Ok I managed to get my SUSE 9.3 to bring up 3 booting options when I boot up, I get windows, linux, linux (safe) and the windows works flawlessly. Just the linux wont load properly.

It starts loading stuff and it recognises all my connections including:
hda: sony cd-rom....
hdb: samsung dvd-rom....
hdc: Maxtor...(windows drive)
hdd: ST380011A...(linux drive)
and loads a few drives from the kernel then it gets down
"Waiting for device /dev/hda1 to appear: .....resume device /dev/hda1 not found (ignoring)
Loading kernel/fs/reiserfs/reiserfs.ko
Waiting for device /dev/hda2 to appear: ....not found --exiting to /bin/sh
sh: can't access tty; job control turned off
$"

SO I'm guessing I screwed up my lilo.conf when I went to make it dual boot...how can I access it from here? I'm pretty sure I used lilo...been a while since I did it and just now found out the linux part didn't work :P. been screwing around on the windows part for a few months and never tried the linux after making it dual boot...foolish of me not to test it!

Is there any way for you to mount linux partitions to another operating system?

Best regards,
Den

not sure, I don't know my mounting points or anything. I have never had to mount, I'm a n00b and use SuSE so I've never use the mount command...if I could just change my boot conf file I could fix this...with some help

Linux used to boot fine till I edited that file lilo.conf I'm pretty sure so someone guide me to editing that file again from there.

What exactly is your Linux partitioning scheme? It looks like there is a problem accessing /dev/hda2. You could boot from a live cd like Knoppix or the Suse installation disc (rescue mode) and correct your grub settings (Suse uses grub not lilo).

partitioning scheme no clue...all I remember is I have xp in my secondary drive and linux on my primary, I have my suse install cd and went to the rescue mode but not sure how to access my grub settings, how do I do it?

I don't remember the exact details, but you have to select rescue mode at boot up, mount your Suse partitions and then edit /boot/grub/menu.lst.

ok I can't figure out how to mount my partition and access it using the rescue on the install disk can someone help me on that? My linux is my primary drive hdc I think soo how would I mount that from the rescue disk?

Just for you to know how linux names drives.

first IDE Master is named hda
first IDE Slave is named hdb
second IDE Master is named hdc
second IDE Slave is named hdd

Names of parition is just adding a number at the end of hd*
first partition would be hda1. Second hda2...

All right, now how to mount

mount devicename target directory

In your case it would be:

mount /dev/hdc1 /media/hd

Check that the target directory exists. if not create it with mkdir.
If you have more then one partition belonging to your installation check out /etc/fstab. (cat /etc/fstab) it will show you which partition has to go where.

well I tried mount -t ext2 /dev/hdc1 /mnt/Linux but I get "wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/hdc1, missing codepage or other..." all my fstab has is whatever the rescue CD put in it which includes:
"/dev/root / ext2 defaults 0 0
proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
sysfs /sys sysfs noauto 0 0
usbfs /proc/bus/usb usbfs defaults 0 0
devpts /dev/pts devpts mode=0620,gid=5 0 0
(I added) /dev/hdc1 /mnt/Linux ext2 auto,users,rw,exec 0 0
"

when I try mount /dev/hdc1 /mnt/Linux it sais I must specify the filesystem type.

what the crap do I do? I don't know what drives to mount...or filetype, and I can't even get anything to mount...but I'm also a n00b so I could be doing something wrong.

The command looks good. Try someother filesystemtypes like
ext3
xfs
nfs
riserfs

I´M not quite sure if they are writen correct. do a cat /etc/filesystems to see which filesystems your kernel supports and for a try some of them with the mount command.

ok well the only system that gave me a response was nfs (which wasn't even in my /etc/filesystems) and with nfs as the mount file system it sais directory to mount not in host:dir format...so what does this mean?

My bad that i stated the nfs filesystemtype. nfs is a network file system.

Another thing that comes to my mind is that the first partition is normaly a swap partition which is not mounted through mount. Please try hdc2 and or hdc3 and see what happens.

There definetly is a programm that tries to tell you which filesystem is on a particular device. Can't remember the name so. Saw it somewhere on this forum. think its a German University that made it. If everything fails we need to find that programm and see what it says.

But were definetly getting there

ok I'm in...ignore that.

hey just a quick note...next time you have the covers off your pc, swap the ide cables around so hda is a hard drive and your cd and dvd are hdc and hdd....primary master and slave should be harddrives in your situation...
it can be a pain at times when there not...just change the cables at the board end...
saves head aches and can be easier to understand for you as well when someone says hda or hdb for harddrives...
cd and dvd dont mount unless you have a disc in them, then you can mount them, but you need something to mount...cant mount thin air...

in grub hd0 is hda
hd1 is hdb
hd2 is hdc
hd3 is hdd