Hello again Darragh,
On Thu, 25 Jul 2002 14:24:28 +0100, Darragh wrote:
> That information would be excellent if I had more experience with Linux but
> unfortunately, I'm very new to it so don't have a clue what its talking
> about most of the time.
>
> Darragh
OK, time for a crash course in booting and Linux.
Basically, Linux cannot "boot" (execute) itself. It has
to be loaded into memory, and run, by a boot program.
In most distributions (Red Hat, Mandrake, etc) of Linux,
this is done through a small program called LILO.
To work properly, LILO has to be installed into the MBR
(Master Boot Record) of your hard disk. Your computer,
when it is powered on, starts by reading and running the
MBR -- and therefore, LILO. With me so far?
So we have this kind of chain:
Computer (launches) Lilo (launches) Linux
For more information on this whole question of booting
and MBR and whatnot, I advise you to have a look at the
following online documentation under Linux:
apropos lilo
apropos lilo.conf
man lilo
man lilo.conf
man hier
apropos boot
apropos partition
Also, I think you have made a big mistake when installing
Mandrake. Most of the time you are supposed to divide your
hard disk into several partitions. Windows is usually
installed into the very first partition, and Linux is
installed in the others, since Linux can be launched from
any partition -- which is not the case for Windows.
Also, it's possible you have installed the autoboot option
of Mandrake, which automatically launches Linux when you
power on your computer: this is a *very bad* idea, since
it prevents you from having a dual-boot (Linux and Windows)
machine.
If your Windows partition is still intact, editing the
lilo.conf file and restarting lilo should be very helpful.
Hope this helps!
--
Gil Andre gandre@arkeia.com
Technical Writer
Arkeia Corp. http://www.arkeia.com