Helo,

after installing SuSE10 on a secondary disk (SATA, /dev/sda1) I wanted to install
Grub on my Windows Bootdisk (IDE, /dev/hda, NTFS).

I followed a step by step instruction on the web but then committed an error. I edited /boot/grub/device.map and menu.lst according to instructions but ended up
adding '--force-lba' to the grub-inst script (I suppose this could be my error).

First I was glad to see the grub come up on booting by /dev/hda but then I saw grub had
erased the two existing partitions and placed a new partition only containing the Grub MBR.

I was shocked to see that and ask myself why the script-developers omitted this thing. I was not asked neither if partition deletion is O.K. nor was I warned of the danger of the parameters I'd been giving grub-inst.

Now, can anybody help me? Is there a tool for partition recovery in Linux?

Now I could restore the OS, but I also lost about 200GB of data, most of which
consisted of yet unstored Home video. This would mean a few weeks of work.

(while booting with a Windows PE-CD, it shows me the disk as 'not assigned').

Thanks in advance
Frank Prumbaum
frank@prumbaum.com

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!!Hey I found it myself. There is a free Software 'testdisk' which was able to restore
my partitions.!!!

I got the linux-static-version and it worked!

look for partition recovery with google or file recovery.

Next time make a backup if you do something like this. A mistake is easily made.

It's a documented option - see the grub manual. You *did* read the manual first, right ???.
As for testdisk, it's a great tool, but you would do well not to regularly put yourself in a position to rely on it working every time.

GRUB and LILO always conflict with Windows. And GNU GRUB is not so robust, causing many problems during boot.

So try GRUB for DOS please. It is a cross-platform boot loader based on GNU GRUB. The GRUB.EXE can be started from DOS/Win9x; and GRLDR can be started from BOOT.INI of Windows NT/2K/XP/2003; and even more, the GRUB.EXE can be started from LINUX via the KEXEC tool.

By using GRUB.EXE or GRLDR, you don't have to touch your MBR. It is the safest way coexisting with DOS/Windows.

You needn't install GRUB for DOS. Just run GRUB.EXE from DOS, or append a line of "C:\GRLDR=START GRUB" into your BOOT.INI(restart and select the "START GRUB" menu item), that will do.

Download GRUB for DOS here: http://freshmeat.net/projects/grub4dos/

There is a fat12grldr.img file with the GRUB for DOS release. You can create a GRUB bootable floppy with this fat12grldr.img file.

Or, you can just copy GRUB.EXE to your DOS floppy and run GRUB.EXE to enter the GRUB environment.

If the system has no DOS/WINDOWS, you may use the bootlace.com utility to write GRLDR boot record onto the MBR.