Dual Boot Dilemmas
 

I'm a total Linux newbie. A friend helped me set up my dual boot system using lilo. linux is the primary system and windows can't see linux. Anyway windows went AWOL and I need to reinstall it but don't know how to do it with the partition and I don't want windows to eat Linux!

Which version of windows and which distro of linux?
Why did windows go awol? Changes to the bootloader configuration?

slakware 8.1 and windows 98, I had been trying to reinstall all the old windows software I usually use (office etc) and to make a long story short ended up deleting some files, windows will no longer start up.

Ok, I dunno if Slack has a nice rescue mode to boot into off the cds like Mandrake, so instead you'll need to make a boot disk.

Then install windows on your primary partition/drive, and if it replaces Lilo with it's own bootloader, you can use the boot disk to get into linux and re-install Lilo in the Master Boot Record :)

Good to know
 

It is good to know that it can be done. Can you post the instructions or perhaps a link to them? Any help would be appreciated.

I think the easiest method is not to make a boot disk, but to move LILO to a floppy (simplier, IMHO). You need to open /etc/lilo.conf, find 'boot=/dev/hda', replace it with 'boot=/dev/fd0', save the file, insert a floppy and run 'lilo'. After Windows reinstallation boot the bootloader from the floppy, choose Linux, boot it and change 'boot=/dev/fd0' to 'boot=/dev/hda' and run 'lilo' again.