When that Windows XP menu comes up use the up or down arrow keys to select safe mode and hit enter. If that works then linux has nothing to do with it.

AMD is x86 architecture. It shouldn't complain about that. I've fixed mine several times with no complaints, and I'm running an Athlon.

Where are you running "fdisk /mbr" from? WinXP Install disk, or something else?

You said you had a problem installing grub the first time, what happened?

ok heres what i had from boot/grub/menu.lst
------------------------------------------
title Fedora Core
root (hd1,0)
kernel/vmlinuz-2.6.9-1.667 ro root= /dev/VolGroup00/LogVo100 rhgb quiet
initrd / initrd-2.6.9-1.667.img

title Windows XP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader+1
------------------------------------------


AND this is what i got from etc/fstab
------------------------------------------
/dev/VolGroup/LogVol00/ ext3 defaults 1,1
LABEL =/boot /boot ext3 defaults 1,2
none /dev/pts devpts gid=5,mode=620 0 0
none /dev/shm tmpfs defaults 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
/dev/VolGroup00/LogVo101 swap swap defaults 0 0
/dev/hdc /media/cdrecorder auto pamconsole, fscontext=system_u: object_r: removable_t, ro, exec, noauto, managed 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy auto pamconsole, fscontext=system_u: object_r: removable_t, exec, noauto, managed 0 0
-------------------------------------------


does this give anyone any clues as to what might have happened?
thanks!

d1663m, you are right! AMD is also X86 architecture. I was bit baffled about the warning it was throwing out each time. It does give out a warning even though it is able to do something.

But, there is an issue. Each time I run fixmbr, it reports that the MBR seems to be corrupted and the program will try to fix it. But, how many ever times I try to run the same, the MBR is not getting fixed, and comes up with the same error each time.

I am not able to boot into XP from harddisk. I am just able to get into the recovery console from the installation CD.

The issue I had with Grub for the first time was that Grub was not getting installed properly from Anaconda. The grub.conf file was not making any sense. I hadn't expect the Grub.conf being corrupted from the Anaconda installation. So, I had to debug, re-install to find out what was happening. Then I got into the Linux rescue mode and went to the Grub prompt, and installed it from there, and manually edited the grub.conf file.

To access your windows drive from linux you would need to have NTFS support compiled into the kernel, as it stands it is best to access your NTFS drives through the read-only method. In FC3 Redhat decided for one reason or another not to include NTFS support into the standard kernel so you have 2 options.

1) Re-compile the kernel, something I cant really help you with quickly, you would have to learn in your own time.

2) Find a pre-compiled RPM for FC3 for your kernel version and install it

Either way once your have it installed you can just mount the drives like any other drive except specify NTFS as the drive type.

I have got the NTFS support already. With that I have taken backup of lots of stuff. But, still I need to get the windows back into working.

It sounds like your MBR is FUBAR. Since you have your data backed up I suggest reinstalling XP. Then follow the instructions outlined in Ravee's link. I looked over the steps at the above link and it makes sense in my head but I have not tried it.

I think everything will be OK so long as all of your data, including e-mail (my personal backup weakness), is safe (on CD in case of apocalypse).

Consider blowing everything away, with data on CDs, and following the link's instructions explicitly to avoid hiccups.

well, the first thing to do is to get your windohs installs booting again. did the

fdisk /mbr

command from the win98 boot floppy work? if not then there might be trouble.

as far as the partition layout, i don't know if it is still the case (it used to be), but the swap partition should be on one of the four primary partitions allowed. right now you only have one primary partition, the rest are logical partitions residing in the extended partition, hda2. fyi, when using a win98/xp/linux layout i generally use this scheme and haven't had any problems:

hda1 c fat32 (primary 1)
hda2 7 ntfs (primary 2)
hda3 82 swap (primary 3)
hda4 f Ext'd (primary 4 / Extended)
hda5 83 ext3 (logical 1)
hda6 83 ext3 (logical 2)
etc.....

the tough part is that windohs tries to take all your space whenever possible, either as a primary or extended partition (as xp did). to avoid this, after the win 98 install i boot to the slackware install disk and use fdisk to hammer out the rest of the partitions, and then proceed to install xp and the rest.

i don't know if grub got confused because of your partition layout, it shouldn't have but then you wouldn't be posting the forum if all had went well. if you wind up having to reinstall windohs you can save the data on the fat32 partition pretty easily. as for the ntfs partition, if ntfs support is enabled in the kernel then you can copy it over like the fat32. if not then you will need to recompile the kernel with ntfs read support enabled.

again, it sounds like the first thing that needs to happen is to forget about linux and get the windohs installs back to dual-booting (win98 and xp). after that you'll be in business...



good luck, keep us posted....

Itz 1:30AM here, and I am currently trying to repair the XP installation that I have. XP repair process says that the repair went through and all the required files have been copied. But, I am still not able to boot into windows. I am still getting the error "Disk Error. Press any key to restart".

To get the matters worse, my floppy drive also stopped working. :-( Let me try if I can get some other tool which can do the MBR repair for me.

Re your MBR repair problem: Have you checked your BIOS settings? Many BIOS's have a "Virus Protection" setting which (if turned on) forbids changes to the MBR.

Re your floppy problem, I recently discovered that getting the floppy drive cable inserted up-side down will burn out the drive, and that there is no "key" on the cable to prevent this happening. (At least, that was true for two drives I had.. [Note the past tense. ])

hi everybody,
this is a direct question for Rmakers, but anyone have any ideas please help me.
I've installed Debian 3.0 on my toshiba m30x-162 ( there was already XP installed ). Its seems to be all ok, but lately i found some troubles.
So i want to reinstall it ( without hurting XP ); before doing that, i have to restore XP in the mbr ( as i found, launching fixmbr from the restore console of the XP-installation CD ).
Now here's the problem: the toshiba don't provide the XP-installation CD, but the recovery CD ( that automatically format and replace the original installation ,as written on the CD label ).


Can i use another XP-installation CD to go on the recover console?
Can i launch "fixmbr" directly under XP ?

Hope that someone can hrlp me.

bye

Raul

Knurpht 's (earlier post) does it; change the hard drive BIOS setting to/from LBA. I am told that although XP uses its own addressing it checks to see that the setting is as it was when XP was installed. This is a case of a slip up by Microsoft XP and Fedora developers - neither should have assumed that they had sole possession of BIOS settings.

In friendship

QuakerJ

Instead of just trying the fixmbr from XP recovery console, could you try fixboot and then fixmbr next?

Back when I would get frustrated at not knowing linux, I would just wipe the drive clean from windoz and format my linux with a fat32 partition, in essence wiping linux out. Using fixboot and then fixmbr was the only way I could get 2K booting normally again. And the commands are the same in 2K or XP recovery console.

But of course I'm loving FC3 more than XP now that I started reading before I started the install.

I don't know, I havn't even opened my revery cd...it's just sitting in a drawer. Never had to, I my install didn't damage windows. I do know however that on toshibas web page there is linux help now...I'm not sure whats on it but it might be worth checking out


http://linux.toshiba-dme.co.jp/linux/index.htm

I gotta give toshiba credit, thats more than most of the manufacturers do for us.