Okay... Here's how it goes...

My (not so good at being a techie) husband has a hard drive that he put linux (red hat) on.

We already had a computer w/ a hard drive w/ windows xp on it.

At first, he was just completely unplugging the win xp hard drive and plugging in the linux hard drive..... and no problem

But, he wanted something to where he could put in both hard drives (win xp being primary and linux being secondary)....
so he downloaded 'something' off the internet so he could choose which one of the hard drives to run when you turn on the computer...

Now nothing is loading/running/booting. a little menu comes up and ask you if you want to run/boot from
-floppy disk a
-win xp
-linux (or secondary hard drive) something like that.

no matter what you pick nothing happens...it just freezes...


what's wrong?? please help me!!!

dawnraebrown

Describe the little menu more. Elaborate on what exactly happens upon freezing (any messages, letters, etc.).

To restore the Windows bootloader, boot the Windows XP Recovery console from the WindowsXP cd. Type the 'fixmbr' command there. This should the erase the present bootloader (the little menu) and put the Windows one there instead.

Another way which may work and allow you to pick either from a menu is to boot from the Linux install cd again.
ONLY DO THE FOLLOWING IF IT SEES XP AND LINUX AT THE START !!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not very familiar with Red Hat but you may be able to work your way through the install menu without actually altering anything you have already installed. Then at the end it should ask if you want to install the boot loader in the MBR. If you say yes it should then create the needed menu.
best wishes,
Norman

okay...
the screen that comes up when you turn on the computer is a regular dos-looking screen.
he used something called an "OS Loader 2000"
and then when you pick the win xp drive to load it bring up the blue windows screen like it's loading and just freezes there (overnight).
when you pick linux to load it just says, "GRUB"....that's all.

thanks for replying. i hope this explains a little more.

dawnraebrown

See this:
http://www.osloader.com/support.htm
I'm guessing that it is not booting the os's because the disks or partitions were rearranged. If each hard disk doesn't appear to be in the same place (same cable it was plugged into), the os's will be confused. The OSL2000 loads the os's bootloaders (XP bootscreen or GRUB), then they look around and have no idea where their stuff is. Their are many ways this could have happened. The hard drives could have been physically rearranged, or the OSL2000's features may have made the os's think things were rearranged.
Hopefully, it didn't make any significant changes. If it didn't, using the Windows XP 'fixmbr' command from the XP cd should fix the problem.