uh oh .. lost windows

[shiva8]

Hi,

I finally got gentoo installed (thanks to a ton of reinstalls and help here ) however I lost my windows!

here is how the comp is set up

hda1 win98 (orig install)
hda2 os/2 boot loader (from RH 7.1 install years ago) <--only pointed at windows for the last year or so)

hdb1 gentoo boot
hdb2 gentoo swap
hdb3 gentoo root

I ran grub
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd0,0) <-- I figured that the old mbr pointed to the os/2 bootloader

grub.conf

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd1,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title-Gentoo (genkernel)
root (hd1,0)
kernel (hd1,0)/boot/kernel-2.4.20-gentoo-r6
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd-2.4.20-r6

title=windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

when I choose windows I get the grub menu again

I realize whats happened when I did setup (hd0,0), my question is, can I get my windows partition to be bootable again.

I booted with a recovery disk and used fdisk /mbr (to no avail)

Thanks,

[SqueekRatty]

I am only a noob, so this may be totally useless, BUT:
I remember reading a caution regarding dual-booting , when the windows OS was OS2.
The info was concerning the LILO boot loader, and can be found on page 131 - 134 of the O'Reilly book "Running Linux 3rd Edition"
Hope someone more knowledgeable than I shows up soon to help you out.

[shiva8]

Well I thought I could get a D link nic working and unfortunatly can't.

so .. with my gentoo comp not able to get to windows I have no way of transfering files.

In windows my 2 comps are linked .. dload whatever on wireless, then share it out to the gentoo box. not anymore.

anyway just venting some more frustration ..

Thanks for the tip squeek

[SqueekRatty]

Are your windows partitions NTFS?
If they are regular Fat32 partitions you can access them through Linux, once you make a mount point and an fstab entry for them.
Let me know if there's anything I can do, like post files etc...
One thought:
I have rescued my Windows partitions and Gentoo partitions, (many, many times - lol), by [i]always[/i] keeping a working redhat installation on my box. It gives you access to all your drives and partitions, even when the OS's on them aren't working.
If you need to, (and you have, or can make, room), install redhat, (or mandrake, or whatever), that should give you a live working GUI installation to fix things with.
redhat 9 is really nice by the way.
Good luck!

[cripwalk]

Hi,

I finally got gentoo installed (thanks to a ton of reinstalls and help here ) however I lost my windows!

here is how the comp is set up

hda1 win98 (orig install)
hda2 os/2 boot loader (from RH 7.1 install years ago) <--only pointed at windows for the last year or so)

hdb1 gentoo boot
hdb2 gentoo swap
hdb3 gentoo root

I ran grub
root (hd1,0)
setup (hd0,0) <-- I figured that the old mbr pointed to the os/2 bootloader

grub.conf

default 0
timeout 30
splashimage=(hd1,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

title-Gentoo (genkernel)
root (hd1,0)
kernel (hd1,0)/boot/kernel-2.4.20-gentoo-r6
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd-2.4.20-r6

title=windows
root (hd0,0)
chainloader (hd0,0)+1

when I choose windows I get the grub menu again

I realize whats happened when I did setup (hd0,0), my question is, can I get my windows partition to be bootable again.

I booted with a recovery disk and used fdisk /mbr (to no avail)

Thanks,

The first thing I would do is make sure your windows partition is still in tact. Since you copied your boot record to your windows partition im not sure if it would wipe the whole partition or not. I would boot into your livecd and see if you can mount your windows partition.

Once you get to the command prompt try:
If your drives are ntfs

Code: Select all

# mkdir /mnt/win
# mount -t ntfs /dev/hda1 /mnt/win

Or if you have a fat partition try:

Code: Select all

# mkdir /mnt/win
# mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/win

If it mounts succesfully do a

Code: Select all

# ls /mnt/win

and see if your files are still there.

If they are still there let us know and im sure we can help you get it going again.

[cripwalk]

Are your windows partitions NTFS?
If they are regular Fat32 partitions you can access them through Linux, once you make a mount point and an fstab entry for them.
Let me know if there's anything I can do, like post files etc...
One thought:
I have rescued my Windows partitions and Gentoo partitions, (many, many times - lol), by always keeping a working redhat installation on my box. It gives you access to all your drives and partitions, even when the OS's on them aren't working.
If you need to, (and you have, or can make, room), install redhat, (or mandrake, or whatever), that should give you a live working GUI installation to fix things with.
redhat 9 is really nice by the way.
Good luck!

If youre partition is ntfs you can access them too only it will be read only (unless you want to use experimental write support which isnt recommended)

By the way.. knoppix works great for recovering if you want a gui and dont want another OS installed on your hard disk (it runs linux off the cdrom) and will boot you into kde. You should check it out.

[shiva8]

Well the partition is still there, all my windows files are available .. I guess if I can't restore it as a bootable partition I can at least copy the important stuff to linux, then wipe drive A and reinstall win.


still holding out hope that someone has an easy fix though

[relyt]

What happens if you use this

Code: Select all

title=windows
root (hd0)
chainloader +1

instead?

[speedster]

I have the same NIC and the driver (for me) is 8139too and is found in both the 2.4 kernels and 2.6 kernels.

Also, if you are able to get to the Windows files, copy them to your Linux partition somewhere and rejoice! You now have your files and no more excuses to keep using Windows!'' Just kidding (sort of).