Not to become a burden but...

[robman]

Ok guys, I think I really really really messed up this time. After installing Mandriva, I saw that Fedora was out and my small mind raced to the fact that I had to get the newest kind out there. Well I installed it and everything, but my old boot loader was the Mandriva kind and kept trying to point to Mandriva. At this point I can still boot into Windows. So, I look on google for a little and find something that says will uninstall the problem.

It said to run a boot disk and run fdisk /mbr. Well, Windows deciding that floppy disks are not so hot anymore has discontinued the computers from making boot disks with fdisk on them.

Back to google.

I find a site that has all kinds of boot disks! I think great and download one to put on a floppy. *Restarts computer with floppy in place*

Starts booting..... It says Windows 98. I figure, the MBR could not have changed that much and run fdisk /MBR. Well .5 seconds later the task is finished and the computer is rebooted again.

This time it does not load into Grub! But, it doesn't load into Windows XP either. Or atleast can't. It seems that it loads a little bit and then stops, and reboots. Asks to go into all the modes (normal, safe, command prompt). I have tried them all with the same effect. Uh-oh.

So I move on over to this computer and search google once more. I found a site about a guy with practically the same problem... however, the site wants me to get a membership to see the entire thing. So, I find somewhere else that the XP discs can be used to recover the computer. I boot from the CD and go to recovery. I run fixmbr, and it finishes after a second or two.

*Restarts Computer*

Here's where I am stumped. There are the same results and I am highly afraid that my C drive is toast. This is very bad news. Very bad. Running from the recovery console I can access every drive except C. (Scared now)

Have I contacted Windows? - Yes, through email.
Have I contacted Windows through the telephone? Tried, the wait lines are rediculous.
Will I continue to try and contact Windows? Of course.
Can you guys help me? - Finding out.


Now, I really do not wish to drive you guys insane with my computer problems. I have however done some googling and manual research. I'm thinking by now if anyone can help it's probably you Defcon guys. (and gals)

Respectfully,
Rob

[converge]

Calm yo.

You will need a bootable media that will get you into a terminal. This could be:

) any knoppix disc
) gentoo live disc
) slackware install disc (preferred)
) <insert your favorite distro installer disc that allows a shell>


) Boot your system with it.

) Mount your the system partition that you intend to hold grub or lilo (your fedora root, in this case)

) chroot into the mount.

) Modify your menu.lst or lilo.conf using an editor of your choice, might I recommend a vi equivelant? This would be a good time to modify your line to load Fedora instead of Mandriva

) Load your MBR. Run your appropriate bootloader binary, referencing the proper config file if necessary.

) Reboot.

) Make a sizeable Paypal deposit for chris@defcon.org. No, that is not me. You will discover, however, that paying homage to Chris has a similar effect to praying to Joe Pesci; sometimes even better results.

[robman]

Ok I'll try and do the best I can with this. Thanks for the input.

On the donating subject- Well.... I'm not sure who really does run this defcon, but I wouldn't mind making a donation to that once I get to use these forums a little more. So far these forums have been a fountain of education.

[robman]

Ok, I am getting warmer. I have the drive mounted, but there is no menu.lst or lilo.conf file. I do not have a floppy drive on this computer (I know big mistake), but I could get a friend to make one I'm sure. Do I need to find a file on the internet named like those and put them on that drive?

[TheCotMan]

Ok, I am getting warmer. I have the drive mounted, but there is no menu.lst or lilo.conf file. I do not have a floppy drive on this computer (I know big mistake), but I could get a friend to make one I'm sure. Do I need to find a file on the internet named like those and put them on that drive?

How has your progress in joining a local Linux User Group as suggested from your last tech support thread faired?

Linux bootloaders can be installed in a variety of locations. If you have a primary master disk, common linux installers will install to /dev/hda or /dev/hda# where "#"= the partition containing the root filesystem.

If you choose to uninstall Linux on a dual-booting system, and you are using lilo as a bootmanager, then check the man page on how to have lilo "uninstall itself" from the system before you abandon that linux system. (This is true, even if switching to a new Linux Distro-- it is safer than not doing it.) Same goes for grub. You can tell each to uninstall and return the MBR back to the way it was before you added Linux.
However, if you blew away your Linux install, then the backup file created by lilo (and probably grub) is lost.

If you have MS-DOS, Windows 95, 98 or ME, then booting from the floppy disk (or bootable CD if there was one) for the install disk permits use of
C:> fdisk /mbr

But this is not the same for MS windows NT, 2k, XP and later. They "boot differently" and use a different tool to fix the MBR, and it is part of the utilities on the CD for 2k and XP, IIRC.

On the plus side, it is good that you are working to solve this problem on your own. That is good.

Back to my question, how has your search for a Linux user group progressed?

[AlxRogan]

If you have a functioning install of Fedora, any version, boot your disc 1.

At the boot: prompt type, 'linux rescue' minus the quotes.

Answer the questions, no to network unless you need it, yes to search/mount your linux partitions. If you are lucky, and your partition tables are intact, it will mount your / filesystem under /mnt/sysimage.

At your # prompt, type 'chroot /mnt/sysimage', then type 'grub-install /dev/hda' if you are using IDE drives, and you only have one drive. If you use SCSI, it will be /dev/sda. If you are booting from slave drives, etc, it goes hda, hdb, hdc, etc...

If all goes well, and your /boot/grub/menu.lst is in good shape, you should be able to reboot and get to your GRUB boot screen. From there you need to have an entry to boot your windows partition. I haven't multi-booted in a while, but you should be able to Google 'dual-boot windows grub' and find your answer.

Good luck

[robman]

Yes well,
It seems I should become a little more familiar with these things, because a lot of these words are flying by fast. On the topic of the linux user group. I looked it up and there are a few in the local area (mostly colleges). However, being young (15) I do not have any modes of transportation and would not make it to any meetings really.

I believe the bootloaders (I use "s" because I've tried lilo and grub) were both installed into the MBR. The problem is that I rewrote the MBR with the fdisk program. That would be hda1.

As mentioned, XP does in fact boot differently, but I tried using fixmbr from the CD.

As for reading about uninstalling the bootloader before uninstalling the linux system - wish I knew that before. I searched awhile on how to uninstall Mandriva, but all that came up on google was the packages Mandriva came with and how "user-friendly" it is. I winded up just deleting the partitions. (I heard from a friend afterwards that this is bad.)

So maybe this will help solve my puzzle- when I installed Fedora, the installation for the bootloader came up with something like "No kernel was found. Bootloader will not be changed." (something like that) I was attempting to install it on the MBR. The reason I did this was because I didn't think that a bootloader on the second hard drive second partition would work. (This was the other choice of installation).

As of now I will initiate AlxRogan's idea. I will report back on how I fair. Thanks so far with the help. I can't explain how much more helpful this all is than Microsoft.

[robman]

Seems as though I am inches away now. I got to the shell, gave both commands and got an error on the second.

/dev/hdb2 does not have any corresponding BIOS drive.

Should I install grub to hdb2?

Or does this have something to do with the BIOS? (probably a stupid question)



I'll be searching google until I have something good to say. And thanks for the luck :)

[converge]

I think the problem you're having is that you're installing to the root partition of the drive and not the master boot record. You should be installing to /dev/hda. Loading specific partitions is only important if you are trying to chroot into the actual system to fix it from there.

[robman]

I nominate Microsoft to Fucktard Hall.

I sent them an email about how I can not boot into Windows and the whole situation. Their response was to boot into Windows to get them my PID key.

Where does the stupidity end?

[Second]

I nominate Microsoft to Fucktard Hall.

I sent them an email about how I can not boot into Windows and the whole situation. Their response was to boot into Windows to get them my PID key.

Where does the stupidity end?

Details on submitting someone/something are here. Sorry to hear about your Windows troubles.

[astcell]

...Windows troubles.

Ah, another redundant statement!

[Gadsden]

Ah, another redundant statement!

Like the oxymoron of "Microsoft Works"..