----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Dryer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, April 02, 2000 10:48 AM
Subject: [newbie] Corrupted boot table
> Hi,
>
> Last night I was able to complete the Mandrake installation process, and
> had setup lilo to boot the system. Unfortunately, I didin't create a
> recovery boot disk.
OUCH! Boot disks are our friends, they must be kept close at hand!
> I started my computer up this morning, and after
> post completed, the screen filled with the number 20 over and over
> again. I then got BootMagic in place so that I could boot into Windows
> again, and have been trying to go through the installation process
> again. It seems that sometime during the installation process,
> something wrote some data to the boot floppy which corrupted the disk
> and made it unusable for a second boot installation. It gets to the
> point where it's attempting to load the second stage image, and comes
> back with a "mount failed: invalid argument" error. I've tried making a
> new disk image, but the new image stopped mid process during the loading
> second stage image and went back to the initializing cdrom message and
> kicked out with a cursor prompt. Am I missing something here? I would
> think having re-made the partitions and boot disk would have been enough
> to clean out the last attempt at installation?
>
> Jason Dryer
>
If I understand you correctly, you're trying to use lilo from a boot floppy?
And you're trying to dual boot Linux / Windows?
If you're saying that the boot disk that came with your linux distribution
is not working correctly now, I'm not sure why that would happen unless you
overwrote something. At any rate, go to this address and follow the
instructions for creating a boot disk:
ftp://ftp.linux.tucows.com/pub/distributions/Mandrake/Mandrake/7.0/images/RE
ADME
This boot disk that you create will let you make an installation boot disk,
not a recovery disk - you will have to reinstall your linux system. This
time, make a recovery disk when it asks.
Next, if you ever need to clean up your boot record (assuming you have a
recovery disk for your windows partition), boot from your windows boot disk
and at the prompt, cd to c:\ then type fdisk /mbr
That will restore your boot record and at least windows will be able to
boot.
Good luck, Michael Holt
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
