windows xp install vs suse?

[Sideburns]

Have a machine in for trials before buying

Basically had suse linux and windows xp on it, but the windows xp didnt work and im not to sure/keen with linux at the moment so used a windows 2000 install disc to format and start again. After an hour of formatting and installing upon the first boot its gives me the msg

'error loading operating system'

Tried installing a few times, but with same results.

Is this some remnant of the suse linux install trying to boot or windows being arsey?

Note: have tried both xp and 2000

[mookydooky]

It sounds like something messed up your boot sector. You're probably gonna have to do a low level format.

[Sideburns]

yeah, the low level format will be the next port of call.

[mookydooky]

You could also try the repair utility in the WinXP install. Give the "fixmbr" command a try.

[piccoLEW]

i downloaded a tool once, cant remember where i got it from, but it sets certain areas of your hard disk to 0, i dont know if this is the low-level format people are referring to.

usually everything can be fixed with a windows 98 startup bootdisk which u can d/l from aoa files.. use fdisk to wipe the partitions, reset, format the whole disk, reset, insert win2k installation cd, and reformat to ntfs if you so wish .

[Gizmo]

Did you repartition, or did you just install on the existing partition?

It has been my experience with LILO and GRUB that you have to actually delete all partitions on the driver and then recreate them or you'll end up with this kind of a problem.

[Kaitain]

You will need to use a Linux disc of some sort (try knoppix?) to remove the Linux partitions completely. Windows won't do it. You will also need to use Windows to do an fdisk, then a fixmbr, then try installing again.

If you plan on using WinXP and Linux, it is a Really Good Idea to put them on separate discs, with Lilo/grub only on the Linux disc. That said, I've had just about every combination working; your mileage may vary.

[Sideburns]

Aye, have been told i need a linux disc to solve this problem, which i dont really have. Hence will be trying a low level format. Thanks for advice guys.

[Kaitain]

You can use the SUSE disc to remove the Linux partitions. Boot the install disc, just click through to get to the disc partitioning stage, and select "manual" partitioning, "custom" scheme and "expert" mode. Delete all the partitions. Somewhere on that screen, there's an option to write the partition table to disc. Do that, then bang the reset button. You now have a scrubbed disc.

[Sideburns]

Right, tried fixmbr and fdisk. fdisk didnt seem to to be able to see any partitions. Am re-installing windows now to see if either had any effect. Since the first format the disk size has gone down 3mb ?! is this boot partitions taking up space?

Edit: Any free lowlevel format progs out there? harddisk is a western digital 80gb?

[Kaitain]

Microsoft fdisk won't see any partitions, as has already been stated repeatedly on this thread. You will need to use the SuSE install disc as I described earlier, or get a knoppix/sysrec disc and use the Linux disc partitioning tool. You don't need to low-level format the drive, just delete the Linux partitions before using the MS utilities!

[Sideburns]

As allready stated i aint got the suse install disc, but fdisk did fix the problem. Thanks for your interest all.

[Daniel ~]

In Fdisk I just removed the non Dos partitions as I recall...
but mt memory of those times is sketchy...":O}

[cloasters]

If you always remember to install Windows first, then Linux, you should have no problems. GRUB works better than LILO, by miles.