Novice installing linux...

[talkalooniee 0]

Okay... well, I dont know much about Linux, but this is what I have done so far...

 

Installed Fedora Core 3. Although cant get grub to work so that I can dual boot between windows xp and linux. now, the thing is, i cant boot into either of them now, and i cant figure out how to do that grub thing (im not making sense sorry). but yeah. it used to work before, just trying to make it dual boot has stuffed things up a little.

 

Please help me, and dont use computery language that i cant understand please. use simple terms and easy to follow instructions

[talkalooniee 0]

PLEASE SOMEBODY HELP ME

[egorgry 0]

Fedora comes with a rescue or recovery option on the first install CD, I think? Boot that baby up and follow the instructions in teh link below. From what I understand fedora has an issue with this.

http://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-devel-list/2004-May/msg00908.html

 

I know the article refers to FC2 but it's pretty generic so it should work for you. If some fedora user knows better please jump in.

[Dapper Dan 0]

Tell us exactly what happens and what is on the screen when you try to boot. How far do you get? Did you do anything to try to fix it? what dod you do?

[Dapper Dan 0]

Sorry egogry,

 

I guess we were posting just about the same time.

[ReFoRMaT 0]

Here are some Micro$ux instructions for using an XPeePee (or XPee Home, same tools) cd:

 

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/docum...kd_tro_ldau.asp

 

Now...if you have windohs98 boot floppy, choose the "start computer without cdrom support" (boots faster for what you wanna do). When it is finished 'loading' and you are at the prompt (looks like this with a flashing cursor: A:\), type fdisk/mbr and hit the 'enter' key. Shut the computer off by the button on the front (as opposed to a software shutdown). Remove the floppy. Fire up the computer and it should boot into windohs. This will get your windohs back at least. By the way, Fedora sucks for newbies (which I consider myself to be still). I hated it. Try Suse 9.1 personal if you have a dsl or cable connection, there is some extra driver and program downloading after (or during if you can configure your connection) the main install. I have 2k and Suse on my drive and have not had one prob. I even access files on the windohs partition from Suse Linux.

 

If you don't get windohs back, you MAY (or maybe not, don't go re-installing windows if you are not sure) have wiped it out when Fedora was getting your harddrive ready to install itself.

 

P.S. I love new words, i.e. computery (heh heh).

[LinuxCrusader 0]

Another idea that you may want to try out to see if your Window$ partitions are still there or OK is to pop in some live CDs into your CDRom. If you are not familiar with Live CDs, they are CDs that have a Linux OS in them, thus it is like having an OS in a CD from which the computer will run off of. The good thing about these live CDs is that they do not modified any of your data on your hard drive. You could try knoppix or Morphix, which I remember Dapper Dan recommded to me when I first came into this forum. These live CDs will load up your windows partitions automatically onto the desktop and you could see if your data is still intact, and you can always of course the Linux off of these Live CDs onto your Hard drive if you wish too.

 

Mandrake was my favorite one, but I think the last release that I downloaded was corrupted and I didn't want to download all of the three CDs again so I went with Knoppix, which I definitely like.

[HolgerH 0]

Hi talkalooniee,

 

what is your status now?

In the beginning it may be difficult to understand what's going but you should tell a bit more about your problem.

Just "i cant boot ..." doesn't say so much.

Does the machine stop?

- what message on screen then?

Is it rebooting over and over?

- probably some messages on screen?

- if so, which?

 

Imagine you yourself should answer your questions from remote.

 

CU

 

HolgerH