This is a copy of a post I left in another forum, so it is a little out of context, but has all of the essential info....

I have been wrestling with my first dual obbt setup WinXP and Mandrake 10. Each time I set it up, I think the bootsector corrupts, but I don't know.... I'm a newbie!


OK.. I got IBM's disk utility.. wiped the bootsector clean (as well as the rest of the disk).. reinstalled Windows, used the Linux partition manager to make room for linux on the same drive... 45GB for WinXP, 35GB for Linux and 530MB for a swap drive.... I configured the boot loader to see Windows at hda1 and Linux at hda5 (as the partition named itself) The swap drive is there too....

I can boot to Linux just fone... still getting a blinking cursor instead of windows.

Can I rebuild the bootloader at this point? Am I missing something obvious? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?

can someone answer me that?

What's going on is a bug in the mdk10-ce partitioning utility and a fairly well reported one at that. It's already been fixed in the updates and when mdk10-official comes out next month it will be gone. In the mean time, try partitioning with a separate utility and when you do the install direct it to install on the existing partitions. In short, don't let the installer do any partitioning. I saw a workaround which seemed to help some - go into your bios setup and change your hard drive from "Auto" to "LBA". Here's a lengthy discussion on this problem that some have encountered:


http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=12423

Thank you for your help... I was able to solve the issue by simply changing the HDD from "Auto" to "LBA" in the BIOS.. no reinstall or other headaches!

I am up and running.... now to figure out how to install hardware drivers for my motherboard and graphics card... and modem, sound etc....

Thanks again for your help!