Dual boot problems resulated "invalid boot sector checksum" something.

[onda_trollet]

Heya!

Short story: I installed Debian yesterday, latest version on my laptop. I had previously tried Slackware 12.1 which worked perfectly, but I never got internet to work. I also Vista on the same hardrive as dualboot. I have earlier installed Debian, but removed it for slack again. I also tried arch which I also removed.

So... Debian yesterday. Grub bootloader. I always use lilo for slack though. I can see vista in the menu options. choose it... computer thinks and ponders a while and i see the normal "microsoft... something..." before i can log on to vista. but i cant log on. instead i get some acer rescue menu. it cant find the reason for me not being able to start vista. and there is no rescue point available according to it.

so... i try to install slack, hoping lilo will fix it hehe. i am not good with linux, you know. anyway... lilo works and everything... but i still cant log on to vista.

after trying to mount my win partition through linux to see if all is wasted or if the files are still there... it says it cant be mounted, check syslog. i am not good with reading syslog, but i see this:

invalid boot secot checksum

looks like a big problem! is there anyway for me to fix this so i can log on to vista again? really depressed because i have a lot of important stuff on my win partition (and about 50 hours playtime on oblivion )

thankful for help...

[onda_trollet]

and its an ntfs drive

also, i typed like this when i tried to mount it:

mount -t ntfs /dev/sda1/ /mnt/win/

i never had to mount manually before. with earlier installations has slack always found vista and mounted it for me automagically. not this time, anotther reason to believe there is a big problem

[devils casper]

It looks like there is a wrong entry for Vista in Lilo menu. Its booting up Rescue Mode from Recovery Partition.
Post the output of fdisk -l command and contents of /etc/lilo.conf file here.

su -
fdisk -l
less /etc/lilo.conf

[onda_trollet]

heya

yeah, i was hoping it would be something like that, but i wasnt sure at all.

i will try to post it. at work now and that computer has no internet so it will have to be copied manually from that computer to this one

thanks for quick reply

[onda_trollet]

ok here goes:

fdisk -l:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 1275 10240000 27 Unknown
/dev/sda2 1275 8570 58597087+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 8570 8813 1951897+ 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 8570 8813 1951866 82 Linux swap

[onda_trollet]

less /etc/lilo.conf:

a lot of stuff about frambuffers, then this at bottom:

#linux bootable partition begins
image = /boot/vmlinux
root = /dev/sda2
label = linux
read-only #partitions should be mounted read only for checking
# linux bootable partition config ends
#windows bootable partition config begins
other = /dev/sda1
label = win
table = /dev/sda
#windows bootable partition begins


maybe the win table should be /dev/sda1? dont know!

[devils casper]

Something is wrong with /dev/sda1. It is marked as unknown partition.
Did you create free space or partitions for Linux before installation?
Try mount /dev/sda1.

mkdir /media/sda1
mount /dev/sda1 /media/sda1
ls /media/sda1

Check if above code mounts partitions and display its contents.

[onda_trollet]

yay it works! well... it did display loads of stuff, ,like Windows, Users, etc, etc, etc... Not the normal view when i have mounted the ntfs partition on earlier slack installations. but it listed stuff anyway.

now... i got an external harddrive and a case for it. if its the easiest and simplest.... i can connected, empty it and move my stuff over to it and then reinstall the whole computer.

but if its possible and not super difficult to make my current vista work, i would be very happy

thanks for you help, i really appreciate it!

question: i normally mount ntfs partion like /mnt/win/. what is the difference between /media and /mnt?

[devils casper]

I can't suggest you anything right now because Vista partition has been marked as Unknown. Your first priority should be backing up data. I will check if we could reset it to NTFS without any data loss.

question: i normally mount ntfs partion like /mnt/win/. what is the difference between /media and /mnt?

There isn't any difference. You can mount any partition anywhere. I prefer /media folder only. You can create a folder in /home/<user_id>/ vista and mount partition there too.

[onda_trollet]

ok
well i could only peek quickly while at work. so.... i could see "files" when i mounted like you suggested. but i couldnt see "my files". There was a lot of files i dont recognize that looked like some sort of windows system files. and some dirs like /Windows, /Users etc. I couldnt find my dir in users, but there was a Default and a Public. So... whats all that about? Is my stuff gone and thats just the remains? Or is that just what shows since it is an "unknown" partition?

So I am thinking something like this: Linux cant, not right now at least, see my stuff. if i got my hands on some old xp, maybe i can install it on my external hard drive that i can hook up through usb and then maybe see my files and transfer them to the external hard drive? not sure what else to do really.. i would hate to loose my important files