possible to revert back to windows?

[Jeremy Byrd]

A friend of mine was playing around with Linux and installed it over his windows 2000 pro partition and now he cant boot up to windows.

Is he able to do this in anyway besides buying a new hard drive?
Im sure there is a way, but it escapes me at this time.

If it matters, it is Linux Mandrake 7.0.

Dual booting is an option if there is a way.


Thanks

[RJ]

Did he install Linux on an extra partition (in this case it's only the boot sector that needs to be changed) or did he really overwrite his Win2K ?

In the last case, Win2K is lost, and you need to reinstall Windows. Before doing this, partition the hard drive and install each OS on its own partition. This way you can also dual boot.

RJ

[Jeremy Byrd]

He definately over wrote his win2k but he says thats okay because he backed it up...

When he tries to boot from cd- linux starts up immediately.

At this point, we got rid of the swap partitions and are still trying to be able to get him to reload win2k.


thanks.

[Jeremy Byrd]

RJ

Thanks for your help. It is appreciated.
Hes good to go now, scared him for a bit and I must admit- I am not a linux scholar myself.

Thanks again

[freezinbutt]

Hi Jeremy,

So does your friend still want to set up a dual boot system with Win2K and Linux. I have a couple dual boot systems with Win2K and Linux Mandrake, Peanut Linux, and soon Red Hat 7.3. They are easy to set up and you can use LILO as the boot loader or the Win2K bootloader. You can also use a third party bootloader if you wish. Also was wondering why Mandrake 7.0? He must have got that from a book or magazine as Mandrake 8.2 is the current version.

freezinbutt

[Jeremy Byrd]

lol--

actually, he never wants to see linux again. :)

but I was thinking about dual booting with linux, 2k, and XP, if thats possible.

[freezinbutt]

That's too bad about your friend. He should have given Linux a better chance. It can be a bit confusing at first, especially the install. I think most people get confused with the way Linux sees hardware on your computer. They are just too used to the Windows way.

It is possible to do what you would like to do though. A little planning is in order though. First of all you should have your drive properly partitioned. I would set it up so that you have a partition for each operating system. Linux will require 2 partitions (one for Linux Native and one for Swap). These partitions can be created during the install of Linux but you should have a dedicated partition set up on the drive for Linux. If your drive is not partitioned and you don't want to format and start over, I would recommend getting something like System Commander 7. It is a great program with a wonderfull bootloader and partitioning tools. What distro of Linux are you thinking about running?

freezinbutt

p.s. You might want to take the time to read the article on Multi-Operating System set up here at PCMech. It is on the home page or here:

http://www.pcmech.com/show/os/334/

[Jeremy Byrd]

well,

I am open to suggestions as to what distro to get...

He was using 7.0 because someone gave him a disk on it. He was just bored- and got nailed (almost)

I will look into system commander and will plan on doing this sunday.

thanks again for your help.


Jeremy

[freezinbutt]

Mandrake, Red Hat, and SuSE are probably the most widely used distros. If you are brand new to Linux I would recommend Mandrake as it is very easy to install and configure (for the most part). The current version is 8.2 and can be downloaded from www.linuxiso.org. There are three disk to the set, each of them is about 650MB of downloading. If you are on dial up this is probably not going to work for you. For a basic install though, you will only need to download disk #1 as #2 and #3 just have extras on them.

Your system specs will be improtant to know when you are installing. Linux does not always auto detect and install everything so you really need to know what is in your box. If you are on dial up and have a winmodem, you might be out of luck. Winmodems and Linux do not get along very well but there are some that work. Laptops can be tricky too. Usually this is an issue with video setups with Laptops.

Let me know if I can be of more help. Always happy to help bring someone else into the Linux world.

freezinbutt

[Jeremy Byrd]

Is it difficult to configure Linux on a network?

[freezinbutt]

No...not at all. I have 4 computers on my home network and I have never had trouble configuring it. KDE has some pretty nice wizards to guide you through the process.

[Jeremy Byrd]

ok im gonna try it.

The link you gave me gives me a DNS error.

Any other places to download it?

[freezinbutt]

I tried the link and it worked fine, so I can't explain that. Here is another link:

http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/ftptmp/1021084320.b5f92dae3921385117d0e84a43e7cb6a.php

This will take you directly to the download page on the Mandrake site. Scroll down the page a bit and you will see a long list of the FTP sites. Assuming you have a computer above a 486 you will want to get the i586.iso file. Then you will have to burn the iso's to a disk. You should be able to find directions on how to do this but is not just post back and I'll coach you through it.

[Jeremy Byrd]

I appreciate the time your taking. I admit I've been a windows junky over the years.

I've installed the 7.0 version from the disk that my friend had and it seemed to setup quite easily, but I have no idea how to configure it to the internet.

If I can figure that out, then I can hook up with the new verisons.

BTW, DSL modem.

Thanks

[freezinbutt]

You mentioned a network earlier...what are you using for a network. I use a router and a hub combo with a cable modem. I used to have DSL but I switched to cable. There really shouldn't be much of a problem here anyway. Mandy will probably set it all up during the install once you give it the right information.

[Jeremy Byrd]

Mandy? lol, geez I am a rookie.

Linksys 4 port router.

[freezinbutt]

OK...that should be easy. During the install, Mandy will ask you for some information about your network. Answer all the questions and that should be it. If it doesn't work once you get up and running, don't worry. You can reconfigure it real easy from either KDE or Gnome. If you are using DHCP, just tell Mandy that during the install and to auto detect during boot up...that should do the trick.

[glc]

I'm moving this thread into Alternative Operating Systems with all the other linux-related threads.