Messed up boot scenario [solved]

[fuego]

Hi.

 

I have just put mandriva on my PC. I already have it running dual boot on my laptop and now have installed it on the big beast too.

 

However I can´t get back to windows anymore. I have a strange setup I know but I don really want to reformat right now.

 

Before installing Mandriva I had 3 win partitions on a single 80 Gb drive.

1) c

2)e

3)f

 

then I made e smaller and put a new partion in between e and f.

1)c

2)e

3)empty

4)f

 

then I installed mandriva. This appeared to go smoothly and I have it running nicely at present. Besides a little crashing from firefox, my nvidia card limiting my display to 1024x768 and few other annoying bugs. Itś fantastic.

 

But after the party I do need to go back to my windows. So I tried to go back and it complains about no ntldr. But I also notice that my partitions on my drive are actually the opposite way round to what I thought. i.e.

1)f

2)mandriva

3)e

4)c

 

So I am lost in how to get windows back online. I tried changing the hd value in the boot.ini strings but no luck.

Can anyone explain this bizarre hd setup??

 

fuego

[scarecrow]

Your /etc/lilo.conf and /etc/fstab files, please?

Other than that- how much RAM do you have? Running Linux without a swap partition isn't a very good idea if you don't have at least 512MB of RAM.

Edited April 22, 2006 by scarecrow

[Ixthusdan]

You have done one of two things, just off the top of my head: you made the so-called windows "f" partition active, which is why windows wants to boot from there, or you have changed the partition boot order in some other way.

 

Boot loaders do not alter these things in and of themselves. Windows must think that it is on the primary boot partition and that it is alone in the world. But I have some more questions as well.

How do you know that windows has reversed its partition order? How are you seeing it? I highly recommend that you use hardware nomenclature, such as linux/unix, so that we all can really understand your hard drive layout. Windows does not always represent real hardware. linux does. Which partitions are primary? Which are extended? Windows cannot tell this, but linux can.

[fuego]

# File generated by DrakX/drakboot
# WARNING: do not forget to run lilo after modifying this file

default="linux"
boot=/dev/hdc4
map=/boot/map
keytable=/boot/us-intl.klt
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
prompt
nowarn
timeout=100
message=/boot/message
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux"
root=/dev/hdc4
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="acpi=ht splash=silent"
vga=788
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="linux-nonfb"
root=/dev/hdc4
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="splash=silent acpi=ht"
other=/dev/hdc1
label="windows"
table=/dev/hdc
other=/dev/hdc2
label="windows1"
table=/dev/hdc
other=/dev/hdc3
label="windows2"
table=/dev/hdc
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label="failsafe"
root=/dev/hdc4
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append="failsafe splash=silent acpi=ht"

 

# This file is edited by fstab-sync - see 'man fstab-sync' for details
/dev/hdc4 / ext2 defaults 1 1
/dev/hda /mnt/cdrom auto umask=0,user,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850,noauto,ro,exec,users 0 0
none /mnt/floppy supermount dev=/dev/fd0,fs=ext2:vfat,--,umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,sync,codepage=850 0 0
/dev/hdc1 /mnt/win_c ntfs umask=0,nls=iso8859-15,ro 0 0
/dev/hdc2 /mnt/win_d ntfs umask=0,nls=iso8859-15,ro 0 0
/dev/hdc3 /mnt/win_e vfat umask=0,iocharset=iso8859-15,codepage=850 0 0
none /proc proc defaults 0 0

[Ixthusdan]

Your windows primary partition is the first partition on your hard drive, which is currently the Secondary master. Your cdrom is located on the primary master. The Master Boot Record is correctly listed on hdc, which is your only hard drive. The only partitions that will boot is "windows". Neither "windows1" or "windows2" will boot. This all looks OK. Actually, I would remove the other partitions from lilo since they can't boot anything. Are you only using hdc1?

[fuego]

Update!!! - not solved

 

Ok so now I have found a way into windows. I had to choose the windows 2 option of my three windows options on lilo boot menu. Then I am able to boot win. But now windows is only seeing the one partition that it resides on. The other two win partitions are still viewable in Linux but not on win.

 

 

okay for the nomenclature:

as far as I can tell from how mandriva reports things the drive is as follows

i - hdc1 - NTFS and is readable in linux but not win. USED TO BE E:

ii - hdc2 - NTFS same as above.USED TO BE F:

iii - hdc3 - vfat Can boot this drive in win USED TO BE C: and still is.

iv - hdc4 - / Works fine

 

Sorry if I have missed anything, I am still fairly new to all this.

All I need to do now is get win to pick up the two disks it dropped (hdc1 hdc2) but maybe I have to switch to a win forum for help there?

[Ixthusdan]

I think what has happened here is that you took a primary boot partition and made an extended partition into it. Normally not a problem unless you are working with windows. Windows should be by itself in its own partition, with nothing else extended from it. That is why it is not "seeing" the other partitions. It assumes it is first primary and cannot look backwards. You may have to move the data to the desired partition, hdc1, and then make it a boot partition so that windows boots. Then, windows will see both of the other partitions. It is odd to see a windows install with xp using fat32. Much of the additional stability is found in ntfs when using windows. Was it factory installed?

[fuego]

Yeah I know itś a crazy mix. it also has 98 on the same part as xp so maybe I did it when setting up their dual boot. 98 boots okay too.

 

This is so weird though, cause originally it was set up from format with C E and F in that order.

I guess I will have to burn it all off and reformat. :mellow:

 

bugger

[Ixthusdan]

It may be best. Be sure to place xp, 98, and linux all on seperate primary partitions. xp should be on hdc1. Linux can produce extended partitions within the primary for swap and such.

[fuego]

I GOT IT!

 

I was almost at reformat state of mind when I threw in my hirens boot cd and had a look in the paritioning tools. I used PM8 to checkout the drive before I lay waste to it's contents. And I discovered that the NTFS drives had been hidden. So I unhid them and viola!

 

 

Now winnie and mandy are friends again and playing lovely games in the happy land of candybit.

 

C:/ is the fourth partion though still, but it doesn't seem to matter.

 

 

Thanks for the help. I would recommend that Hiren's boot cd to all if you see a torrent about for it.

[scarecrow]

I would be hesitant to "recommend" Hiren's though, as it may be fine, but it is pure warez! :P

Free tools can work equally good to warez/commercial stuff, admittedly with a wee bit of work on top.

Edited April 23, 2006 by scarecrow