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I installed Mandrake 9.1 alongside my Windows XP on my computer this afternoon. I created a boot disk, and used "fixmbr" in the Windows XP Recovery Console to bring things ...
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  1. 05-15-2003 #1
    loosewindows4good
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    Cannot boot linux, what should I do?

    I installed Mandrake 9.1 alongside my Windows XP on my computer this afternoon. I created a boot disk, and used "fixmbr" in the Windows XP Recovery Console to bring things back to the nt-loader. I found out the boot disk doesn't work, what should I do? Can I use the Mandrake install disks to boot linux and reinstall lilo or grub? Any ideas?
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  2. 05-15-2003 #2
    Dolda2000
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    May I ask you why you prefer the NT boot loader before GRUB?
    Anyway, yes, you can you the Mandrake install disks to reinstall GRUB, but if you don't really know Linux, it's not the easiest thing in the world. I don't know if they ship the grub-install script on the disk. If they do, it's a lot easier. In that case, just enter rescue mode (or whatever the Mandrake equivalence is; I'm sure they have something like that), and then run "grub-install /dev/hda".
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  3. 05-15-2003 #3
    loosewindows4good
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    Unfortuently, I do not know much of linux. I agree, Lilo and Grub are much better looking than the nt loader, but I want it to just go right into Windows XP for the time being. I'm assuming I can just set the time to 1 second or whatnot. So, I should just run that command and everything should be ok?
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  4. 05-15-2003 #4
    Dolda2000
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    Yeah, should be, but these hardware-related things are always a little unreliable, so you never know. Just tell us if it doesn't work.
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  5. 05-15-2003 #5
    loosewindows4good
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    Ok, I tried it. Thanks for your help so far.

    I went into the console from the Mandrake CD, typed in "grub-install /dev/hda," like you said, at [root@rescue /]#. I got the following error(s):

    /usr/sbin/grub-install: line 1: sed
    /usr/sbin/grub-install: line 1: uniq
    /usr/sbin/grub-install: line 1: sed
    /usr/sbin/grub-install: line 1: sed
    /usr/sbin/grub-install: line 1: sed
    /usr/sbin/grub-install: line 1: sed

    and then /dev/hda does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.
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  6. 05-15-2003 #6
    Dolda2000
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    OK then... We'll not use that then. Do this instead:
    Go to my home page (the link is at the bottom of each post), download the GRUB boot disk image and rawrite.exe, and write the GRUB image to an unimportant floppy disk using rawrite.exe. Then boot from that floppy, and when the GRUB prompt shows up, run the command "setup (hd0)".
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  7. 05-15-2003 #7
    loosewindows4good
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    No luck. I did everything you said, booted the disk, and ran setup (hd0) and got:

    Error 17: cannot mount selected partition.

    Any other ideas?
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  8. 05-15-2003 #8
    Dolda2000
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    Yeah, I get it. In that case, I'll need to know how you partitioned your hard drive. Especially, I'll need to know the actual partition numbers. You should be able to retrieve that from Windows, but I'm not sure. I bad comes to worse, boot into rescue mode from the Mandrake CD again and run "fdisk -l /dev/hda", and give me the output of that.
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  9. 05-15-2003 #9
    loosewindows4good
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    Ok, I did what you said. I didn't write down everything, like blocks and start and end, if you want them just tell me.

    /dev/hda1 | Dell Utility
    /dev/hda2 | HPFS/NTFS
    /dev/hda3 | Win95 ext'd LBA
    /dev/hda5 | Linux
    /dev/hda6 | Linux Swap
    /dev/hda7 | Win95 FAT32

    Thanks.
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  10. 05-15-2003 #10
    Dolda2000
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    OK, then, use the GRUB boot floppy again, and try this:
    Code:
    root (hd0,4)
setup (hd0)
    That should be able to do it.
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