[TheBishopOfSoho]

Yesterday I installed Suse 9.2 on my system, to dual boot with the existing Windows XP Pro SP2 installation I have on it. The Linux install went fine. It boots no problem. Now hoever, if I try boot into windows, I get an error screen with

NTLDR is missing,
Press Ctrl-Alt_Del to restart.

Which is common enough. I tried then to stick in the XP cd to get the recovery console and use the FIXMBR feature, but when I load up the disk, I get the screen
"Windows is inspecting your hardware configuration" (Just black screen white text at top, not like blue screen with progress bar at bottom like I had expected) fora few seconds and then it goes blank. The disk (76 Gb SATA disk) originally had just windows on it, bu the SUse YaST installation repartitioned it and shrank the windows installation from 75 to 45 and Linux took over the other 30Gb.

I really want to keep both OP Sys's running but priority is to get Windows back up and running. I know the files on the windows partition are all still there as I can see them in Suse File Manager so hopefully all is not lost. Any help is greatfully appreciated.
Many thanks for your time and help!

Shane

Edited by TheBishopOfSoho, 21 June 2005 - 04:45 AM.

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Hi Shane,

A lot of possible causes and fixes can be found here:
http://www.computerh...es/ch000465.htm

Hope it helps,

[Metallica]

Hi Shane,

A lot of possible causes and fixes can be found here:
http://www.computerh...es/ch000465.htm

Hope it helps,

[TheBishopOfSoho]

Thanks for your prompt reply. I have read this, and the following looks like the right solution:
Windows XP users

1. Insert the Windows XP bootable CD into the computer.
2. When prompted to press any key to boot from the CD, press any key.
3. Once in the Windows XP setup menu press the "R" key to repair Windows.
4. Log into your Windows installation by pressing the "1" key and pressing enter.
5. You will then be prompted for your administrator password, enter that password.
6. Copy the below two files to the root directory of the primary hard disk. In the below example we are copying these files from the CD-ROM drive letter "E". This letter may be different on your computer.

copy e:\i386\ntldr c:\
copy e:\i386\ntdetect.com c:\

7. Once both of these files have been successfully copied, remove the CD from the computer and reboot.


However, I cant getinto the recovery console. When I insert the disk, it does the initial "Setup is inspecting your hardware configuration" and then the screen goes blank. This is bad, isnt it?

[h1ppy]

Quite common with dual boot systems. More often then not if the Windows partition is not thoroughly defragmented parts of the file system can be over written during the Linux install, even the tiniest piece of information being lost can result in un-bootable systems or boot loops etc.

The reason your screen goes blank is probably because the NTFS volume has been corrupted. You may wish to backup the data you wish to keep under Linux to a CD/DVD. Then format your hard drive using fdisk or even maybe the Linux partition manager? Format the disk back to NTFS removing all partitions. Everything is now blank.

Now insert your Windows disk and go for a full install but during the install partition your disk in to two equal parts. Install Windows to the first partition and Linux to the second (Linux may require 3 partitions depending on your distribution, and then may automatically create these for you depending on your level of expertise, read the documentation for further information).

Basically as I said above it sounds as if you have corrupted the NTFS partition and the Windows installer can't find a disk to install to as it can't read the file system.

Hope that made some sense?

[scw05074]

hi my banes aaron try to do this because you might have not set the bios to boot from cd rom so what you need to do is on the start up hold your finger on the delete key on your keyboard then you,com e up with a blue screen then go down till you see thre part about bios then change where it says floppy first boot hard disk 2 boot and cd rom 3rd boot but on yours it will be different so set the cd rom to ther first boot m8 then press esc and save and exit then it reastarts pc then stick in your windows xp disk in and it should boot from the cd then it should do the process that you want it too wheres it says press any key to boot from cd then with the linux did you download it if you did then you need to use nero or something to burn the linux as an image then after it has done image and the where you saved the image file double click it and click next and it will burn linux on the cd and if you get stuck then just reply and tell me if it worked thx

[jmreynol]

Another method that may work is to reset the MBR. This will drop the Linux boot but it will restore the windows boot if it works. Just boot up from a DOS 6.22 floppy with FDISK on it. Then enter FDISK /mbr. It has been a while since I have done this so you may have to look up the command.

JMR

[scw05074]

hi thx m8 but one thing if i reset my MBR i could corrupt my harddrive and i dont want that to happen so thats going to be a bummber but cant u just give me instructions on how to setit up m8 then i follow ur instructions and if it still is the same then ik will think about reseting my MBR so please help me JMR

Scw

Edited by scw05074, 15 July 2005 - 01:54 AM.