Win98/Mandrake 8.0 Boot issues

[LeggoBlock]

Okay, I have Win98/Mandrake 8.0 Linux on a single 40Gb HDD.
(dual boot of course). I had it working for quite some time until....

I tried to boot up one day and I got a kernel panic. It wouldn't boot into linux but would allow me (if I reset my computer) to windows through GRUB I believe.

I don't have a boot disk. (I've tried creating a boot disk before but with no success... ).

Another strange thing I noticed also, My WINDOWS partition was split up into 2 drives C: and D: well I noticed my D: partition was gone.

Now normally I just re-install my linux but I would like to know how to fix it correctly.

[jetblackz]

The most common problem is the partition table has changed. Do you have Partition Magic or something similar on Win98? Someone might have accidentially used it.

[DMR]

If there has been a change to your partition table, Linux isn't booting because your partition numbering has shifted, and the partition references in Grub's config file don't match the new partition layout.

If this is the case, you'll need to determine the current locations/names of your partitions (DOS/Windows' fdisk might be of help there). Once you do that you can edit Grub's boot menu to correct the partition designations, thereby allowing you to boot into Linux.

At the Grub boot menu screen, highlight the Redhat entry and press "e" (for "edit). The entries that you'll need to verify/change are:

root (hd0,X)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.18-3 ro root=/dev/hdaY vga=788

Where X and/or Y will be the partition references that are no longer correct. Once you change them to their correct values, press "b" to continue booting.

When you make changes to Grub's bootup in this way, the changes aren't permanent, so:

a) If you got the partition numbers wrong, you can just reboot and try different numbers until you get it right; you wont hurt anything by doing so.

b) Once you get Linux booted, you'll need to permanently correct Grub's config file (/boot/grub/grub.conf or /boot/grub/menu.lst). The file is just a plain-text file, so you can edit it with any text editor. You do not have to re-execute/reinstall Grub after you make changes to the config file.