Mail Archives: opendos/1999/03/14/16:45:29
Okay, this is getting ridiculous. :-(
An unsuccessful attempt to uninstall Lilo (so I could uninstall Linux, so
I could use my second hard drive as a backup for my first, so I could
repartition my first hard drive, so I could reinstall Linux and thus
Lilo), left my MBR was in a precarious state. After starting, I would get
the text "LI" and there my system would hang. I don't know why this
happened, but I'm assuming it has something to do with not telling Lilo to
install the very first MBR it had saved or something. Anyway, that's
behind me now; now I have more serious problems.
Well, I did not have a Linux boot disk handy (who knew I was going to need
it? I was uninstalling!!), so there was no way to get back to Lilo.
Instead, I booted with an old Dr-Dos install & utilities disk. That let
me in, and gave me access to everything.
So I said, "Hey, why not use fdisk to install the "standard dr-dos" mbr?
That should work." Problem was, I couldn't find that option in fdisk.
(That's one thing I've learned to like about the Windows world -- if
something isn't available, it just appears as faint, not completely
invisible!) I spent three hours searching the opendos mail archives and
other sources for the "magic key" to get fdisk to write the mbr. I tried
fdisk r2.02, r2.12 (I think), and the newest r2.13. Nothing. All my
sources referred to an option off the main menu. Mine had none.
Then I decided to *RE*make my bootable partition bootable. That did the
trick. Finally, an option: "rewrite master boot record" (or was it
"original mbr"?). Keep in mind that at this point FDisk showed C: as
being on partition 1, with "free space" up front and "free space" at the
end. So I chose 1, naturally.
Reboot. This time, not even the "LI" text; it just hangs.
Reboot from floppy again. NOW, it doesn't even recognize my primary
Dr-Dos drive, nor does it recognize one of my data drives. Instead it
booted from another data drive (that, luckily, had system files on it --
and to think, six months ago, I was going to remove those files!!).
It turns out that my ACTUAL partition looks like this (from what I had
written down when I last partitioned, I think as reported from Linux's
cfdisk):
/dev/hda1 1 Boot Primary DOS 122.07MB
/dev/hda2 2 Primary NTFS 200.82MB
/dev/hda3 3 Primary DOS 200.82MB
/dev/hda5 5 Logical DOS 653.63MB
/dev/hda6 6 Logical DOS 47.25MB
/dev/hda7 7 Logical NTFS 834.75MB
(The convoluted setup, especially wrt NT, is why I was repartitioning. It
caused problems. Especially with Netware.)
However, the Dr-Dos FDISK looks as such, even in extended mode:
No Drive Start End MB Status Type
-- 0 132 515.8 Free Space
1 C: 133 298 653.5 A PRI DOS
2 -- 299 310 47.2 N EXT DOS
-- 311 522 830.8 Free Space
It turns out, though I didn't notice it (since I thought it was entire NT
space), that it was grouping BOTH the first (*BOOTABLE*, mind you!) DOS
partition and the first NT partition AND my second DOS partition together
under "free space." And to top it off, it has my first logical drive
listed as a primary drive. My guess at this point is...well, I don't
have a freaking clue.
I guess I should say something about my booting setup, too. I never could
get Lilo to boot NT (even after reading the how-to), so had it boot into
my first DOS drive, which contained the NT boot loader on it, which let me
into either Dr-Dos or NT. (The result, again, is that my primary NT drive
was drive G, whereas my data NT drive was drive F; again, you can imagine
some of the headache this caused me when installing new software, and
trying to integrate into an existing network. Not to mention that the
Windows world doesn't LIKE you to split partitions.)
So I am stuck here, unable to access two of my DOS drives, my NT drives,
or my Linux drives.
Is there ANY way to get ANY utility (put out by caldera or not) to write
me a nice, clean MBR and allow me to *^&^ boot into my original boot
drive?
In addition, I am wondering if someone can maybe have a go at explaining
the behavior I am witnessing, both as a result of the Lilo unstall, and
the Dr-Dos FDISK display.
At this point, I'm afraid to try anything else at all, because everything
I try seems to have the opposite effect of what I had intended. (Hmmm...
maybe if I intend to DESTROY my hard drive, everything will be magically
reset to where it was 24 hours ago?)
Also, if I remember correctly, when fdisk write the mbr, it is supposed to
save a copy of it. I could not find one on any of my drives that I now
have access to. My guess is that it was saved to my original bootable
drive, which is now no longer available. So that isn't an option.
Thanks,
--
Michael Jones
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