Total noob w/ ERROR 13 issue

[XCESSIVE]

Ok, so here's what happened.

I have Xp and Linux on seperate partitions and am aparently using GNU GRUB v 0.97.

Xp crashed. The "Vaio recovery" came on my laptop, and 10% through i realized it was trying to revamp my hard drive, so I canceled it.

I know next to nothing about PC's (I'm a law student, not an engineer). I'd like to know if there is any way to recover some of my files prior to running the restoration program which destroys all of my data.

When I try to boot in windows I get
" Booting windows
chainloader (hd0,1)+1
Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format"

I can boot linux witout a problem (because its not a piece of crap like windows); however, when I go into linux I can see the "windows" directory but there is nothing there except for an empty "c."

any thoughts or suggestions?

Thank you for your time and please again keep in mind you will have to walk me through step by step since I have not had to deal with anything outside of a windows user interface since the early 90's.

[jmadero]

what do you mean you see an empty c? Like you can access the partition (the Operating System) but it is completely empty?

Do this really quick

in a terminal do this command

sudo fdisk -l

then post the results

then do the following
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list (if you use KDE you'll have to use kate instead of gedit)

Post here

[XCESSIVE]

ok i typed it in once and it asked for the roots password then said sudo:fdisk: command not found?

tried doing it again and nothing. ?

[XCESSIVE]

ALso when I put the sudo gedit string it says

(gedit 3690) gtk warning: cannot open display.

I am doing this all throught he black screen when you choose the linux failsafe mode. Should I be doing it from another prompt?

[jmadero]

why are you going in that mode? Everything should be able to work with your graphics interface up. With fdisk it's

sudo fdisk -l

not sudo:fdisk

[gogalthorp]

instead of sudo type (note Suse does not normally use sudo though it is available if you set it up)

su
then the root password (note this does not echo to the screen!)

this will make you temporarily root.

then type
fdisk -l

this will list all the partitions.

Also there is no source.lst file on Suse at least if you use KDE

[XCESSIVE]

Disk /dev/sda: 60.0 GB, 60011642880 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 7296 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 784 6297448+ 12 Compaq diagnostics
/dev/sda2 * 785 3763 23928817 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda3 3764 7296 28378822+ f W95 Ext'd (LBA)
/dev/sda5 3764 3859 771088+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 3860 5165 10490413+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 5166 7296 17117226 83 Linux

[jmadero]

good to go, I'm helping him through chat so should be clear