Hi, first of all I am grateful to everybody who took time to suggest solutions to my problem with booting to windows after LM installation. Finally I found a solution. Here is how: First, the worst part of the problem was that I could not even boot with a floppy disk. So no way to restore mbr with windows startup disk and fdisk. I could not even boot from CD-ROM, it just hangs when trying to read from hard disk. I checked from linux that I do not have any overlapping partitions. The problem was elsewhere. I had partitioned my disk with DOS fdisk with one partition and three logical drives. When installing linux I deleted (using the graphical interface of LM install) the last of these logical drives and setup linux and swap there. My guess is that when trying to boot to windows from /dev/hda1 it somehow tries to verify that the extended partition created using DOS fdisk is not tampered with. I rebooted with linux bootdisk, run fdisk and removed all the partitions in the extended partition, including /dev/hda2, ending up with only /dev/hda1 which contains windows system. After that I could boot with a floppy disk and restore mbr with fdisk /mbr. Now I will try installing linux on primary partition made by linux fdisk. Again, thank you all for suggesting ways out. regards. Ercan Solak On 10/12/2000 - 17:40, Mark Weaver wrote: > Ercan, > > I'm curious. Have you tried using your windows startup disk, booting to an > A: prompt, navigating to C:windows and then typing "win" <ENTER> on the > command line yet? If you haven't give this a try and if you can windows > started this way see if you can determine with scandisk what has happened > to your FAT table and if there is any damage to your partition > table. That's what it sounds like is going on. > > If that doesn't work...boot your computer using the windows CDROM setup > disk, insert your windows CD into the CDROM and reinstall windows down > over top of the Already existing windows installation. This will not harm > your data in anyway, nor will it change your partition info. All it will > do is refresh your system information and repair any damage that may > exist. I'm betting though that your partition tables and or your FAT > tables have been damaged some how. You may even want to try running > scandisk from a DOS prompt when you boot with the windows start disk > first before you do anything else. This may find the problem and fix it. > > Let me know how you make out. > > -- > Mark > > ...Larry isn't a cucumber. He's a PICKLE... > ...WITH WARTS! > Surprisingly on Thu, 12 Oct 2000 Ercan Solak had this to say! > > > > > Hi bascule, > > > > I tried removing the line you mentioned in lilo.conf and when I run lilo > > it complained about having a large disk and such stuff and adviced I put > > the line back so I did. Anyway thanks for answering. > > > > regards. > > > > On Wed, 11 Oct 2000, bascule wrote: > > > > >hi, i'm no expert but i noticed in your lilo.conf the line 'lba32'if > > >this refers to what i think it does you might try leaving this out, i > > >think it refers to some sort of hard drive optimisation and although it > > >may only affect the booting of linux and have nothing to do with windows > > >i can't see the harm in trying, if i'm talking rubbish i'm sure some > > >soul will jump in and educate us both! > > > > > >bascule > > > > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > >> > > >> Hello, > > >> > > >> just installed LM-7.1 in automatic installation mode, installation went >smoothly (as implied by the term "automatic") but after I reboot I noticed that I had >some problems ranging from desperate to minor. I have been reading previous archives >for two days and after trying suggested methods and failing I decided to post this >one. Thanks for your patience and answers. > > >> > > >> Before I installed LM-7.1 I had a system running Win98-SE and a harddisk (20 >GB) with 1 primary (5 GB) partition and 3 logical drives in the extended partition >(each about 5 GB). During the installation I removed the partition corresponding to >the last logical drive and installed linux and swap partitions instead. Now after >installation I have the following problems. > > >> > > >> 1. After I reboot the machine LILO asks which OS to boot, when I choose windows >it just hangs while the HDD redlight remains on. Linux boots normal, though. Somebody >suggested using DOS' fdisk /mbr but I can not boot the machine from startup floppy >either. From linux I can access windows partitions and seems there is no data loss in >them. In short, LM (or LILO) does not permit me in anyway to boot to win98. In >desperation, I did a reinstall of LM but it did not work. This one is my most urgent >problem. How can I bring my WIN98 back? > > >> > > >> I attached my lilo.conf file and the output from fdisk -l > zzz > > >> > > >> 2. Less urgent; I have a monitor LG 795FT Plus, video card Creative VANTA 16 >MB, and sound card Creative Vibra 128. How can I get linux to detect those devices? >Currently I can use 1280x1024 16bpp resolution but I know it is able to give true >color even in higher resolutions. It detects sound card as es1371, videocard as RIVA >TNT2 and monitor as SVGA high-frequency. How can I get linux to correctly recognize >my hardware configuration? > > >> > > >> Any help is greatly appreciated. > > >> > > >> Ercan Solak > > >> > > >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > > >> Name: lilo.conf > > >> lilo.conf Type: unspecified type (APPLICATION/OCTET-STREAM) > > >> Encoding: BASE64 > > >> Description: lilo.conf > > >> > > >> Name: zzz > > >> zzz Type: unspecified type (APPLICATION/OCTET-STREAM) > > >> Encoding: BASE64 > > >> Description: zzz > > > > > > > > > > Ercan Solak > > ----------- > > Electrical Eng. Dept., Bilkent University, 06533 Ankara, Turkey. > > [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.ee.bilkent.edu.tr/~ercan > > phone : 90-312-290 2618 > > > > > > > > > >
