I recently installed Mandrake Linux V 9.1 on my Dell Laptop. I was running Win2K, simply added Linux to the mix, using Lilo to select the OS to boot up with.

The system originally defaulted to Linux, I wanted to default to windows, so I tried changing the boot options. I think I accidentally installed grub bootloader to my win2k partition. Now, when I choose Windows from Lilo, it goes into the grub screen. I again select windows, and it keeps going back to the grub screen, after stage 2 chainloader.

When I try to mount the win2k partition in Linux, I get the "unrecognized file system, too many mounts, or bad superblock" message.

I would really like to get my win2k partition back. Any ideas?

Thanks

similar thing happened to me a while back but with lilo. I have no real experience with grub. here's what i did

fdisk /mbr

Unfortunately, I don't think that would fix the issue. I think I mistakenly added grub to the windows partition, so it goes into a "loop" when LILO boots the windows partition.

What I think i need to do is restore the ability to boot on the windows partition after selecting windows from LILO.

Ugh!

you probably deleted the windows bootloader that was sitting there. You should look in windows related forum and MS's sites to see if there's a way to get it back.

fdisk /mbr is the correct thing to do.
It clears out the master boot record and puts a windows version of it up there.
It will put a windows bootloader in.
LILO + Grub will both be cleared out, and you'll need to go into one of their setups and put that one back in.

but the problem is not the mbr. win2k and up installs a generic bootloader in the MBR which then goes to the first bootable poartition (i.e. the win partition) whose first sector has its own bootlader (ntloader or something like that) which then actually loads win2k. It looks like jpianoman deleted that so fixing mbr won't do it.

Ohh.. sorry about that Haven't used to w2k in ages.. Yeah I remember that now. I had a similar problem with installing it once.
There is a fix on the MS website for that, I'll see if I can find it later. Thanks for the correction though

Not sure if 2k has it, but in XP you can fix this from the Recovery Console using the 'fixboot' command. It's probably the same if not very similar in 2k.

Also make sure you have the provisions for restoring the Linux bootloader, in case it's erased.

have you tried putting your mdk cd1 back and booting to it? and first lilo screen hit the F1 key and type rescue, after a while you will get an option to re-install your windows boot loader. Sorry no nuthin about win 2K.
then reboot with cd, if win loads now re-do mkd cd1 and this time try this

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/viewtopic.php?t=8629

choose lilo as you are newish

Good News! I was able to use the Win2K CD, startup in recovery mode, and use the fixboot command. It found the correct partition and corrected the boot record. I have a system back. Whew!

Thank You all for your help, I'll be using this forum often!