On Wednesday 14 June 2006 15:28, Simon Jude wrote:

I've managed to kill off my MBR during a linux install on a machine with XP on it. I initially installed Fedora and got Grub error 17 messages on bootup.

This is when GRUB doesn't recognise the filesystem type. (I think).

I've since installed Suse10 on it but get the same problem (error 18 this time).

This is when your BIOS can't load an OS which lives too far away from the start of the disk. (I think, though I thought computers stopped doing that years ago).

Did SUSE try and resize your Windows partition for you? I think its supposed to be able to.

Evidently I should be able to install lilo from suse but this gives errors.

I've also tried the XP recovery disk to fix the mbr but it doesn't recognise my password (a normal user with admin privilages).

Have you tried using no password to the recovery console?

Here are some possibly helpful links regarding the recovery console. http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=305 http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=314058

If you manage to get Windows to re-install its bootloader, then you'll only be able to boot Windows and will only have half-solved the problem :-(

Are you at risk of losing any data? If not, then I'd recommend you start again. Use your Windows installation media to install Windows first, then install Linux. You could do the repartitioning manually with a Knoppix disc and QtParted just in case it was the resizing part of the Fedora or SUSE installs that caused the problem.

Post back if you have any problems. Good luck!

Cheers, Richard