Can't boot 98SE after attempting to install Red Hat 5.1

[spaceghost21]

Alright, this is kind of complicated so I'll do my best to explain what happened.

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Linux Unleashed at the library that included RedHat 5.1 on a cd-rom. I attempted to install it on my Laptop. I partitioned about 1/4 of my hard drive (10gb) to be used by linux. However in the next step of the installation i ran into an error "No root partition". I aborted the installation and tried to boot with 98SE however when i did a boot failure message comes up. I tried to reinstall Windows but it said an OS was already installed, i chose the option to write over the previous OS. When i had finished installing windows it showed that i had two hardrives, one 2gigs and the other 100mb. From this point on things only got worse. I reformatted my HDD using my boot disk but when i went to install 98SE it still said there was another OS installed so before i install again does anyone know what's happening? Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[Frito]

Yeah, what you need to do is boot of your boot CD and go into fdisk to make sure you have your primary dos partition bootable. Then do an fdisk /mbr and it will repair the master boot record.

It sounds like you forgot to toggle the bootable flag when you did the linux partition or picked the wrong drivetype flag. No biggie. All fixable stuff.

 

[spaceghost21]

That's good, can you maybe give some more info on how to do that? I'm kind of confused

Thanks

 

[Frito]

Hehe.. which part?

 

[spaceghost21]

I think i get the first part: RUn fdisk thru linux installation. After that I'm confused.

 

[Frito]

Alrighty, once you get through the installation portion you need to run fdisk to make sure everythings tagged right.

Type fdisk
if it says you must specify a device try /dev/hda it's usually your first hard disk.

Then do a 'p' (without quotes)
and it should list your drives.

You should see two partitions or more.

Here's mine.
Disk /dev/hda: 6448 MB, 6448619520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 784 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 1 9 72261 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda2 * 10 784 6225187+ 83 Linux


The first drive is the small swap partition.

The Asterisk under the 'Boot' section says which is bootable.
type 'a' to specifiy which drive.

When you're done type w to save changes.
Then q to quit

 

[spaceghost21]

Hmmm, my two partitionss are labelled funny: The first one is labelled 'c' and occupies cylinders 15-1024. Fdisk displays "unknown" next to instead of , say 'linux swap'. The second one is the 1st 14 cylinders and is labelled '84', it is also unknown. I specified the the second one to be the boot drive, labelled '84'. Now when i try to boot the computer "Invalid partition table. Setup cannot continue is displayed".

Thanks a ton for all the help.

*awards frito shiny medal* :thumbsup:

 

[Frito]

Okay, the best bet here is to start from scratch is that cool?

It sounds like you ran Fdisk in dos which is no biggie. Either will work.

So what CD are you booting from?

 

[spaceghost21]

Sure, actually ran fdisk off the Linux installaton cd. I've given up on trying to install linux for now and am just trying to get windows to boot. When you say start fresh do you mean reinstall Windows?