from the Windows CD and go into "rescue" mode >> command line. There type fixmbr. That should restore the original boot loader.

If you are on Win95/98, boot with a Windows boot floppy and when you reach C:\>, type "fdisk /MBR", to restore the original boot loader.

The second method (Win95/98 boot disk) should also fix a broken WinXP/2K boot loader (did it myself a couple of times).

Good luck!

I don't really wanna do that though, cause then I'd probably lose SuSE that I just nicely laid down onto my system ...

I really hope that my windows partition is ok ...

I see . Well, if you do that and you are able to boot into Windows, then all you've to do is to place SuSE's disk1, boot from it, choose rescue mode and reinstall grub/lilo, I guess (never tried it)

hi orange400,
megaman already mentioned the boot-cd solution but i would add the following link: ultimate boot cd
just burn the iso and boot from cd. comes with tools to edit/ reinstall mbr, and will definitly solve your problems.

greetings, grim

Ooh hey, I'll try that! Thanks for your help everyone!

thats how i always did it. a little time consuming, but it definitely works.

Thanks X Predator X for sharing it with us. I'm soon to actually do that method, my WinXP is crawling now... ghehe. And thanks also to grimse for the link, pretty interesting that boot disk and I never heard of it before

There isn't a way that I could just modify lilo to make windows boot? It seems like a simple error. I just "repaired" windows XP but it didn't recover the MBR.

Well, it looks like Ubuntu messed up my partition tables. That's not the first time that sort of thing has happened with linux. FC2 trashed my NTFS partition too. Oh well. I managed to back everything up to a 10GB drive, wipe out my partitions, and slap some new ones in along with a fresh install of windows. I've reserved ~7GB for SuSE, and hopefully the dualbooting will go smoothly then ...

The partition table getting messed up is a known problem with earlier 2.6 kernels. Or more accurately, the partitioning tools used with the earlier 2.6 kernels.

See this page about ntfsresize.