i have got a very urgent problem.... I can't boot any more the windows partition n my office (i tried to install mdk 10 esterday and I made a lot of confusion with the bootloaders )

i can boot mdk 10 without any problem, but when I select "windows" from the lilo graphial manager, it starts the grub command-line!


so my question is:

how can I boot the windows partition, which is hda1, with grub?

which command I must typ in to boot it up?

please help me


EDIT: I've tried tiping in these commands:

root (hd0,0)
chainoader +1
boot

..and in this case grub tells me: "Loading grub Second stage", but later it shows me the previous command line menu! Like a loop!

Don't know a thing about grub (I use LILO), but you can 'fix' your MBR so you can boot into windows, then worry about fixing your mandrake problems later.

You'll need a windows bootdisk (if you don't have one, shame on you, you can download an image here).

Use it to boot your computer, then use the command:

fdisk /mbr

This will 'fix' the Master Boot Record as far as windows is concerned.

As I say, you can fix your mandrake install later with a linux bootdisk. Don't have one of those, either? Tsk-Tsk.

BTW nobody cares if your problem is URGENT. Or even if it's VERY URGENT. Everybody's problem is URGENT. So calm down and hopefully someone will have an answer for you when they can get around to it. After all, we're all volunteers here.

Enjoy!
--- Cerbere

I forgot to write down that I have already tried fixing the MBR with the boot floppy!! I'm not a newbie like that!

but also doing like this, grub appear when I boot up the pc!

it's very strange, it's incredible, but it happens.
I don't know how to proceed with the windows booting up from grub command line


About the "very urgent", I'm sorry I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, so if someone can edit the title no problem, do that!


PS: I know that all the problems for you have the same priority, but it isn't true that all the problems are exaclty the same!

for example, if someone can't install a kde theme, it's a kind of problem, it's not very important, is it?
but if someone (like me), works in the office every day with Windows 98, and after an attempt to install linux can't boot windows any more, it's not the same problem! If my bosses discover me I'm died!

I don't know what to do, please help
regards

OK. you can boot into linux and check out if there are any discripancies in the grub.conf file. It is locaterd in /etc/grub

do

less grub.conf

and copy the output here. I am sure the problem can be easily solved

Cheers.

I hope so otherwise they'll destroy me

I don't have any /etc/grub directory because I've installed mdk10 3-4 times in order to try to solve the problem, and I didn't install grub any more, I installed lilo. for this reason in the mdk 10 partition I don't have any file related to grub, but it is still present in the hard drive, I don't know exactly where, and I don't know how is it possible that booting the PC it still appear!

waht can I do?

Did you even write it to the master boor record? If you wrote it to the superblock and mdk is set to the boot partition it may just be going right to that. I think that if you choose repair from the windows disc it'll see that windows is no longer the active boot partition and "fix that" and it should also write the master boot record again. You might want to go to a windows forum to find relevant info, I just remember someone saying that the discs should do that, aka, I don't actually know.

OK. If u have installd lilo and grub is not going away, then you have to clean the mbr.

Use a windows boot floppy and do
fdisk /mbr

Now your mbr is empty and grub won't show. Now insert the Mandrake CD1 and theer should be a rescue utility theer. Use it to install lilo.

Try this again OK

I've already done this! many times! I installed lilo 5-6 times, grub 4-5 times.. I'm doing a mess I know

the very very strange thing is that I also did 3-4 times:

fdisk /mbr

...but also doing like this, at next boot up of the system, grub appear again! I also tried installing lilo after the finxing of the MBR sector, but grub apear every time!

the problem is that probably yeterday I installed grub in the hda1 partition! and now I don't know how to delete it from there!


any suggestion?


bye

Well, if you're really scared of your boss and know that this is hurting productivity just buy a new hard drive. it's worth your job right? You'll have a working windows box and You can pull all your important files off your old hard drive simply enough and you have another HDD for your home computer. If you want to install mdk again make sure you tell it to use lilo and that it is to use the mbr. The menu is also much nicer then grubs(although not being able to use spaces sucks).

If your company has an IT crew they will have an image of the companies hard drive.

i have an "hold" 4gb hard disk at home and i'll ty it tomorrow

i've already thought about this solution, but i'd like to solve the problem on the same hard disk!

have you tried reinstalling grub instead of LILO?

So, what you are saying is that cleaning up the mbr does not rid you of grub because you probably installed it to hda1 Whoa...

But your hda1 is the Windows partitions right?

Try mounting the windows partition under linux.
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/floppy
should work

If you mount successfully and can see all data, that's good. If not, it might be doomsday...

I was just looking at your first post....why dont you try the following

1. Install grub once-more, just in case it isnt installed.....

2. in the file grub.conf, locate the section for Windows....and if it isnt there...then add the following lines at the end of the file...

title Windows 98
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

Regards,

amit

Hi amit

grub has been installed repeatedly and so has been lilo. Check out post #5

The problem is, she has installed grub in hda1 That is why it does not go away with fdisk /mbr

I think to remove boot loader from partition you need to do
fdisk /mbr x (where x is your partition, in this case hda1)


I am not too sure about this and most probably all data on hda1 will be lost by this

Try mounting the windows partition under linux.
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/floppy
should work

If you mount successfully and can see all data, that's good. If not, it might be doomsday... in the sense that all data is lost and you might as well format that partition.