On Sat, 2004-11-20 at 11:52, Lanman wrote: > Never let it be said that I don't bring interesting problems to the > list! This time, the problem makes no sense, unless someone has written > a boot-sector virus and included it on the Mandrake 10.1 Community CD's. > > One of my systems has an Asus P4S800 motherboard running an Intel > P4-2.8Ghz HT CPU and 512MB's of DDR 400 ram onboard. I've had 10.1 > installed and running flawlessly on it for some time now, but the hard > drive (a refurbished generic 20GB ATA100 drive) was showing CRC > errors,so I tossed it and installed a new (not refurbished) drive in > it's place. > > The install went off without a hitch. Lilo displayed the kernel choices > for a default (Linux-only) install. Upon rebooting, I was surprised to > get this warning; > > DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER. > > Thinking I had a problem with Lilo, I rebooted with the first CD and > went into rescue mode, where I re-entered the Lilo config and rebooted. > > I received the same error, so using a Windows98 CD, I fdisked the master > boot record, or I should say, I tried to update the MBR. Instead, I > received an error which stated that the MBR was NOT updated. > > After a quick search at Maxtor's support site, I downloaded powermax and > did a full, zero-fill format of the drive, and tried to reformat the > drive and to fdisk the MBR, but received the same error. > > The BIOS on this board doesn't have anything regarding Virus protection > in the menu, and even though I've redone the hard drive using utilities > from CD's, I'm still getting the same errors. Either I can't fdisk the > MBR, or I can't boot the drive. > > Has anyone ever sen this problem? The system is fully compatible with > Linux and was running 10.1 (and 10.0 before that) with another drive > (now in the garbage and long gone), so the only thing that makes sense > is that I've got a virus on the motherboard which is reinfecting the MBR > each time I re-install. > > I've downloaded several programs which are capable of repairing the MBR > and they haven't helped at all. I've installed another new drive and had > the exact same results. > > Does anyone have any suggestions or helpful advice? This is just plain > weird and I'm running out of ideas so I'd appreciate any help the list > can offer. > > TIA > > Lanman
That just happened to me (on 10.0 though) and I had to make the /boot partition "ACTIVE' using Partition Magic...after that, it was all downhill (er, uphill) -- stephen kuhn mobile: 0410-728-389 illawarra and regional new south wales ----------------------------------------------- GNU/Linux/OpenSource Solutions and Alternatives 100% Microsoft Free and no viruses Registered Linux User # 267497 Windows: Where do you want to go today? MacOS: Where do you want to be tomorrow? Linux: Are you coming or what? ----------------------------------------------- Hedonist for hire... no job too easy!
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