Let me preface this message with the fact I am an uber-noob. Please be gentle.

SuSE 9.0 personal is up and running beautifully, and using the YAST interface is very intuitive. However, it would seem that Windows ME is currently unbootable. Attempts to boot in are met with a disk error (unrecognizeable format). It asks for the Windows boot files with an A> prompt. How do I navigate this?

I would be happy to exclusively use Linux and forget about Windows ME altogether, but my wife is attached to it. Whoever helps me solve this will have good karma for a very long time...

I've never seen Windows Me boot sucessfully without an error to begin with, let alone with linux installed.

Windows is overly possesive of its boot sector, and basically, you screwed your windows distro. You may be able to fix it by putting in a windows boot floppy and typing fdisk mbr ... that should clear out and repear the boot record for windows. But then you'll need another boot disk to get back to suse.

It seems like suse overwrote your mbr, which windows ME needed for some reason.

If you have a windows boot disk, you should boot off of it, and type "fdisk /mbr" and then widows will go back to normal (in theory).

However, you will then not be able to boot suse then unless you make a linux bootdisk. I don't know exactly how to do it in suse, but you should probably be able to boot off the cdrom if you don't feel like making a boot disk. I'm sure that there is documentation for this stuff in suse somewhere.


This way, windows should work normally, but linux will require a bootdisk.

That sounds like a good solution, but is there any way to retain the dual-boot situation? Currently I am using GRUB as the bootloader, that would be ideal instead of the boot disk scenario.

Thank you both for your replies, by the way...

Feel free to try my floppy if you wish, until you get your boot loader working correctly.

My apologies, I should have let this out earlier...

I have a 2 drive setup...a 40GB in master (SuSe Linux)

/dev/hda1 is Linux Swap
/dev/hda2 is Linux

and a 20 GB in slave for Windows ME (Which was master untill 2nd drive was installed, it was the only way for the BIOS to pick up both drives)

/dev/hdb is Windows

Also... I now realize after browsing the boards that perhaps I should repartition my hda for /, can I do this without losing data, or having to reinstall the distro?

In /boot/grub/menu.lst try something like this for the stanza to boot Windows:

Demonbane,
After changing the Menu.lst and rebooting...
(The computer tries to read the floppy drive for Windows Boot files instead of /dev/hdb, where it is)

and the following message comes up...

The following file is missing or corrupted: A:\IFSHLP.SYS

The following file is missing or corrupted: A:\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD

Type the name of the Windows loader (e.g., C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM.32.VXD)

A>

How do I get the computer to look at /dev/hdb instead of the floppy drive for the Windows boot files?

Hi,

assuming that Win ME was installed on a primary partition,
on your second drive, you need following entry in your /boot/grub/menu.lst

title Windows ME
map (hd0,0) (hd1,0)
map (hd1,0) (hd0,0)
rootnoverify (hd1,0)
chainloader +1

The map directives tell GRUB to map the first partition of the
second drive to the first partition of the first drive !!

Win 9x, ME will only boot from the first partition of the first drive.

So similar what Demonbane proposed but with additional info about
the partition within the disk.

If Win ME is not in the first partition of the 2-nd drive then you need to
modify the above entry, using

(hdx,0) - (hdx,3 ) first to forth primary partition
(hdx,4) - (hdx, n) first to n-th logical partition


Take also a look /boot/grub/device.map

You shall see something like follows:

(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/hda
(hd1) /dev/hdb
....

Vlad A-
Neither one of those suggestions worked which leads me to believe there is something wrong with my Windows ME partition on /dev/hdb

Checking it through Konsole using fdisk -l /dev/hdb, I see the following...

Disk /dev/hdb: 20.4 GB, 20416757760 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2482 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hdb1 * 1 2482 19936633+ 44 Unknown

Why does System read unknown? I can still access all of my Windows files through Linux at /Windows/etc........(Various Files)

As long as I'm at it, here is the rest of the information...

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 96 771088+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda2 97 4865 38306992+ 83 Linux

Advice?

Well,

if nothing suggested helps, then it may be that
there is something messed up with Windows ME.

So what happens if you attache your Win ME drive as IDE Master,
and detach your drive containing Linux ?

So you have a system with just one disk drive. Will then Win ME
boot ?

If yes we shall work on the dual boot problem.

If not, then I suggest that first the Win ME problem is fixed.

Try to rewrite the MBR. Take a look on the partition table from
the Win ME drive and activate the Win ME partition.

I want to say a big THANK YOU to all who helped me out... especially Vlad A who gave me the last little bit of advice on testing out the windows drive alone.

You were right, Windows ME wouldn't boot on its own, so I reinstalled Windows using the CD-ROMS, reconnected both drives, (and with the correct MAP commands)

VIOLA!!!

GRUB is now booting both OS's successfully!

Also, I want to send out a big shout of support to the organizers of this site, allowing Uber-noobs like myself a chance to join in the fun...

Thank You Everybody!

-matt