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typing this out from a friend who is on phone, we both tried to load suse on a dual boot, hers failed and now she cant boot into windows xp pro, all she gets is "starting acronis loader.......acronis loader: no configuration file present....."next line down" press <enter> to reboot......
when she does this it brings her right back and tried booting with xp to and same error
any suggestions??? she cant get anything including safe mode
try to boot from the XP install CD. then go to "repair installation" from "recovery console"
there should be a little executable there called fixMBR.exe or somthing similar. this will fix the XP bootloader to boot the XP in a few seconds. next time try to install suse to boot from floppy and after it works do everything manually from suse
cannot boot from install cd and it loads the error so fast she cant boot into bios
well, if you cannot enter bios you have bigger problems than ruined MBR (master boot record). some systems (HP especially) don't have hints as to what key to press on boot so try all of them. especially F1, F2, F5, F7, F8 and Del.
If you really cannot boot into BIOS maybe you fried your CMOS chip or maybe the battery is dead. Although that's unlikely try to turn off the system for 5 min and then get into BIOS.
I've also had experience that some CD/HD drives aren't "somwhow" compatible w/ Linux (Dell Optiplex 110 needed completly new CD after Fedora) so try to disconect the CD and/or HD and try to get into BIOS... let me know if BIOS thinks that they are "unknown devices"
These nothing I have heard of that could cause a system to not be able to enter the bios because of a failed linux installation. If the XP cd wont boot the system, first make sure that the system is set in the bios to boot from floppy or cd first before the hard drive.
There are diffrent ways to get into the bios depending on the type of system that it is. One of the more comman ways is to tap the delete key shortly after booting up.
After you get it set up to boot from some sort of external media, cd or floppy, some can do flash drives. Boot the system with a Windows XP Boot disk, then in the command prompt you will want to X:>fdisk /mbr
X being the drive letter that the boot disk assigns the device.
If you do not have a boot disk that will work you can find one at http://bootdisk.com
BTW i've fried my Master Boot Record with severial diffrent linux distros. Both LILO and Grub have had this effect when I tried to have the bootloader write the changes to the MBR and not to the first part of the bootable drive.
got into bios, she didnt know the right key combo, error occured while booting off xp disk, so she will fdisk and begiin again, thanks for the speedy responses, especially as this was related thru a 3rd party, The People here ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D
last thing ... i don't recommend for you to "C:\>fdisk /mbr "
if XP (i don't use it) has the "fixmbr.exe" run it from recovery console on the boot CD
that way you can keep your existing XP install and try to install Linux again
I have ran into the same problem with my system having the MBR corrupted by misconfiguring a linux boot loader. Currently I have both windows XP and Suse 9.1 residing happly on the same hard drive. On my first install I left everything at defaults, including grub. Well grub was a hungry little worm and at my boot record, thus neither os would boot.
fdisk /MBR command rewrites only the first 446 bytes of the master boot record, not the partition table. rebooted and retried, with success.
Mabey the XP cd has the 'fixmbr.exe" program. I just prefer to hand important tasks like partitioning over to windows.
Me too. That's why I had my Slackware 9.1 partition erased one day. And no, it wasn't set in MBR. What to expect...Quote:
Originally posted here by spamdies
I just prefer to hand important tasks like partitioning over to windows.
Don't forget, in the event of a reinstall, to do Windows first then Linux. Otherwise you'll keep formatting that drive over and over again :)