ok, so maybe this has been answered? sorry if it has, but i searched for well over 4 hours trying to find a solution to my problem, with no luck

k, so HD specs
1 - 60GB HD split into 30GB (windows fat32) and another 30GB (ext2[believe it is, may be wrong] for Mandrake9.1)
HDA1 - fat32 windows xp partition
HDA5 - ext2 Mandrake partition

so after my install, i booted with the mandrake CD and went to the recovery option, tried using the install lilo boot manager (believe thats it, i know its the first option and its been a long day i cant really remeber what it was called) but it goes through the installation of LILO pretty clean, does Linux, Linux-nonfb?, linux-secure, windows, but when it gets to the windows 2 (dos boot) it errors and tells me
(something to this extent error) ya ok so i checked /dev and i see a sda2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 but the sda1 is missing so i used that Explore2fs program and got the lilo.conf file from /mnt/etc and edited out the "windows 2" part for sda1 and saved it to a floppy, and tried copying that over the current /mnt/etc/lilo.conf file, but that didnt exactly happen, so i gave up on that after a few attempts
i also tried to do a but i came back with an error code about it not knowing what to do with device 0x0103 (at about this time, being fed up enough, i know a few things it can do with that device)
also, so i tried reinstalling mandrake9.1 got to the partition part, but it wanted me to format the drive before moving on with the install, seeing that, i quit the install since i really dont want to lose any of the files i have on that partition

so, here i am asking for help from the rest of you, anyone perhaps have an idea to solve my problems
thanks

maybe you have mixed the things up, SDA - means slave, and your windows partition is on master? Edit your lilo.conf correctly.

well the sda1 is suppose to boot into DOS, well i'm a complete newb to this, and i have no idea how to edit files from the command line, so help me out there

ok Brian:
1. post 'fdisk -l' command
2. post your lilo.conf

Do you have X????????
try 'kate' 'kwrite' 'gedit' in command line to show /etc/lilo.conf or whatever it is in Mandrake .......

Hi Brian W

Are you saying that after installing Windows XP onto a drive that previously had Windows 2000 and Mandrake 9.1 installed you can't boot into Mandrake anymore?

If that's the case??? then Windows XP'S boot loader has written over "Mandrakes" Lilo boot loader and hence you'll only get an option to boot Windows XP on next boot - try installing Win XP first them Mandrake 9.1 second - if Lilo doesnt pick up on XP then simply edit the last entry in Lilo (other=......) to point to the Win XP partition - make sure you /sbin/lilo at a console after making changes to lilo.

I know this thread is a bit old but here is some info. After upgrading or installing Windows 2000 or Windows XP it overwrites the boot sector with the NT loader. You have to reinstall LILO or GRUB in the boot sector and configure it. Something else to note. M$ is making it more complex to have Linux on a computer that Window$ is on. WinXP actually will block and prevent somehow some things of Linux from working depending on how the partitioning is done. I am not sure how they do it yet but that is just one of my things on a long list of things to hate about Window$ and M$.

If you are in rescue mode, and your system is mounted under /mnt you should do:

chroot /mnt/ lilo -C /etc/lilo.conf