Partition Help

[Cobalt]

I used PartitionMagic to partition my drive for a Linux install. HOWEVER, it turns out the dl of Linux that I mounted to my disk was bad. It was the mini-install of SuSE 9.2 and when I try install the OS it says after initializing hardware "make sure disc 1 is in the drive", I hit OK and it says unable to mount image. I don't have another cd burner on this laptop so I can't redl and reburn linux.

Is there a way I can access my windows parition? Through means of the windows disk or something? There is the swap partition, the windows partition, and the linux partition in that order and the linux is the active partition. Would I install windows on that partition and use that Windows to try activate my main partition and then get rid of that linux partition? Or is there an easier way to go about this. I feel like an idiot because I didn't install BootMagic. I'd appreciate any and all help I can get on this. Thanks.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Huh? If you have Windows installed, you should be able to boot into it. If you can't try booting from your Windows cd and run fixmbr or whatever.

If you have Linux partitions, you've either done something silly like used partition magic to create some partitions or gotten part way through the install.

 

[Cobalt]

When I boot my computer, I can't choose my OS. It says "error loading operating system" because there is no OS loaded onto the active partition which is the Linux partition. What I need to do is make the Windows partition the active partition again so I can boot up into Windows instead of the Linux partition. I think I'm gonna ask around and see if I can get another Linux install and do that, or just install Windows onto that second partition and go from there, or I'll give your suggestion a try.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: cobalt
I used PartitionMagic to partition my drive for a Linux install. HOWEVER, it turns out the dl of Linux that I mounted to my disk was bad. It was the mini-install of SuSE 9.2 and when I try install the OS it says after initializing hardware "make sure disc 1 is in the drive", I hit OK and it says unable to mount image. I don't have another cd burner on this laptop so I can't redl and reburn linux.

It's not necessarily a bad disc - it could be that the install process is having some kind of problem accessing the burner. Though it seems counter-intuitive, it's entirely possible to boot off of a CD and then have the install process fail to find the drive that you just booted from. In those cases, there are sometimes boot flags you can pass to the installer to help. Unfortunately, I don't have anything specific to recommend. Just don't assume that a bad disc is the only possibility.

Is there a way I can access my windows parition? Through means of the windows disk or something? There is the swap partition, the windows partition, and the linux partition in that order and the linux is the active partition.

Just use fdisk to set the active partition back to windows (which is where it should have been anyway - Linux doesn't generally use the "active" flag). You can use fdisk from most any "rescue" floppy or CDROM, including the Windows recovery console IIRC.

 

[cleverhandle]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Huh? If you have Windows installed, you should be able to boot into it. If you can't try booting from your Windows cd and run fixmbr or whatever.

fixmbr won't help him - his MBR is fine, but it's trying to pass control to the wrong partition. I know there's a fixpart command in the recovery console as well - that may work, but I don't know exactly what it does. Better off just using fdisk...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: cleverhandle

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Huh? If you have Windows installed, you should be able to boot into it. If you can't try booting from your Windows cd and run fixmbr or whatever.

fixmbr won't help him - his MBR is fine, but it's trying to pass control to the wrong partition. I know there's a fixpart command in the recovery console as well - that may work, but I don't know exactly what it does. Better off just using fdisk...

I'll take your word for it. It sounds like he is a deciple of Rube Goldberg.