Boot Linux after instaling windows

[Velikiy]

I had two OS's on PS.After reinstalling windows tha boot window disappear :evil: .And now I can't boot Linux :-|
What I have to do for return this window and boot linux?
Thaks a lot .Soory for mistakes.

[Ceaser]

When you reinstalled windows did you reformat the hard drive? How was the drive partitioned? It is a possibility that you formated over the Linux partition. When you look at the hardrive in windoze do you see the full HD size?

[server_crash]

It is a possibility that you formated over the Linux partition.

This is most likely what's happend unless maybe you used something like partition magic to partition. This can sometimes cause it to boot directly into one OS and ignore the other.

[Velikiy]

The reinstalling I did with Gost. When I see HD it is not full because of Linux :lol:
I had created two hardrives independed.
It is right.I did partion whith magic partion.On one hardrive sit windows :evil: and on other sit Linux :lol: .And this cause it to boot directly into one OS(windows) and ignore the other(Linux).

Thanks a lot .Sory for mistakes.

[server_crash]

The reinstalling I did with Gost. When I see HD it is not full because of Linux :lol: I had created two hardrives independed. It is right.I did partion whith magic partion.On one hardrive sit windows :evil: and on other sit Linux :lol: .And this cause it to boot directly into one OS(windows) and ignore the other(Linux). .

When I used partition magic it damaged the bootloader of windows and I was never able to recover windows but it booted directly into linux. After that I never used partition magic again, and I strongly advise against it. Just using the partitioner in the linux setup is fairly easy, and that's what I have always used. I would just go through with the linux installer it's much easier for dual booting and it won't damage the other OS' bootloader. And don't worry about creating two diffrent HD's before installing, deal with that during the instalation.

[Peeyush Maurya]

loadlin is very useful if you lost windows MBR after installing linux....

i know of two options
1. using LOADLIN. which uses windows boot.ini to load linux
2. boot in rescue mode ... run command to write bootloader of linux..(lilo/grub)

Regards,
Peeyush Maurya
http://www.geocities.com/peeyush_maurya/

[lestont]

You should create a bootable floppy disk from your linux cds. Insert your installation cd1 and skip everything until you reach an option to create a bootable disk.You can then boot from floppy everytime you want to use linux.
Or
You can try to correct the MBR

[TheOgre]

Boot to your Linux distro and run lilo. Lilo will rewrite the mbr to include the lilo boot menu screen that got overwritten when you reinstalled Windoze.

...provided you use lilo and not grub or some other boot manager...

[fooumang]

TheOgre is right.

What happened when you reinstalled windows is that it over wrote the MBR where you most likely had the lilo/grub info installed. This got rid of the linux boot load and put the windows one back on there.

Boot with a linux rescue disc (you should be able to use almost any install cd) when box is up in linux, you need to rerun lilo or reinstall grub (whatever you were using as your boot loader).

If you didn't mount your / directory as root, make sure its mounted

and do:
chroot /mnt/hda1 (or whatever you have it mounted as)

Check your lilo.conf (in /etc) file to make sure its correct

and then run:

lilo

that is, assuming you're using lilo.

[Paul.Esson]

If your using grub

type

$ grub

grub> root (hd0,0)
grub> setup (hd0)
grub> quit

Note: hd0,0 is hda1, hd0,1 will be hda2 etc.
hd1,0 is hdb1

root(hd0,0) should be the partition where your grub booting information is (kernel images and grub config)

if you dont know where this is use

grub> find /boot/grub/stage1

setup(hd0) installs grub on your mbr :)

good luck, btw.