UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

ok well last night "something" caused by computer to "flip out"...i noticed that it seemed to be in dos but there was allot of info displaying on the screen real fast and after turning it off i was told there was no hard disk detected...
so after talking to tech support i got windows up and everything seems to be normal. except the boot screen i use to get to boot linux doesn't come up.
how do i get back into linux??

Are you saying that your boot manager no longer comes up
or that when it does, Linux is no longer an option?

Can you tell if the Linux partition is still there and valid?
If so, can you access it via your disk partioning tool?

my boot manager doesn't come up at all because when correcting the problem i had to run mbr in dos which makes the computer go back to loading directly into windows...

the partion still seems to be there (as my available disk space in windows is unchanged)

my disk was partioned by the mandrake install disk...i don't have a seperate tool...

thanks...

I'm not sure what Mandrake ships with but if it has
somthing like PartitionMagic (or some such disk partion mgr.)
perhaps you could try running that again. I assume it would
run from a CD after you boot from the install disk.

This is only a guess since I don't have Mandrake to play with

What it sounds like is somehow Windows overwrote your Master Boot Record. I would reinstall Linux, or at least upgrade it so you can get to the stage when it asks you to install the boot loader. Install it, and then you will be able to get back into linux. I would also make a boot floppy disk when the installer asks you to do so. That way if this ever happens again, you won't have to reinstall.