MBR problem
 

Hi!

I have installed Open Suse 10.0 with winxp. Everything works fine but I have a minor problem. Everytime I log in to windows I get a message saying something like this " Your MBR has been modified, reactivate PCM?" I can choose from "YES , NO or CANCEL. If I choose yes, at statup I can no longer choose between SUSE, WINDOWS and SUSEFAILSAFE. I did choose yes once and after that I had to install suse again. Everything works fine if I just choose no however it's annoying so I was wondering if there is a easy way to solve this problem!?


When answering pls keep in mind that I am a newbie.

THX

//Sayemchi

Did you install SuSE first, or XP? Sometimes XP doesn't like being installed after linux. Make sure you install XP then install SuSE. I run three computers that dual boot between XP and Mandrake, and I have yet to have a problem with warnings from the MBR. Also, check your bios configuration. I think I ran into a computer once that had a bios option for checking the MBR integrity on boot. If you have anything that scans the MBR for viruses it will see LILO/Grub as a virus and want to change it. Make sure you turn off any checks on the MBR. Good Luck.

Do a search - there is another query about this here. Are you using powercinema as in that other thread ???. If so, you will need to reinstall the Suse bootloader into a partition - not the MBR, and copy it over as in that thread.
This will mean using PCM to load the XP loader to load the Linux loader - what a piece of crap.

I installed XP first then Suse.
I really would like to check if I have a option in BIOS which checks MBR integrity on boot but I don't know how to do that.

//sayemchii

See if "virus warning" is on. If so turn it off. Usually this virus warning is an MBR checker.

Hi guys!

Sorry for the delay but I have managed (in a cheap) way to solve my problem. I just uninstalled a software callaed PowerDVD Cyberlink on windows and after that I never get the message about MBR.


I don't know why unintalling that software fixed my problem!? I'll just leave that to you guys, if you find any explanation pls post it hear so I can learn a bit about it.

However I have a new problem so I don't know whether I should start a new thread?

I have 80gb hardisk and when I enter partitioner I can see this :

Device size F Type Mount start end

/dev/sda 74,5 GB Fujitsu SIemens 0 9728
/dev/sda1 28,3 GB HPFS/NTFS /windows/c 0 3706
/dev/sda2 1.0 GB Linux Swap swap 3795 3926
/dev/sda3 20.0 GB Linux Native / 3926 6537
/dev/sda4 24.4 GB Extended 6538 9728

As you can see I have 24.4 GB that I can't use. I want to give that(merge) this partition to the XP partiiton. I tried to do that with yast partitioner but id didn't work.

Any ideas how I can do that?

//sayemchii