Hi

I have been running XP pro for a few months or so and wanted to install Linux (mandrake v9) using a dual boot to see what its like.

PC-
1.2 ghz athlon
Fic motherboard, via chipset
768 sd ram
20 gb HD (for windows)
60 gb HD, partitioned into 20 (linux for linux) and 40 (mp3's and stuff)
geforce 3 ti200

I installed Linux in a seperate partition on a secondary HD, and it has seemed to se up a dual boot as you would thought it should.

Problem is when i get to the dual boot screen.....when i type in either linux or windows, 2 of the possible boot options, it shows a red box saying that i have a boot virus. It gives me two options - to continue booting - which gets me into windows or linux fine, or to reboot inserting a clean bootable floppy - which i dont understand what will do. i have a win 98 boot disk, but it doesn't get you into windows or anything.

Anyway, i went onto windows and did a full virus scan (obviously only of the windows drives - not teh linux drive) and it found no viruses. i use norton and in the summary it said it had scanned teh master boot record and boot record aswell.

I have only had this problem since i installed linux.......any ideas how to stop it?

Someoen suggested to update my via 4 in 1 drivers......woudl i need to update these in windows and linux...... where can i download these drivers for windows and for linux?

Any other reasons why i may be having this problem, and how can i fix it.

If worst comes to the worst, i'll get rid of linux......but how do i totally remove linux and the dual boot, so it just boots straight into windows as before.

please leave a reply or email me at jonhewer@hotmail.com

Thanks

RZA

Well if it is a boot sector virus it doesn't matter where you scan from, because there's only one boot sector on a PC. i reckon that you have your virus warning on in your BIOS and it might be thinking that the boot tool you are using is a virus (i don't recommend turning this off!). I'm not sure about this as i've never had any problems like this. You can format the master boot record and then use a boot utility like bootmagic. The command in DOS is fdisk /mbr .I think first you could try updating your BIOS making sure you have those new 4-in-1 drivers although i don't think they're part of the problem.

hi

i'm not sure abotu updatign eth bios as i looked on my mobo manufacturers site and they said it can be very dangerous, and i dont wanna screw things up further

i looked in my bios and yes it did have a virus checking thing enabled

does anyone have any suggestions

if it solves the problem i am prepared to get rid of linux for now, but how do i totally uninstall linux, removing the dual boot thing?

thanks

I used this before when I got one.......
http://invircible.com/iv_tools.php#Ivinit
HTH

hi

thanks for the link gooner001 - i'll try the program out but:

it says:

'Note that this utility should only be used on hard drives running under DOS, and Windows 95/98 and that were configured with FDISK. If your hard drive was configured with other programs such as Partition Magic or had a boot manager installed, you are then advised to consult you program's documentation on how to repair/reinstall a defective boot system.'

i formatted my hard disk in dos using my 98 boot disk not using fdisk, just teh format command, .......is this program ok to use?

thanks

I would say so........it was probably already partitioned correctly anyway.however.I am running XP but for your own comfort wait a little while and see what other members think..they might even be able to provide a better solution

i have 2 HD's

my one with windows on i formatted in dos using format command.

my second HD with linux on i partitioned in xp. obviously teh linux partition was set up by linux, the other partition formatted in xp


is the program ok to use or not?

thanks

Yes i should think so