[oclug] Help - Linux ate my hard drive

[Bart Trojanowski]

The fdisk /mbr thing will only work if you are running NT from FAT.  That
is usually not the case for systems installed by default IT guys or by
the reseller.  I will assume that NTFS is what you have. ...

The problem is mostly with the fact that your NT install is on NTFS not
FAT.  Linux has limited visibility into NTFS volumes.  LILO cannot boot to
NTFS.  So when Mandrake was installed and overwrote your NT boot loader
you lost the way to boot into NT.

There is only one way to resotre the NT boot loader.  That is to use the
rescue disk you generated when you were installing NT.  What?! Just like
everyone else you skipped that option right?  I got burned on this way too
many times. :)

Next time you install NT make the first partition 1-2 Gigs on FAT and the
remainder on NTFS - which has performance benefits.  This way the boot
loader will be on FAT and LILO will be able to boot to it.  AFAIK that is
the only way to get NT on NTFS and Linux to dual boot.

Bart.

On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Chris Perkins wrote:

> I'm totally new to Linux, and I was pleasanly surprised to see the many
> responses to my first posting ( Help - Lost my NT ). The advice was
> appreciated, but unfortunately none of it solved my problem. I hope someone
> can help with my new predicament.
> To recap - I installed Mandrake 7.2, in an attempt to dual boot with NT. NT
> would not boot ( and I need to have it for work! ).
> I tried several times to reinstall NT on the first partition, but it kept
> crashing when it tried to format the partition ( it saw my NTFS partitions
> as 'Unrecognized or Damaged' ). In desperation I used a bootable DOS floppy
> with fdisk to wipe out the entire drive and format it all as FAT.
> Finally the NT install would run properly, up to the point where I have to
> reboot. Then all I get is a command prompt for 'grub'.
> Please, please, please tell me there's a way to reclaim my MBR from grub. I
> have no OS at all now!
> 
> Chris Perkins
> chris.perkins at newsys.com
> 
> 
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