Booting Linux 7.3

**sanabrialuis** · 01-09-2003

I'm new to Linux and just installed RedHat's 7.3 in a second HDD "E". There is nothing else on that drive and I'm booting with a floppy.

My problem is that every time I defrag my "C" drive; which has W2000 Pro; I cannot boot Linux; even with the floppy. I get a message saying that my SUPERBOOT is corrupt or that it cannot be read.

Please help!!! I want to learn more about Linux.

Thanks, Luis

**Dolda2000** · 01-09-2003

Are you saying that you can actually see your linux partition as E: in Windows, or did I get you wrong? In that case you must have used the wrong filesystem, since Windows can't read ext3.
What is your hard drive and partition layout, and what filesystems (FAT, NTFS, ext3, etc.) have you used on them. Where are they mounted in linux?

**wassy121** · 01-09-2003

he is defragging over his MBR. Forget how to fix this besides booting from floppy, and reformatting the MBR with `lilo` or `grub-install /dev/hda` And I don't even know if those will work.

**Dolda2000** · 01-09-2003

Defragging over his MBR?! But that cannot possibly be possible?!

**wassy121** · 01-10-2003

you would be suprised what Windows will let you do. Maybe it isn't the MBR I am thinking of, maybe I am thinking of bootloader. He might have loadlin or something that loads it from a dos partition. I don't use windows, haven't in years, but I seem to remember reading something about this.

**Dolda2000** · 01-10-2003

Now that you mention it, I recall that while my friend installed win98 as part of a dual boot system (he already had linux on the box), the installation reinitialized the MBR with microsoft's boot loader. I find that interesting, since it shouldn't care about the MBR when it's just installed on a partition... I assume it is something like the deal they have with OEMs; "you can have the windows licenses much cheaper if you only install windows on your computers"...
Say what you will, but I've heard rumors that such things are illegal.

**majorwoo** · 01-10-2003

that is correct, installing windows will overwrite the MBR with misrorsofts boot loader crap, NT/2k/XP do it, i believe 98 does a slightly different version of it, possibly because it doesn't have the built in "show a list of OS's installed" (as long as they are microsoft)

**Dolda2000** · 01-10-2003

That "as long as they are microsoft" shows another piece of arrogance from microsoft, one which I really despise. Most other O/Ss usually have a lot of compatibility options for other O/Ss (linux literally overflows of them, MacOS has some, and I imagine others have similar options). Windows has (or at least had, I haven't found it in XP) some half-hearted support for NetWare compatibility, but other than that they haven't cared for a second about other O/Ss. I recall that NT4 was supposed to have a "UNIX compatibility layer", but it seems it never came about. It has always been that other O/Ss have had to have Microsoft compatibility for them to work together in a network.
I don't know if they've changed their behaviour about this, but somehow I doubt it.

**majorwoo** · 01-11-2003

no they havent - and it doesn't appear that they will. Honestly they have never really had to, with 94% of the market you can be arrogant, uncaring, and many other things - and get away with it. When that number drops low enough, then we may see some changes in their practices, but i seriously doubt anything will happen until then.

This new XP (and similar) licensing scheme may have been the last straw for Microsoft, sure they will stick around - but im hoping for the beginning of the end (admittedly a long one)

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