MBR PROBLEM! PLEASE HELP! :-( 1

[nfaber]

Sorry to shout, but I just reinstalled linux and now I cannot boot windows 2000 pro. I did what has worked the last few times. When I re-installed linux (Windows 200 Pro already installed) I told the installer to install lilo on the linux boot partition, in this case hda7. Then after the install, I booted linux from floppy and changed the lilo.conf from

boot=/dev/hda

to

boot=/dev/hda7

and the DOS entry from

other=/dev/hda1

to

other=/dev/hda

This has worked twice before, but now W2000 will not load. I can only load linux! I fear my MBR and NTBootLDR may have been overwritten with LILO. I only have my W2000 cdrom to work with right now. Can I resore it from that or do I need a boot disk to do a fdisk -MBR which will probably blow my linux install. I can always reinstall linux but do not want ot lose my W2000?

HELP!

 

[nfaber]

I ran lilo -u /dev/hda to uinstall and now my computer boots to:

LI

 

[ifincham]

Hi,





As you have a linux boot floppy try this .. Boot linux from floppy and edit /etc/lilo.conf and change your 'dos' block to this :




other=/dev/hda1


label=w2k


loader=/boot/chain.b


table=/dev/hda


unsafe





check that 'boot=/dev/hda' and then re-write lilo into the MBR with /sbin/lilo -v . When you reboot if w2k still doesn't work you may well have to boot to w2k with CD or floppy, do a fdisk /mbr, and then repeat the process. I'm a bit puzzled when you say that you changed boot= to /dev/hda7. That would put the lilo loader into (presumably) your linux boot partition not the MBR so you would have to be using another master boot loader. Did you previously boot linux from the W2K boot menu ? (It can be done).





Hope this helps

 

[nfaber]

ifincham..you are the master! It worked! Ok now that I can get to both, what changes do I need to make to make this more stable?

Here is my lilo.conf (excerts)

"global section"

boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
lba32

image=/boot/vmlinux-2.4.7-10
label=linux
root=/dev/hda8
append="hdd=ide-scsi"

other=dev/hda1
label=w2k
loader=/boot/chain.b
unsafe

When I treid to use

table=/dev/hda

and

unsafe

together...lilo pucked and told me they were "mutually exclusive" or something like that.

Thanks again!!

 

[ifincham]

Hi,

Oops .. yes they are mutually exclusive. Some O/S need to have partition table info passed hence the table= entry. NT/W2K don't need it so you are perfectly OK leaving it as 'unsafe' - its not as drastic as it sounds!

Regards

 

[nfaber]

Ok..I will leave it as it is. Now I finally do not have to listen to my puter whine about not being able to mount ext3 partitions (I made all mine ext2). Also my modem is working since I broke down and got a 3COM V.Everything modem.