you do realize that mandrake 10ce is not final right?

also, its inability to work perfectly with windows (at this point in time) is not a flaw. linux is not a supplement to windows.

but i will agree that this problem should not have happened... even in beta.

I have the same problem with Win98. W98 is on hda, Mandrake 9.2 0n hdb. Both hdd's have LBA set in BIOS. Install CD #1 won't boot. Fresh install Mandrake 10 on hdb from boot floppy. Boots OK with lilo. Can't access Widows from lilo - error message "invalid system disk" etc.
I used Active@ partition Recovery. Win98 has booted OK. Partition Magic has detected error 110 on partition starting at sector 63 on disk 1. CHS = 7421022, LBA = 7421967,. Fix? OK. Error 116 on disk 2. LBA=12287520, CHS=1032191. They must be equal. Corrected. Mandrake 10 now has errors on /dev/hdb7. Can't boot.
I'm going to delete all partitions on hdb & go back to 9.2.

Well, Yes I do.... but that is important to remember. unless a person is willing to find some major crap, messing with a unfinished beta is risky business.... Good Point

jeje... good point!!! But this flaw is REALLY basic!!!

How magnanimus of you!!!

Good points and nicely put! Thanks!

[SA]Chem...you're a life saver...

the LBA solution worked perfectly fine for me...is there any reason no one else seems to be reporting success with that solution?

[SA]Chem...are u still having problems? I thought the LBA solution fixed it for you?

When we bought M10, we were not aware that it was a beta version. Had we known it would have influenced our decision.

re the problem: Mandrake has been of no help, they blandly say "It's all fixed in the boxed version. The only way that we've found around it, is to revert to a clean Windows system, install Mandrake 9.1 or 9.2, then install 10 as an upgrade. That way,10 works well enough for us to see how the latest KDE works

I have this exact problem. After reading through the solutions here, I've written a list of all that seem to have success.

---

Solution 1:
1.Erase all (and I do mean ALL) partitions with Windows 2000/XP Recovery Disk. I tried just erasing the windows boot partition (C:) and that didn't cut it.
2.Reboot
3.Go into Recovery Console, run "fixmbr"

Solution 2:
Switch to LBA in BIOS instead of Auto

Solution 3:
Boot with Knoppix, go to console;
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=1000 count=1000

If Mandrake10 must be reinstalled, create existing partition with
something OTHER than MDK10 (i.e., install Mandrake 9.2 first, then
overwrite/upgrade with MDK10)

----

Before I found this thread, solution 1 was the one I found by hours of trial and error.

Add to milqy's list
I used Active@ Recovery program which I'd previously bought. It recovered the Windoze partition without any difficulty. As I previously noted, Partition Magic reported & fixed partition errors which were obviously caused by Mandrake.
Re-installation of 10 as an upgrade to an earlier version is definitely the way to go.

Does MDK10 simply screw up the MBR, or does it also mess up the partitions themselves? To me it seems kind of both... from what I've read on here and from my own experience (something about overlapping...)

hey,

I also had this problem...

I was running XP, installed mdk 10 rc1, and boom... I couldnt boot windows XP again.

I tried the following to get it working without any success...

formatted the drive (from xp install) removing linux, and windows completley! and it still didn't work. I kept getting "error loading operating system"

from the xp recovery cd, tried the commands above, fixboot & fixmbr then tried reinstalling the OS... they both did nothing... I still got the same error... and also tried the fdisk /mbr... and still didnt work!!

I then tried reinstalling mdk 10, and of course... that worked!

In total dismay, i went and bought a new HDD, as I was dying to play farcry again, and had scheduled a smackdown with the boys today, and was planning to upgrade soon anyways... it just prompted me to upgrade a little sooner... even so, it is quite concearning...

Cyber

WOOHOO!

I've done it! Got XP and Mandrake 10.0 to dual boot!

This is what I did (after a days worth of formatting, reinstalling etc.):

Note: I enabled LBA on my HD before I did any of this

1) Booted using the XP CD
2) Partitioned the HD using the format tools on XP CD, I made the first partition for XP, second for /, third swap, fourth /home
3) Installed XP on the first partition
4) Got into XP, restarted and booted using Mandrake CD
5) Instead of getting Mandrake to create partitions, I told it to install into the partitions I had created for it (I toggled to "Expert" or "Advanced" mode at this point, can't remember what it is called)
6) Installed Mandrake
7) It didn't give me an option about where to put Lilo, and I am not sure I know how to find out. If someone could tell me how I can find out then I'll let you know.
8) It works fine!

BACK OF THE NET!

this site
www.svrops.com/svrops/dwnlddisk.htm
has BOOT disks for all versions of windows (including XP)
it has saved me many times

- Greg Costanzo

Is there anyone here who can tell if the official release fixed this bug? And also that the option to select where the bootloader goes is always prompted instead of installing it to the MBR without notification? (I also tried expert mode, wouldn't work)

Yes, I've had the bootproblem too. I didn't know about the LBA thing yet. I did a complete format after two days of struggle and now I'm stuck with XP again.

I'm going to try and boot MDK from the NT bootloader as I saw advised on several other sites since I don't want linux to mess with any critical parts of windows. I know how to do it all but I need that MDK doen't write the bootloader to the MBR (without asking me wether and where to write it) during the installation.

I'm new to linux, this was my first install attempt but I didn't even realize that MDK 10.0 community was a beta. I used a knoppix cd to wipe the partition table when both OS's couldn't boot (after fixmbr and fixboot none would boot). I wrote an empty dos partition with fdisk, somehow xp would install again after that. The install wouldn't work if I deleted every partition entry, I had to erase and rewrite the thing completely for XP install to continue after the initial installer-file copy phase.

Well, better luck with the next release I guess. It has gotten me down temporarily but I won't give up that easily

This happened to me too...but a different setup. WinXP Pro on a 60gb Deskstar and a WD 80gb drive had Mandrake 10 on it. Boot loader installed to the 60GB Deskstar and I had the same crummy results trying to fixmbr with the winxp cd and with other windows boot disks.

In the end, I took it as a sign from God that it was time to dump windows and just blow out that OS and make a nice fat video/audio file repository on that hard drive instead. :-)
I've never been happier.

In the end, I resurrected an old 8gb drive from my ancient p2-400 system and installed WinXP, Nero, Open Office, Norton Systemworks Pro 2004 and a handful of other useful apps, then used ghost in systemworks to burn a slightly compressed dvd of my windows install with all the latest patches. Now, I can wipe any drive clean and have a working and pretty up-to-date windows xp installation in less than half an hour. Of course, I've only needed it to run my capture card software and occasionally dvdshrink. That's it. Now its just a matter of time before I don't need those anymore - I'm learning how to do video the linux way.

After this command, I can't see the partitions on my hd so I can't boot anything!
What can I do?

thx very much

I have'nt got the answer,but I had to debug hd to get win to work again.Repair and reinstall didn't work.I hope some one can help.I need win for printer,sound,dvd X,and to watch dvds.So I'm stuck with win till problem is solved