running dual boot win xp / ubuntu netbook no problems. installed opensuse on third patition now cant boot at all tried to use oem xp disk for repair cant boot from disk went into boot consol everything in order. getting error 21. can't get anything to boot.

Hi -

1. You should be able to get Windows back as follows:

a) boot from your Windows CD

b) Go into recovery console

c) Go to the Windows Recovery Console command prompt and type: d) Verify that you can boot Windows again from your hard drive

2. You should be able to get Ubuntu working again and OpenSUSE installed without too much trouble, too.

But first things first: focus on getting Windows back. We'll worry about the rest afterwards.

Sound good?

Please keep us posted!

Good luck .. PSM

can't get it to boot from disk

just got opensuse booted

is there anything i can do in opensuse while i have it up and running because i think i will be back in the same loop after i shut it down

A couple of suggestions:
1. Make sure you have bootable CDs for each of Windows/XP, Ubuntu and OpenSUSE

2. Tell us:
a) Are you now able to boot *ANY* OS from hard disk (from your first post, I thought "no")?
a) If not, were you able to boot Windows from CD and run "fdisk /mbr" (like I asked above)?
b) Are you now able to boot Windows from the hard disk (I don't know where you're at now)?
c) Are you able to boot either Ubuntu or OpenSUSE from hard disk (I don't know where you're at)?

PS:
The "error 21" you mentioned above was a *Windows* boot error, wasn't it?

Which I'm presuming means:
a) you were trying to boot from hard disk. Correct?
... and ...
b) the boot loader was trying to boot Windows (and complaining something about "Error 21: can't find boot.ini"). Correct?

1. i have bootable cd for all.
2.a. yes opensuse boots fine now.
b. can not boot from cd.
c. no
pps. error 21 was during a grub boot fuction


i am running two hdd.
hdd-1 c drive 1 partition windows xp
hdd-2 e,f,g,h, 4 partition e = ubuntu/ f = opensuse/ g&h files and storage

now opensuse is working fine but it shows my c drive as a folder filesystem/windows/C
the rest of my partitions are listed as drives
how do i get c drive back to where it should be so i can boot from it

Hi -

A: Please try what I suggested in my very first post.

If that doesn't work, please specify a) exactly what you did (step-by-step), and b) exactly what happened (write down the EXACT error messages)

Otherwise, if it DOES work - then post back. "fdisk /mbr" will erase your grub bootloader (and your ability to multi-boot). But "grub is easily restored.

The main goal right now is to get Windows back (if possible).

IMHO .. PSM

You never mentioned which version of Ubuntu you had installed. Ubuntu 9.10 and newer use the beta Grub2 and OpenSuse uses the older Grub. If you installed Opensuse Grub to the mbr you will probably have to manually edit its menu.lst file to boot Ubuntu.

Do you have a full xp installation disk? I've not used xp myself but, everything I've read says that it is needed to fix /mbr?

Grub Error 21: : Selected disk does not exist
This error is returned if the device part of a device- or full file name refers to a disk or BIOS device that is not present or not recognized by the BIOS in the system.

Which means Grub was looking for its files in the Linux (Opensuse presumably) partition and could not find the disk.

Yes. That's generally the way it is seen.

Your "C drive" likely hasn't moved. Hopefully? You are confusing drives which should refer to hard drives with partitions. The "C drive" is actually a partition but with windows it usually takes up the entire drive so they end up being pretty much the same. If you are going to be using Linux, you will need to understand the terminology in regard to hard drives and partitions. If you can still boot Opensuse or have the Live CD, open a terminal and log in as root and run the command: fdisk -l (lower case Letter L) and post this partition information here.

sorry for not repling till now. a couple of projects got pushed up had to focus.
did not have time to play so i fired up a back file and restored system so i am back to win pro/ubuntu 10.04.
i would like to thank you for your time and asist.
i will be getting back to this latter on for right now problem solved.