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Reformatting and Starting Over


Guest thgirblam
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Guest thgirblam

When I installed Mandriva 10.0 I wiped the hardrive clean and only put Linux on this machine. Now I want to go back and do it over as a dual boot system with Win2000, Mandriva, and a couple partitions. I'm having trouble figuring out how to go about this. I originally thought I could just boot into my Win2000 boot disk but I have not been sucessful attempting this and unfortunately I'm a Linux NOOB so I haven't been able to figure out how to do in from there either.

 

Any help getting me going would be greatly appreciated,

 

Mark

 

[moved from Other Linux Distributions by spinynorman]

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Guest thgirblam

Thanks daniewicz,

 

I've read lots of great tutorials for setting up dual boot machines but my problem is that I can't boot into my Win2000 install disc. When I installed Linux previously I reformatted and wiped everything off then only put Mandrake/Mandriva 10.0 on the hardrive. Now I can't boot up from a CD (Windows boot disc or my Mandrake boot disc).

 

I have attempted to change my Bios boot settings to boot from the CD but it still won't boot from the CD - I have checked the CD on other systems and it does boot on them. Is there a setting that needs to be changed in Linux to allow booting from a CD when Linux is the sole OS on the system?

 

Is there a command I can run from a terminal window that will allow me to reformat and run the Windows setup? The oddity here that I'm not able to overcome seems to be that Linux is the only OS on the hardrive.

 

Mark

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Have you tried to boot off a windose boot floppy, the do

fdisk /mbr

assuming you have "fdisk on your floppy, if not you can download it & add it to the floppy. Though in truth you should still be able to boot from any bootable cd regardless of what OS you have installed..

 

HTH

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Though in truth you should still be able to boot from any bootable cd regardless of what OS you have installed

 

I agree. It shouldn't matter what OS is installed. You should be able to boot from the CD. Since there does seem to be a problem, the boot floppy suggestion is a good one.

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Guest thgirblam

This machine is a Pavilion 8560C and I thought I had located the problem after reading THIS THREAD.

 

But after hours of experimenting I am still unable to boot off the CD or the floppy. In fact I now only boot directly into a unix screen with a '192 login:' prompt. It's probably a good thing that I live in a single story home or I probably would throw the unit out the window :wall:

 

Any help at this point is extremely appreciated.

 

Mark

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Are you saying the cd device will not boot anything? This is a hardware issue, and not the software. If you have added an additional cd device, boot from the first cd device in the channel.

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Just to double check... in your bios... is this configured to first boot from CD, then from FLOPPY, then from HD... in that order ? otherwise, it may be going straight to the HD to boot the system it finds there... which in your case, is the UNIX system you have installed.

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I agree, if it will not boot of anyCD with the bios set to boot fro CDrom first. then floppy and finally Hard Drive, as lnxthusdan and scoopy (hi scoopy) say then the problem is hardware. Likely the CDROM drive first and then most likely Mainboard second. If you have a second CD drive ( many people seem to nowdays) then try booting from it and if that still doesn't work then sadly your mainboard may be kaput.

 

John.

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Guest thgirblam

First, thanks to all for your input.

 

Yes, the boot sequence is CD, floppy, then HD and it won't boot anything but the HD. I have tried other configurations as well including disabling the HD from the boot sequence but still can not get it to boot to the floppy or CD.

 

The CD drive was working and accessible prior to my attempting the reinstall of Windows and it also booted from the CD just 2 months ago when I installed Linux. I can mount the Windows boot CD from Linux and view it's contents but I'm not sure how, or if, it can be executed from there.

 

I know s**t happens but I don't understand what could have happened to my motherboard or the CD drive, if what you say about one of them being shot is true. I am at a loss on how to proceed from here.

 

Mark

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Well, the fact is that if you can read the cd, only the beginning sectors need to be available to do that. So, the laser functions, the chip works, and the spin motor works. But, the armiture might not be able to travel; hence, no other function other than reading.

 

I don't think it is the mb since the hard drive is working fine. Well, unless the cdrom is on the other channel. So, open the box, make the cdrom a slave on the same ide channel as the hard drive, and see if it will boot. If it does, then your secondary ide channel is out.

 

I know, none of this is particularly good news. It is a hardware problem.

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Gooday everyone, having read through this thread and done some thinking, I noticed the train of thought to a hardware problem and I agree. However a hardware problem with the CDrom should not affect the ability to boot from a floppy. May I suggest Ixthusdan that you change the order of boot devices and make the floppy the first device and CDrom the second, then use the windows boot floppy. If this fails then yes the floppy drive could be faulty. I most certainly have had a floppy drive go, and a CDRom as well, but not together. The bootable CD could be faulty, and, the floppy drive could be faulty. Check that you can read and write to the floppy, that would tell you if the drive/channel were in good order. If this is the case then it should boot from a floppy. Have you checked the activity lights on the devices as you boot up to see if the bios actually accesses the media? Check the data cables are weel seated on both devices, IE unplug and reconnect them again. I have done this in the past and cured problems similar to yours this way. I hope this helps somewhat.

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