Sometimes these msgs really confuse me as there's no information that
explains how these problems could possibly occur.
> I deleted the partitions and reinstalled windows yesterday......i want to
> know why it destroyed my registry,
If your registry got destroyed, Windows did it, not Mandrake and not
grub.
> why grub wouldn't load windows,
What do you mean by this? Do you mean that windows isn't on the grub
menu or that when you move the cursor up to it and hit a <CR> it
doesn't load Windows?
>how to> install mandrake without destroying windows, how to install mandrake
Well...if you start with a system where Windows is taking up part of
the disk and there's a bunch of space that's NOT allocated to Windows
available for the installation, you just shove the CD in and let it
run. The whole process will never look at or touch your Windows
partition with a couple of exceptions:
1) a small bit of code is written into the master boot record of the
drive.
Since Windows is too dumb to boot from any other location, it's
sitting right next to that boot record. No, your registry isn't
sitting next to that location.
2) Linux sets up a pointer at your Windows partition so you can
access Windows data files from Linux. This is only a "look"
function. Nothing is written to the disk.
> installing another bootloader, how to make a boot diskette that can load
> mandrake (and have the the only way, so a normal boot will load windows),
> and if this boot diskette is possible.
Creation of a boot disk is all part of the Mandrake installation. If
you didn't create it, you messed up. The Mandrake installation is
about as straight forward as you can get but the user still needs to
answer the questions with some basic knowledge of computers. Read an
explanation of how computers boot and how partitions work and you'll
be fine. These aren't problems that Mandrake causes and they're
certainly not problems that Mandrake can solve.
I think the mantra for anyone getting into Linux should be "Linux
doesn't do Windows" as that basic thought will keep people from
believing that Linux is somehow screwing around with their Windows
partitions.
Cheers --- Larry
