Hey guys just a couple of questions:

I installed Yoper OS the other day and it went over my MBR with lilo but didn't see my XP installation unlike previous distros, so i then reinstalled mandriva and mandriva doesn't see it anymore. How can i get XP to boot again, i trid adding it with mandrivas lilo manager by adding the partition but that didn't do the trick, is there anything specific i am suppose to add?

And another question, once windows can boot again, i want to resize the windows partition (ntfs) to give more space for linux, and also create a vfat partition to share files. is this safe resizing ntfs? and yes it would be safe if i backed up, but backing up 100gb is pretty hard, and i dont have a dvd burner.

And once this is done i want to dual boot mandriva, ubuntu and XP, how would i go about this. Sorry about the long question. Just think about it as 3 seperate ones

Hello,
not pretty sure about your 1st problem.
better post the details of your grub.conf/lilo.conf

2nd:
if i'm not mistaken then its not possible to resize fat/fat32/ntfs without loosing the data.....first you will have to delete that particular logical drive...then formatting
hence no scope of resizing without loosing the data.

3rd: Dual booting
For last many days i'm watching too many questions on this issue......so first do some search work..

Procedure ( which i follows, supposing that u have only one hard drive)

first install windows
then install any of the linux distro.
now intstall the second distro of linux but don't make any entry of lilo/grub.conf anywhere.

now get into the already installed linux (i.e the first one) and edit its grub/lilo.conf to make entries of the second linux distro.....that's it
Hope it will help you.

regards

I'm pretty sure that you can resize FAT/NTFS without losing the data; but to shrink it you will have to defragment first to move all the data to the beginning. To resize your NTFS partition, you can use a program like Partition Magic, or the "ntfsresize" command in Linux, or use a front-end program like QTParted (which happens to be on Knoppix).

I have to wounder if XP might of gotten written over. A good way to check is download GAG it is a boot loader that can detect any OS and boot it. I use it and prefer it over grub or lilo, best thing is if it is over written it can be easly reinstalled from your GAG cd or flopy. Download GAG either burn the iso or to flopy, boot to it and in set up chose your prefered language than option 1 for US keyboard then in the next window choose s to setup GAG then in the next window select a to add an OS and if windows isn't displayed press 1 to 10 to togal H discs till you find it, trust me if windows is there GAG will find it. When you find windows you will be given the option to name it then select an icon for it, then go to a to add another OS and add Linux the same way you added windows (one note for Linux to work you need grup or lilo installed to the partition Linux is installed to and set the boot timer in grub or lilo to 2 seconds i choose 2 seconds as this gives you the option to select failsafe if necessary. You select H to save GAG to the MBR of your first hard drive if you choose to use it for your every day bootloader.

Yes you can have as many instances of Linux with windows as you want though I have found that grub under debian sometimes fails to detect the other nix if the same kernel is used. Any way if you use GAG or not it will find your xp install if it is there, it might not say it has found xp but simply ntfs. Another tip if you use thunderbird email for windows and linux you can set it up in both OSs to download and store its email to a folder on your FAT partition. You can get GAG here.

http://gag.sourceforge.net/

I have resized FAT16/32 and NTFS partitions numerous times using Partition Magic 8. Out of probably 20 to 30 moves and resizes, I have only had Win2000 fail on me once. I currently run MS-DOS, Win98, Win2000, and Fedora Core 3 on two hard disks, and all of the partitions were made using Partition Magic (although sense I installed FC3, PM doesn't like my Linux partitions anymore).

The program isn't free (its $60 - $80), but if you plan to mess with windows partitions. I think that it is well worth the money. Besides that, it has the ability to boot off of the disk and still run decently well, so that you can take it with you when troubleshooting another machine.

Sorry for the rant that sounds like an advertisement, but I am really that impressed with this particular piece of software. I only wish that it was a little bit more supportive of my linux partitions.

Ok well thats alot of info, but like i said, i can't even get into windows so there goes the defragmentation, i was aware i had to do that, but unfortunately i cant get into windows, i will try gag though and get back to you.

thanks alot

oh and windows didnt get overwritten, i access all my files from there, vids, mp3s, games etc.

edit:

im just wondering, gag looks promising, but is there a way to edit lilo.conf to see my windows xp partition id rather use lilo, could someone paste there lilo.conf here, or maybe just the xp entry? thanks.

I know in Fedora Core, you can boot into rescue linux, mount the system image, and then find, modify and save the grub configuration back to the MBR. I would assume there is a feature like this for Yoper also.

thanks for the info, but im not using Yoper, as i said Yoper didnt find my XP partition, so i reinstalled mandriva in an attempt to rescue it, and mandriva ddnt find it either. So yeah, im using lilo, XP does exist, and i just need to know how to configure lilo to see my xp partition, something about chainloader +1 or somethin, but that is in grub, not sure how to do it in lilo. Like i said, if anyone knows, or could copy me there lilo.conf file i would appreciate it

This may answer your questions, sorry, when I was typing I forgot that you went to Mandiva to try to fix it

http://www.control-escape.com/linux/lilo-cfg.html

nope nothing there helped, or ive already tried it, thank you very much anyway. Im still waiting for anyones lilo.conf...anyone! (with an xp dual boot lol) thanks guys.

I am guessing Windows and Linux are on teh same hard drive? Post you lilo.config and maybe someone can look at it and edit it for you to point to the Windows partition/disk also. as root will let you see hte different disk and partitions on your system, and what it recognizes them as to help.

This is the one for gentoo ( think it may give you a start )

yeh i am pointing to the right mount, and yeh my entry looks like that in lilo, GAG just uses lilo to boot windows i think, so that wasnt much help, when it tries to boot windows i just get a blank screen with a flickering cursor like this "_" but i cant type anything, so no error messages or anything, i have no idea what is going on, i'm gonna try grub later on, if that doesn't work, hmm i'll need other suggestions lol.

thanks all for your help though

Gag uses nothing but gag, it uses lilo or grub to boot linux because linux requires it, which is why grub or lilo is to be put on the linux partition. The benifit to this is it eliminates this mbr getting overwriten, or corupted trouble that can arise in a dual boot setup. Do you have your windows cd? If so boot to it and select the recovery console and it should help you restore the windows mbr. I haven't done this in ages but i think you type cmd for a terminal and then type fdisc then fix mbr, but can't remember for sure, so google restore mbr with windows to be sure. This will at least rule out if windows is bootable or not, and if it is not repair it, if you do not have the cd then borrow a friends as the key is not required for this repair.

thanks i was planning to do that, but my windows cd is lost amongst the trash in my room haha, i will find it, will repairing the mbr overrite lilo? if it does, i think mandriva recovers it by putting in the disk and answering some questions, but just out of curiosity (and if the mandriva cd doesnt fix it) how would i do it without any fancy lilo recovery tools.

thanks