Slight problem with dual-boot

[daga5831]

Yeah...so I still rely on WinXP a little bit. I try to use Linux as much as possible, but sometimes I just have to give in. Anyways...I've been using slackware for a while, but I thought I'd give SuSE a try. So yesterday I installed SuSE, did all the configuring, and started using it. It's been going fine, until just a few minutes ago when I had to go back into Windows to do something. It said something about "Disk boot error...INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER". I have Linux on hda and Windows on hdb, but would it still be possible for the SuSE installation to have written over the MBR on hdb?

When I was setting up the partitions for the installation, I accidently deleted the Windows partitions, but I didn't apply the changes - I hit the "back" button right away.

Did I screw something up? Will I have to re-install Windows? Will Batman escape the clutches of the evil Joker? Tune in tomorrow - same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Little help? Thanks in advance .

 

[injinj]

I think the disk boot error is from bios, not from grub or whatever would be installed in the MBR of the windows disk. Inside SuSE, you can fdisk /dev/hdb to look at the partitions on that disk. I believe it is possible to recover after the partions were deleted, but it's probably not an easy task.

 

[injinj]

Some useful info here: http://www.uneraser.com/partition-deleted.htm

 

[daga5831]

Well...I figured out what went wrong...I went into the Windows recovery console and pulled up a mapping of my system. It turns out that I somehow managed to delete my C:\ drive. I don't remember doing this, and I don't remember switching anything around, but somehow my old D:\ drive has now taken over the C:\ position and the old E:\ has taken over the old D:\.

I think this is a sign from the computer gods that Linux is about to beat the schmooboogies out of M$. Either that, or they just want me to have Linux on the faster HDD (been running it on an older, slower drive).

When I get home from work tonight, I'm gonna re-install windows, use Partition Magic to resize and combine paritions and I'll have WinXP and SuSE on the same HDD (gonna be a few hours ).

 

[daga5831]

Well...I tried to use Partition Magic to combine the old D and E drives, but it crashed and I lost all the contents of both drives . Luckily I copied most of my important stuff to my laptop last week . Unfortunately, I lost a few hundred hours worth of work on some things - nothing important, but it's still irritating .