Trying to get Mandrake to boot but when it is selected there is an error that tells me: ERROR: Cannot boot selected partition. I think this partition is an extended partition and not primary. All the other partitions are primary. Does that have anything to do with it? Anyway- The boot loader GRUB is located on the hda2 which is handling the boot process. This is the bootloader that is being edited.
Mandrake is installed on hda5 whch I believe is the only other partition that is bootable with a OS on. I will try other partition #'s and post back if I am successful. I already tried (hd0,5) and (hd0,3). I looked up this info - (hd0,0)=1st partition, (hd0,1)=2nd partition, (hd0,2)=third partition.... and the hd0 is the selected harddrive - where if there were other harddrivies they would be hd1, hd2.....
I am posting menu1st from grub to see if anyone sees whats wrong with the info. This is the only OS that does not boot. Any suggestion appceciated.
## ## End Default Options ##

title Linux
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda2 ro ramdisk_size=100000 lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi nomce vga=791 alsa
savedefault
boot

title Kanotix
root (hd0,1)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-kanotix-5 root=/dev/hda2 ro ramdisk_size=100000 lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi nomce vga=791 alsa
savedefault
boot

title Knoppix
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.27 root=/dev/hda3 ro ramdisk_size=100000 lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi nomce vga=791 alsa
boot

title Mandrake
kernel (hd0,3)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.8.1-10mdk root=/dev/hda5 ro ramdisk_size=100000 lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 alsa
boot

### END DEBIAN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST

title WindowsXP
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
savedefault

This might be your entire problem and you might have to back up your data and reformat your hard drive to fix it.

Yup.

The kernel must load up from a primary partition.

This is why I advocate creating a seperate /boot partition large enough to hold the kernel and some files... e.g. 32-64 megs, which should be a PRIMARY partition.

Once the kernel is loaded it can normally find the other partitions, or at worst any missing drivers can be loaded via the initrd image, which will give it access to the extended partitions.

Once the kernel is loaded Linux can deal with the extended partitions.

How do I go about doing that?

Not to sound trite, but the anwer is, whatever way you want.

You can do it from within the installer, you can use a second party program, etc.

If you are going to "move" any existing Windows partition you'll need a program capable of this.

I used the mandrake installer to resize the windows partition and this work very well. The only thing that it did wrong was make the new partition an entended one. I fixed this with cfdisk. I deleted the partition and created a new primary partition and installed mandrake to this one. Now I have my system set to boot all. Thanks for the help.

I still would like to know how I put the kernels on a different small extended partition and be able to boot them with a bootloader?

Great!

Hmm.

Does the installer no permit resizing of existing partitions WITHOUT data loss?

Or did you just re-install Windows?

To answer your question all you have to do is during the installation create a small 32-64 meg partition which you must specified that it will be mounted as /boot

This partition must also be a primary partition.

The bootloader will find the kernel in this small /boot partition and load the kernel.

Once the kernel is loaded (for the most part) Linux knows about the drive layout and away you go. Linux can deal with almost anything once the kernel and at times required modules are loaded.

If you have a configuration that requires a non-standard module to be preloaded (loaded as part of the kernel) then instead of recompiling or other nonsense, you merely need to create a boot image with mkinitrd.

The mkinitrd image can have ANY module you specify folded into it, making the driver and hardware instantly available to the kernel during the initial kernel boot/load.

There was no data loss in the resizing of the partition. I did not have to reinstall windows. All it did was run chkdsk the next twotimes I booted into windows and it never did it again. That tool is great for installing or resizing any windows ntfs partition or any partiton. I went ahead with it and didn't know if it would hurt anything and I came out okay.

Can anyone help? I tried to restart my PC, but all I get after the installation is this: ( I tried reinstalling Mandrake 10.1 but no progress, it's black screen with white writing of )

L 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99
99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99 99


WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? CAN I BYPASS IT? ... ??? any suggestions are welcomed.
PS: it's driving me nuts! And I am very disappointed with linux ( my dream OS ).
- when I want to turn OFF the computer, I have to do so manually ( well b/c there's no other way, hehe! )
I have 512 MB ( DDR ram )
60 Gigs hard drive
32 MB Nvidia nForce 220
CD-RW drive
DVD-ROM drive
Floppy drive

The boot loader is improperly installed.

You probably placed it on the partition instead of the MBR or have made some other such error.

In effect the boot loader cannot load itself.


If your computer supports either ACPI or APM Linux will indeed shut down the machine and turn off the power. This must be enabled though.

IMHO, ur pc seems pretty borked. ur best bet is to format and do things all over again... i had the same 9999999999 errors on bootup many yrs ago when i first tried linux ;-)

dont u just love it?

If you have an existing XP partition which you want or need to preserve, you can boot from the Windows CD and restore the master boot record to at least permit you to boot back into Windows.

Also properly re-installing Linux w/o reformatting the existing XP partition will also cause it to add the Lilo/Grub entries that will permit you access to XP again.

Delete the partition that linux is on and recreate it then reinstall is how I fixed the exact same problem. Everything booted correctly without fixing the mbr.