Needs help with Linux installation

[sulochana]

Hi folks,

I am basically a windows user keen to enter the world of Linux. I was using which was dual boot, which contained red hat Linux 9.0 and win 98.
Last week I had a virus attack and had to re install windows again. As a result
every time the computer boots grub is not coming. Now I tried to install red hat Linux 9.0 on the existing Linux partitions. But while it is installing it is showing the
message: -
unable to align partition correctly. This probably means another
partitioning tool generated an incorrect partitioning table, because it did not have correct BIOS geometry. it is safe to ignore but ignoring may cause warning (fiscable) problems with some boot loaders.

Even though the Linux distribution is installing, grub boot loader is not loading.

So what to do?

As a matter of fat i had used partition magic 8.0 to create a new fat32 partition and later merged it with another existing fat 32 partition. After this only the problem is coming.

Now whenever I try to open partition magic it is showing the message

Init failed error 117
partitions drive letter cannot be identified.

In fact when I take partition info tool
it is giving the message partition contains errors.

When I check the E: drive it is giving the message

error #114 logical starting at 40965813 is not one head away from EPBR

please note that i am just a beginner in these matters. So any help would be appreciated

[Dswissmiss]

If you have a livecd such as knoppix, you can boot with that and manually change the grub configuration file which should be at /boot/grub/grub.conf (not 100% though). Post back if you go that route.

[LocoCoyote]

I recommend you nuke the whole mess. Partion as you want things to be. Install windows. install linux. you need a min of three partions. one for windows (fat32 or NTFS) the middle one should be your linux swap (x2 memory or 1GB..which ever comes first) and last of all you linux (ex3 or rieser).