winxp not accessable
 

After about 18 hours of reading threads and trying every thing from the recovery console fixboot fixmbr the old win98 boot fdsik /fixmbr, many different grub configs and countless other third party software - i can not seem to get winxp to boot. i was setting up a dual boot with winxp and rh9(have done successfully with 98 in the past) and all was well till the reboot - grub lists both os but xp loops back to grub screen, of course like a silly person i did not back up files prior to install, and yes it is imparitive i am able to at least recover some irreplaceable files.

here is the last grub conf i left off at:
#
# Note that you do not have to rerun grub after making
changes to this file
# NOTICE: You do not have a /boot partition. This
means that
# all kernel and initrd paths are relative to
/, eg.
# root (hd0,2)
# kernel /boot/vmlinuz-version ro
root=/dev/hda3
# initrd /boot/initrd-version.img
#boot=/dev/hda
default 0
splashimage=(hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-20.9)
root (hd0,2)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-20.9 ro
root=LABEL=/ hdd=ide-scsi
initrd /boot/initrd-2.4.20-20.9.img
title WindowsXP
root (hd0,0)
unhide (hd0,1)
hide(hd0,3)
chainloader +1
"grub.conf" 20L, 650C 20,1
Bot

i also tried the hd0,0 hd 0,1 combos

and the fdisk -l info:
Disk /dev/hda: 60.0 GB, 60022480896 bytes
240 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7753 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 15120 * 512 = 7741440 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id
System
/dev/hda1 * 1 5721 43250728+ 7
HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda3 5757 7617 14069160 83
Linux
/dev/hda4 7618 7753 1028160 82
Linux swap

as i stated i have spent about 18 totlal hours over the past coule of days trying to get xp to come back to life, crazy agin for no back up - of course the software and files for my business are stuck in the blackhole. I have made a feeble attempt to mount the ntfs partition from editing the fstab - but no sucess there..

any suggestions will be greatly greatly accepted! ;-)

thanks in advance

hi

i am not sure if you know this already. redhat linux kernel has ntfs disabled due to patent issues. you can get a patch from linux-ntfs.sf.net if you are using redhat. linux will recognise ntfs in fdisk but will not be able to mount it

to test

try this

cat /proc/filesystems should list ntfs.

mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/windowsxp

where windowsxp is a directory already existing will work if ntfs is supported.

you should be root user to do this

if you need more information post back

regards
rahul sundaram

thanks for the info -
after issuing the command:
mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/windowsxp


error received:
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hda1. or too many mounted file systems.

i am pretty sure the boot sector is completely hosed at this point, and as i mentioned in the other post - if i can gain access long enoght to grab a few files - i guess i need to blow on the partition and reinstall mickeysoft.