A few questions

[Guest ThePainter]

A couple of simple questions.

 

I have Mandrake 9.2 CD.

 

I am running XP Home and would like to dual boot.

 

I have tired to install it in the past but I was new to computers and decided to take it out because I was confused

When I took it out it left the boot menu, on my hard drive and I had to format my HD to get it back to normal. is there another way to remove this from within XP or Mandrake if I want to remove it again ?

 

The other question is if I boot into Mandrake can I access my other partitions which are NTFS format and are holding all my other files , MP3,.avi,.mpg,.pdf,.jpg,.gif etc. and will I be able to use these files from within Mandrake?

 

Thanks for your help.

I want to switch but I do so much in XP I am frightened that I wont be able to do the same in Mandrake, I have just found this forum and I hope it can help me do the switch.

[devries]

I believe you can use the Windows XP CD to remove Lilo/Grub and restore windows default. Have never tried it though.

 

Mandrake can safely read NTFS partitions. But I think you would be better of never writing anything to it.

[arctic]

Hi painter.

 

I don't use mdk9.2 (I have 10), but I think this shouldn't be any different.

First of all, when you install mandrake, it sets up the lilo or grub bootloader that enables you to start either win or linux. This is all done automatically. So no problem there. If you want to remove the bootloader, insert the mandrake-install disk (at least in mdk10) and when you select advanced options, you can remove the lilogrub again, thus restoring the hd to the way it was before.

 

Linux can usually read and write on all other partitions. At least I have never encountered any problems in some dual-boot machines that had xp+linux or win98+linux.

[SteveAmbrose]

Hello Painter,

 

When I took it out it left the boot menu, on my hard drive and I had to format my HD to get it back to normal. is there another way to remove this from within XP or Mandrake if I want to remove it again ?

Yes, there is a way to remove the "boot menu" as you call it. If you have a windows98 boot disk laying around, you can boot your machine with the floppy, then type the command: fdisk /mbr. This will re-write your master boot record and allow you a normal XP boot up.

 

If you do not have a windows98 boot disk laying around, see my post. Go to section 4 and it will explain in detail on how to get a bootable floppy with the utilities to re-write your master boot record. Read section 4 and 5. The only thing you need to do is to follow the directions for making an XP boot disk, adding the file called efdisk.exe(explained in the post) and then booting the machine with the floppy, and finally typing the command: efdisk /mbr.

 

As for your second question:

The other question is if I boot into Mandrake can I access my other partitions which are NTFS format and are holding all my other files , MP3,.avi,.mpg,.pdf,.jpg,.gif etc. and will I be able to use these files from within Mandrake?

Yes, you can access your XP file system from within Mandrake. You will find your XP files under the directory /mnt/c_windows or something very similar.

 

One word about the XP files and Linux. XP uses the NTFS file system. This means that you can read the files but will not be able to write to the files. One suggestion is to make a partition with a fat32 file system and store files that you want to interact with between the 2 systems in that partion. That way you can edit from either operating system.

 

Welcome to linux and a very helpful site for Mandy users.

 

Regards, Steve

Edited July 6, 2004 by SteveAmbrose

[Ixthusdan]

Just a note to all, use the Mandrake boot cd to restore the mbr. Windex tools do not work right. You may end up fudging you installation. Use linux to fix linux. Windex only works with itself. The exception would be a good utility like Partition Magic, which of course is useful for various os's.

[SteveAmbrose]

Maybe I was not understanding what he was asking.

 

Thought he/she is wanting to know if windows boot record could be fixed if linux was deleted.

 

Clarification: To fix the master boot record (mbr) to boot windows after deleting linux, you can follow my above advise. If you are trying to restore Linux, use Mandrake boot disk/cdrom

 

Sorry if I was unclear. Answered the post way past my old bones bed time

 

Regards, Steve

Edited July 6, 2004 by SteveAmbrose

[Cannonfodder]

If you are "planning" to remove Mandrake, then you can try this.. (easy way)..

 

1. Boot into Mandrake as you normally do.

2. Open a console (terminal?)

3. Type SU and enter followed by the root password.

4. Now type

 

lilo -U

 

-U means to uninstall lilo and restore the previous boot loader.

 

Then..

 

5. Reboot

6. Boot into the Mandrake CD1. Start the installation just as you did the first time (trust me ;) )

7. When you get to the screen where you can select Custom Partitioning, select Custom.

8. Use the tools to delete the linux partitions that were made. Be careful not to delete your windows partitions.

 

Basically, the beginning of the hard drive has a sector that contains information on where the LILO or boot program is located. In this case, the sector (called the Master Boot Record) points to your linux root partition. When you deleted the partition before with out uninstalling lilo, it pointed to nothing and just hangs up. By uninstalling lilo, you restore the master boot record to its prior configuration which points to the first partition on the hard drive (contains windows).