FSCK!!! noooo!!!

[optech]

i installed mandrake, then i installed slackware, making boot disks for both, i then proceded to install windows 98 after configuring each to my liking...
well, windows 98 overwrote my MBR, as i anticipated, but my boot disks didn't work!!
how am i going to get into at least ONE of my partitions? slackware 7.1, and mandrake 7.2....

i know there's a way (without editing the actual MBR in hex which i do NOT want to have to resort to doing, but i will if i must.)

[Dark Ninja]

Heh. Bad idea = installing Linux and THEN installing Windows. Reverse that, and you should be okay.

Actually, as a side note, it IS theoretically possible to install Windows AFTER Linux, however, it doesn't come highly recommended.

Dark Ninja
http://www.teamvirus.net/

[drmbb]

Well, what about booting from, say, your Mandrake install CD and passing the boot partition at the prompt? Then you could re-install LiLo or GRUB. You could even "upgrade" from the same CD, just not format anything (it should just overwrite/skip what's there), and get GRUB back up that way.

Sorry, just random thoughts - I'm still at work and a bit burned out.

[manual_overide]

boot from a slack CD. at the boot prompt enter something like:

vmlinuz root=/dev/hdxx

where hdxx is your slack or drake partition.

I'm not exactly sure of the syntax, but it's something similar to that. The slack CD should tell you the right syntax.

once you get into linux, reinstall lilo to your MBR

[optech]

i have the mandrake CD, and will probably have to do it that way, but the slackware cd isn't bootable...

so when i boot with my mandrake cd, i just pass /dev/hdb2 (mandrake partition) to the boot prompt?

does that just boot linux? or does it run the install still? i guess i'll find out!

[Pierre Lambion]

You could also copy the linux kernel from slackware CD and loat it with loadlin. Check zipslack on the CD, there should be a linux.bat with the right arguments.

Once in Linux, check lilo.conf and run /sbin/lilo.

Pierre

[Lorithar]

*grins*

Slackware site has *very* good bootdisks, and a utility to copy them to a floppy in WINDOWS...

download the images, download rawrite13.exe and follow the instructions on the site....
boot off new disks...