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Guest bear7
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I'm a newbie so I don't know if this is where I'm supposed to be, so here goes. I had WinXP and Mandrake 9.1 installed on the same hard drive with no problems until recently. Now I can't get XP to boot up. Would someone please tell what to do to get XP to boot up. No problems with MD 9.1

 

thank you

bear7

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When I boot up XP it comes up the normal Windows xp Home Edition. It stays on for about ten seconds and returns to the choice of whether to boot in xp or Linux. This will continue until I let it boot up for Linux. There is a error message but it disappears so fast I can't read it. Would you please tell me the suggestion one more time. I'm sorry I can't read between the lines yet, so please tell me in specific terms as to how and where I can do this.

 

thank you

bear7

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Ok. If you boot to the graphical environment, like KDE or Gnome, there may be a little TV-looking icon on your taskbar. That's for a console. Or you can click the 'Start' button and click Terminals -> xterm or whatever.

 

Then type

 

su [hit enter]

[type in your root password....you won't see anything being typed][hit enter]

lilo -v [hit enter]

 

Reboot and try to go to XP. If that doesn't work. Go back to the console and su to root like above and type

 

lilo -M /dev/hda

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Still can't boot XP. I have tried your suggestions twice. Still the same): Any other ideas that you may have will be greatly appreciated. Do you think that I might be doing something wrong?

 

bear7

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Bear, post your /etc/lilo.conf file. Here's how - navigate to /etc in konqueror and there should be a file in there called lilo.conf. If you click on it it will open up in a text editor, probably kwrite. It's just a text file but it controls how the boot loader runs. Highlight all text with your mouse; that copies it to the clipboard. You can paste the text in your response by either clicking your right and left mouse buttons together or, if you have a wheel mouse, by clicking the wheel.

Without seeing that file, all we can do is guess.

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Hit F9 to give you a navigation panel on the left if you don't already have one. On the far left window border,

you'll see a series of icons with a little wrench on the top. Tick the red folder; that will put the root directory structure in the navigation panel. Tick on the entry in the navigation panel that says "etc"; now your at /etc and the contents of /etc will be displayed on the right. You'll find lilo.conf in there.

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Untill recently, I was soemthing of a windows GURU. This sounds like a windows problem, not a boot loader problem. If the XP screan is loading at all, the problem has nothing to do with the boot laoder as windows has a very simple loader, just enough to tell the coputer where the OS is.

 

 

The most common cause for this in Windows XP is a bad driver. you see, when windows detects certain types of instability, like what you might get from an incompatible driver, it simply reboots hard. Nice for preventing hardware damage, rotten for practiacality. Here is what I would sugest.

 

 

1. Put in the mandrake CD no.1 and reboot.

2. At the initial prompt, hit f1for more options

3. Type in rescue and press enter.

4. Select restore Windows boot loader.

5. Once the windows boot loader is restored, reboot the machine.

6. As the machine continues to boot, repetitively tap f8, this will bring up a menu with several boot optios. Select "Windows XP safe mode"

7. It will boot with only minimal drivers loaded and your display will look like crap, but you should be able to navigate the OS. Uninstall whatever program you had installed, or use the built in system restoration software to restore to a time when everything worked. If that doesn't do it, find a MS forum and ask for help there.

8. Assuming you get all that done and windows works again, just re-install the linuix boot loader the same way you restored the windows loader with the mandrake disk and you should be on your way. Good luck.

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note***

 

The above directions are to restore your functional dual boot. What I would realy reccomend you do is stop dual booting all together. You will learn linux faster and have fewer problems if you "shit or get off the pot" as it were. I know it's scarey to change systems, but in the end, I think the benefits of diving in head first far outway the detractions.

 

Good luck again.

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