Cannonfodder

Because its there! Whooo! Been thinking of trying some new distros for a change..

I'm not gonna make any mental master*ion jokes here :)

You can check here...

http://www.bootdisk.com/

Are you going with the lilo default settings when installing? Should be hda? If not, use the default..

Welcome :)

Sure, its pretty obvious what happened..

When you installed Windows, it took the very first sector of your hard drive and turned it into a MBR, a Master Boot Record. This MBR has information for your computer to read when it is turned on. The information tells your computer where to locate, on the hard drive, the partition that contains the boot loader program.

The boot loader program is a program that allows you to have more than one OS on your computer and it has information on each OS and how to load it. You are presented with a menu so you can select the OS you want to enter. If you only have one OS, you might not even see the boot loader (depends on the OS).

When you installed Mandrake Linux, the MBR is overwritten by Linux's version of the MBR so that it points to the linux partition that has the boot loader for linux. This is called LILO. The MBR will run LILO and LILO will help you pick the OS you want to enter, either Windows or Linux.

However, if you were to unexpectedly throw away the partition that contains the boot loader, in this case, LILO, the MBR does not know what to do as it can't find the boot loader.

So what you need to do is fix the MBR. There are several ways..

1. If you can find a DOS boot floppy with the fdisk.exe program on it, you can boot off of the floppy and type

fdisk /mbr

2. You can reinstall Mandrake and restore the boot loader, LILO. After you install it, you can boot into linux and open a terminal and type

lilo -U

When LILO installs, it makes a copy of the older MBR and saves it. When you type LILO -U it restores it. This would have been the correct way to remove Linux. Do this first and then destroy the partitions for linux.

Check out this post in our FAQ section..

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=5082

Mostly a rainy day project :) Just kidding.. Check out some of the other wine variants. You can also buy crossover which is a more professional version of wine..

When you ran the installer, did yiou just go with the default settings for lilo? If not, just run the installer again and go with the defaults. Sounds like you did because you mentioned /hda.

The best way to boot with CD1 (in case you are doing something different) is to

1. Boot off of CD1.

2. Hit F1 at the first screen

3. Type rescue at the prompt.

At this point you have the menu. Try selecting the option to mount your drives or partitions. Then go to a console (another option) and type

chroot /mnt

Does this work? If so, it means you may be able to manually run your lilo.

Type

lilo

and look for any error messages. If none, then reboot. It should mention something like

Adding Linux

Adding Windows XP

If this doesn't work because you get errors or due to a reboot and back to LI then let us know.

You can also attempt another install and see how it goes..

You might just have to configure the firewall to allow it.. you can check out anonymous servers to test your firewall. You hae to go through their proxy so its like you are calling from work...

I haven't done it, but the answer is yes. The interface is web based so that means that you should be able to access it from anywhere. If it doesn't work, then you proabaly have a firewall issue. The interface rquires a password too for security.

They got back to me last night so we are giving it another shot.. the cpanel options look awesome! Everything from cron jobs to email..

Start with BIOS and make sure all the hard drives are connected. Hit the escape key if you have a DELL or some other brand graphic image in the way. This will show you the devices as they mount.

Then best bet is to use the CD1 method..

Additionally you can do this from a console by booting and then mounting partitions and then Go to Console (terminal).

At this point, you can type

chroot /mnt

lilo

Look at the messages. If lilo gives you errors then that has to be resolved. You can see a graphical representation of your partitions by rebooting with CD1 and doing the installation process. Go to custom partitioning and stop and look at it. Make sure something you might of recently done didn't adjust the partition designators. E.g. hdb2 became hdb1. If this happens, then lilo can't find the correct location and has to be updated (use vi) to make it correct. When ready, run the lilo command.

Make home your last partition so if you decide to try sharing you can eventually delete it..

Also, I generally put all of the partitions in an extended partition so I don't have to worry about the 4 primary partition limit..

Probably the only thing you would share as you said is the swap.

When you get to custom partitioning you can click autoconfigure and it will ask you if you want an /usr partition. Say yes and it will make them for you. Then you can write down the approx size, mount point, name of each one, remove them individually and recreate to the exact size you want.

So far this is not good. I did the registration last night and could immediately get into the ftp site. But never received an email and this morning can't get to the ftp site. They have not responded to my email from this morning.. Don't know if the registration process failed or what?

Should do custom partitioning so you are in control of what happens.

We have a faq on dual booting (written by yours truly) at

http://www.mandrakeusers.org/index.php?showtopic=5082

I would make my installation independant of Lycoris so that you can remove it or what not. Go with the Mandrake LILO install. You can always boot into Lycoris and restore its lilo boot manager.

Went with Steve's host site ... lets see how they do :)

Regarding vnc, just remember to set the 8-bit mode and then speed is not so much an issue..

I've been using tightvnc to read my email on my home desktop. Kinda simple because its just one box with an email client and I'm just viewing it. If you play around with it, tightvnc has an option called 8-bit that will dramatically speed up transmission. You can run it at work with startup parameters so you don't have to set the settings each time.

"ldm_validate_partition table(): Disk read failed"

Don't think you can ignore this..

Do the install again, and when you get to the partitioning screen, select custom. There should be a clear button for clearing your partition table. You can also try getting a utility floppy from the hard drive manufactorer to do disk drive checking. Then click auto configure to let Mandrake make partitions for you.

Might want to consider getting a faster machine. Make your linux experience more fun. They are cheap enough nowadays..

If you have free partition space anywhere you can switch usr to it.. Just update your fstab to point to it.. Another possibility is to make a usr folder in one of your big partitions and point fstab to that. No reason a partition can't support several fstab entries. Third option is to simply redo everything now that you have a better idea of how big the partitions should be. Plus a chance to upgrade to reiserfs if you want it.. More options are available I'm sure..

Have you been keeping an eye on processes? E.g. a cron job that replicates and snails your computer?

What's your /etc/lilo.conf file say? Does it match what you think it should be? Run the installer and do a custom install and stop at the partitioning screen. What does it look like? Is your lilo.conf stating lilo is on /hdb for example, when its now on hda? The bootloader has to be able to find the vmlinuz. Check your /etc/fstab file, does it look right? So on... :)

Something to do with backups, take a peek at

man mount