Mandrake bootloader.. i screwed up my xp partition?

I attempted installing Mandrake 10.31 COmmunity on my hp pavilion a250n


2.6 ghz
120 gig hd
512 mb ram


i installed Mandrake on my d: drive (hp recovery drive)
and installed the bootloader on the root partition

heres where the problems start, then i installed it again (not sure why, it was 4 am) and this time chose on MBR, thinking it was the same option.

so i fired up Mandrake, runs great
but when i choose windows in LILO all i get is a blank screen with a blinking cursor and constant short beeps

now i checked the partition manager in the mandrake cd and my c: partition shows up: ntfs, mnt/windows , c: drive


the problem is i cant see if its just my mbr bc i never got an xp disc, is there any way i can fix this?

i asked around and was told to post here and to say that the bootloader messed up my xp partition mapping..

any help is great!

Thanks,
Kyle Williams

Is windows installed on the first part of the disk?
is so, go into boot menu in MCC and make sure windows is set to HDA1

can you mount the win_c partition? does it show the files?
if so. thats a good sign...

also please post the result of these command (as root)

Code:

---

cat /etc/lilo.config
and
cat fdisk -l

---

here are the results of an fdisk list
fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 120.0 GB, 120060444672 bytes
16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 232632 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 9240 4656928+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda2 * 9241 232605 112575960 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda5 1 7984 4023873 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 7985 9240 632992+ 82 Linux swap

and my grub menu (now using grub from a floppy):
timeout 10
color black/cyan yellow/cyan
default 0

title linux
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda6 splash=silent vga=788
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title linux-nonfb
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 devfs=nomount acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda6
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title failsafe
kernel (hd0,4)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda5 failsafe acpi=ht resume=/dev/hda6 devfs=nomount
initrd (hd0,4)/boot/initrd.img

title windows
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

yes i can see my windows files under mnt/windows/
they seem to be fine, move files and documents all work
I've been told my problem is from not having ntfs as the first partition

again thanks for the help!

Kyle Williams

If not mistaken, your windows entry shouldnt be hd0 since its not on the primary partition...

try with hd1 as your NTFS parition is the second on IDE 1

I'm sorry, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking me to do... I'm new to linux so I need the step by step if possible

Kyle Williams

Ok first things first
if you mount the /mnt/windows can you see the content?

Ugo,
yes, all the files are visible and seem to be fine (opened up a few windows doc's and simpsons ep's)

is there an IRC channel we can get on to get this done in real time?

ok, try mofying your /etc/lilo.conf file with this

You currently have this in your file

Quote:

---

title windows
root (hd0,1)
chainloader +1

---

try with this

Code:

---

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

---

Ugo

im using grub, so i edited
/boot/grub/menu.list
when i load grub it shows xp instead of windows now, but it still just loads a blank screen with a blinking cursor

also, i got a hold of a windows xp disk, when i attempt a "boot from cd" the screen goes blank and nothing happens, i tested it on a different xp machine and it goes right into the set up

Look at this
It may helps... My knowledge on grub and lilo is limited... as I never really had a problem...

But the fact that nothings happening on the windows partition is probly a "windows issue"
if you put the cd into the drive and boot, choose CDROM as first boot device in BIOS and look if you can get into the setup of windows... (simply to see)

also you said you have a black screen... "no input" can you type simple dos command?
can you try to cd into directory or its simply dead