Damnation

Solved: Boot problem solved

Thanx for all your help!

o and i did just reformat my C partition the rest of my windows drive was never touched. just my gf saved all her files in my documents. wish i knew about fixmbr a few days ago : o(

just installed mandrake 10.1 again and it failed

L0707070707 all down the screen

did the repair thing in windows took ages because i hit the wrong repair. but when i got to the right i typed "fixmbr" and vola mbr fixed. i did that repair thing in mandrake cd 1 f1 blah blah, failed i did try that it just didn't sort the problem.

please help me resolve this issue i have no idea what the hell is up with this.

i want to use linux, but i need windows on my system because

A: i dont' know linux well enough yet

B: currently i have the internet thought windows

C: College requires i use windows, because of various microsoft features.

but please any help with this issue, just so i can get both working will be great.

thank you to all that have helped so far!

ok i have updated my bios, was a lil scared just incase i flashed it and boom it messes up and i need a new comp a dell is a pita, only certain mobos work in it. ( building a new pc at end of year)

basically, why did i change jumpers?

Simple had windows xp pro installed working for months, had been removing services and optimizing it the best i could based on guides found on the internet,

finally get a copy of linux, i had been told mandrake was the best and most supported, and had most of the functionality of pritty much all the distros.

i installed linux to my second hd jumpers set to slave.

install went fine i am thinking yay, linux (after using it i fell in love (used Move i think in college)) install works. computer starts booting, dell screen shows, bar loads and bam, where i should see either windows Xp or the linux boot loader. i see L070707070707 all down the screen.

i couldn't fix it i did try rescue mode and restore windows mbr or whatever. but that didn't work. so i had to wipe C: and reinstall windows.

i am going to reinstall linux shortly as i have updated my bios that was 2 years old and perhaps that may have been the problem.

but i was getting frustrated at the fact so many people had got this working, and the fact i had been through so many tutorials for it and all failed. + my modem being a pita and not working on linux(i found some OLD source code for it released by dell for redhat it refused to install "storage size of modem unknown". i have now ordered this modem should be here in a day or so Modem

unfortunatly a cheaper one i had found the stock has been late comming in and i can't be waiting for a month, just to hear its now obsolete (i picked that modem because it stats in its specification that it works with linux)

now i am going to reinstall linux. if this fails, i will have to reinstall windows once more. but this time i have taken some browser precautions all bookmarks stored on a partition that won't be wiped, and this time my gfs stuff to (my god did i get an ear bashing, you lost my drawings i did in paint the look me ages (a stick figure saying xxx sucks xxxx) meh anyways wish me luck!

my bios ooo now dell 4550 2 years i should proberly update : oX i shall do that later now the partiton problem.

Windows C E F G H I

Linux (in windows terms) J K L M N

C = windows root

E = swap

J = linux root

K = swap

ok, i have beentackling for this the past few days,

the best one i have found so far was to

install windows, switch linux to master install linux. then windows is in the boot menu but theres no boot record when i click it.

i read about 8gb~ problem. so i shrunk my windows to 7.9gb partiton.

and i re-instally windows then linux.

i installed the boot loader to /dev/hda

now this is the windows hd because it is the master this time.

and i get

L0707070707070707070707

so i switch to grub and get GRUB

let me explain my pc layout

hda (hd1) = windows, partitioned ((windows,7.9gb), (swap, 5.xgb),(4 other areas of about 25gb each))

hdb (hd2) = Linux, paritioned((root, 5gb), (swap, 4gb), (3 other areas usr,var,home, various sizes)

i want to be able to boot from whateva os i like instead of have to switch jumpers in my hd's just so i can boot into a diff os.

please help me setup dual booting with windows xp and mandrake 10.1

i can wipe linux and the windows partition as much as need but swap + 4 areas of the win hd i can't touch.

Thanx!