Ya I got Debian installed finally, but

[umidor]

what happened to Windows. Hmm during the installation of debian, it said that I already had Linux swap partition, and a main linux partition. And if I would like to put Debian on these so I said yes. Since these partitions came from Mandrake. I figured Debian would just install on these and leave Windows alone.

Then the option booting from the hard disk or floppy came up. I chose floppy cause I figured that if I put the disk in it will boot to Linux, but if I dont put it in it will boot to windows. I was wrong when I dont put the floppy in it just goes to a blck screen with one line of text that says start1_ at the top. Ok when I put the boot disk in I can log into Debian fine. So then I try my windows boot disk. It just brings me to dos prompt with A:.

Hmm so my question is Windows gone, did Linux wipe it out or is it just not able to boot for some reason?? When I had Mandrake on it used Grub to boot into Linux or Windows. I am hoping windows is still there and I just need to put grub back on.

Thanks for any help.

[evulish]

You hope windows is still there? eek...

But anyways, try mounting the fat32 partition in linux...
If its there, try getting rid of lilo and restore the old MBR (I think its lilo -u or something like that)

[godot]

you need to edit /etc/lilo.conf to tell it where your windows partition is, i'm going to assume it's /dev/hda1

put this near the end of your /etc/lilo.conf file

other=/dev/hda1
label=dos

then save, exit the editor, and run lilo as root, then when you reboot you should be able to choose between your linux kernel(s) and windows

[LiNuts]

boot into windows using the bootdisk, at the A: prompt type C: then type fdisk /mbr.

This will restore your windows,

If you want to boot to linux without using the bootdisk, you can use Loadlin. You have to create a dir in DOS - call it linux,

cd to linux and make a batch file called linux.bat

on your debian cd there should be a directory called tools, in it there is a program called Loadlin (i think its a zip file) copy it to DOS and unzip it. then copy it to your Linux directory.

Boot into linux using the bootdisk, and copy the file vmlinuz to the linux dir in dos.

You will have to know the path of your / (root) directory. You can find this by having a look in your fstab.

Then boot into windows/DOS and edit the batch file you made and enter this:

C;\linux\loadlin.exe\ C;\linux\vmlinuz root=/dev/hdbx ro (where x is the partition of your / directory).

Next edit your Config.sys file and put in this.
[menu]
menuitem=windows, start windows
menuitem=Linux, start linux
menudefault= windows, 10

[windows]
[Linux]

DEVICE = windows\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE = windows\EMM386.exe
NOEMS
DOS = HIGH, UMB

Next edit your Autoexec.bat and enter the following.

goto %config%
:windows
Win
goto end
:Linux
cd Linux
Linux
: End

thats it, next time you boot your pc a menu will show giving you the option of booting either windows or linux.
Cheers
LiNuts

BTW: You can also just boot into Linux using the bootdisk and then edit your lilo.conf file and rerun lilo.

[umidor]

Thanks for the help everybody I will check it out.