Mozilla Problems with Service Pack 2

[Andy Axnot]

Good, I have no need for the web server and such stuff, so this is the
one I will try.

Thanks.

You're welcome, and good luck!

Andy

 

[512/udp]

buy Mandrake Linux

rofl!... uh, yeah.

--
"Whenever we read the obscene stories,
the voluptuous debaucheries,
the cruel and torturous executions,
the unrelenting vindictiveness,
with which more than half the bible is filled,
it would seem more consistent that we called it
the word of a demon than the Word of God.
It is a history of wickedness that has served
to corrupt and brutalize mankind."

-Thomas Paine

 

[REM]

Al Smith <[email protected]> wrote:

After you screw up Linux so much that it won't boot anymore (as
you probably will), just boot your computer from a Windows98
startup floppy, go to your C drive, and enter the DOS command
"fdisk /mbr" (without the quotation marks). This will restore your
Windows XP boot loader, and your computer will once again boot
directly into Windows XP. Then you can erase Linux and forget the
whole shuddersome experience with open source operating systems.

I was wondering how to do this, should the need arise. XP has
diskpart, rather than fdisk. I see no commandline options to restore
the mbr.

So, a Win 98 boot disk with fdisk will work on an XP machine with NTFS
partitions in removing lilo, grub, or whatever?

 

[Kurt]

REM wrote in

I was wondering how to do this, should the need arise. XP has
diskpart, rather than fdisk. I see no commandline options to
restore the mbr.

So, a Win 98 boot disk with fdisk will work on an XP machine with
NTFS partitions in removing lilo, grub, or whatever?

Hi REM, I'm gonna jump back in here and the following is extracted
from a post in comp.os.linux I think that it will answer your
question.

begin cut & paste:

Inline Reply...

Hello,

I am trying to built a system that boots both Windows XP and Linux
(Mandrake).

I did the following (starting from a virgin 120 GB disk). -
Install Windows in the first 20 GB. Checked that it booted OK. -
Install Mandrake in the rest, letting it partition the disk in /
swap and /home - Installed lilo in the MBR, with a menu item to
boot Windows.

Result: Linux boots, windows doesn't. It just hangs with a
blinking cursor on a black screen.

I had the exact same result with trying to boot NT using LILO. You
may need to read the LILO documentation to boot XP correctly using
LILO. See: comp.os.linux.setup Saturday, March 27, 2004 8:49 PM
"LILO problems...Debian Woody 3.0r2"

Reading the net I find that one can better use the NT boot loader
shipping with XP to boot Linux, in stead of using Lilo to boot
Windows. So I want to try that. But for this purpose I need to get
Windows to boot again.

If you did not back up your MBR before you told LILO to install in
the MBR it is probably too late to do anything short of reinstalling
XP.

And this I seem to be unable to do. Everything I tried, from
fixboot under rescue console to a complete reinstall fails.

I couldn't fix my NT installation using the NT emergency repair disk
either. Had to use low level disk editing software after booting
from my NT emergency boot disk (luckilly, I had backed up the MBR).
I could go into a few more details here but it would start a thread
that would probably become endless (i.e. Microsoft vs Linux, MS copy
protection, dirty deeds done by Microsoft that only a programmer
would under- stand or believe, etc.).

One of the odd things, is that when trying a reinstall, the reboot
after the first copy fails.

Reinstall of Linux or XP?

The other odd thing is that the symptoms are similar to what I got
when I tried to install XP on a harddisk that previously had
contained Linux. There also, after the initial copy of file to the
installation partition the bootloader is not correctly installed,
and the system hangs upon reboot. It does not go on with the
install...

Microsoft vs Linux?

This led me to asume that apparently there is something wrong with
my HD/partition table/MBR that keeps the windows install routine,
and other utilities like fixboot, from correctly installing a
bootloader, or that keeps the bootloader from finding the rest of
the system. And this something might be caused by my Linux
install.

Use DOS 6.22, Windows '98, etc. boot disk with DOS fdisk on it and
wipe out the partition table. Then try installing XP onto a clean
HDD. If this doesn't work you might want to download the diagnostic
utilities for your HDD and do a zero fill onto the HDD after you run
the diagnostic tests. This is as close to a low level format you can
get with a modern HDD. This should remove any trace of either OS.

Could this be? And what can I do about checking of my hyptohesis
is correct, and fixing my system? Does the linux fdisk do
something to the partition table that couses the windows fdisk to
misinterpret it?

I know that Debian Linux 3.0_r2 install creates non-standard
partition table entries sometimes if their is, for example, a
primary partition, then free space, then an extended partition. The
cfdisk(?) program used by install will write the new partitions
(Linux primary, Linux swap) created in the free space into the 3rd
and 4th entries in the partition table and assign your Linux primary
partition hda3. It then assigns the Linux swap hda5. If you reboot
after creating the partitions, go into a partition table editor or
low level disk editor and place the entries in the right order (i.e.
move the entry for the extended partition to the 4th entry in the
partition table, Linux primary entry to the second, and Linux swap
to the 3rd), the Linux installer will assign the "correct" /dev/hdxx
assignments. Not that there is any absolutely correct way, but this
is compatible with Microsoft's partitioning tools.

I think your problem might be more related to Microsoft's copy
protection / licensing requirements than anything else. I've read
that XP won't even let you repair a legitimate licensed installation
without putting you through a lot of extra trouble to prove you are
the licensed owner of the OS software. That's why I suggested zero
filling the HDD. That would (should) erase any disk signatures MS
may have written to some obscure sector of the HDD to keep track of
your installation attempts.

Good Luck,

-- Parts of original message omitted when not needed. See thread.



1. Use an old win 98 boot disk and at the prompt type, fdisk /mbr
That should get rid of the Linux boot loader. You might also need to
go back into the recovery console again and type bootcfg /rebuild.
answer the questions and you should be good to go

2. I just experienced a similar incident Mandrake 10.0 I have 2,
120 G SATA drives with win2000 and winxp. Wanted to try MDK 10.0
and proceeded to install on the second drive's free space (win2000
and winxp data are on 2 logical drives). Put Grub on the boot
partition rather than MBR and install went well. Afterwards, went
into winxp's disk management and saw that the disk info for the
drive Mandrake was installed on was now showing the wrong geometry.
It said I had a 160 G drive. Booted my Fedora disk to see what it
saw on the drive. Told me the partition table was munged up and
said if I want to activate the disk, all data would be lost.

Well, went back in to winxp......disk management and deleted all
partitions .....windows and Linux. Rebooted and the drive was
recognized properly. Re-installed my win2000 and winxp data via my
Ghost backup and all is now back to where I was earlier today. (The
adage to back up before treading into new territory is WISE)

I have never had a problem with RH, Fedora, nor SUSE's partitioning
tools conflicting with windows. This was my first time trying
Mandrake and although it recognized all my hardware and devices, and
installed well, I think I will wait for the final release in May?
before I try again.

One more thing, my windows environments are fat32 rather than ntfs
so I can read and write to them while in my Linux environments.

Hello,

I am trying to built a system that boots both Windows XP and Linux
(Mandrake).

I did the following (starting from a virgin 120 GB disk). -
Install Windows in the first 20 GB. Checked that it booted OK. -
Install Mandrake in the rest, letting it partition the disk in /
swap and /home - Installed lilo in the MBR, with a menu item to
boot Windows.

Result: Linux boots, windows doesn't. It just hangs with a
blinking cursor on a black screen.

<snip>

Krist

Caveat: I am not running Windows XP.

I don't know why your XP is stopped at the black screen, but I have
heard a rumor that you can fix the MBR without re-installing the
entire OS (as suggested by M. Glen Lewis.) The rescue console is
_not_ entered from "an old win 98 boot disk" (as suggested by
refv2). I have heard a rumor that the WinXP setup cd can be used to
enter a "rescue console." Google around a bit. Maybe read this,
(and BTW, I won't read it):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=/servicedesks/webc
asts%2Fen%2Fwc091401%2Fwct091401.asp

Short answer: "fixmbr" at the rescue console restores Microsoft's
MBR code. Not "fixboot" (the boot sector is _not_ broken).

Other information, if you want to fix your system: I also don't use
lilo anymore because grub is a more flexible loader for dual boot,
in my opinion.

Recently, I participated in this discussion in this forum:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=92d3
f983.0403231745.1af85c27%40posting.google.com

IMO grub's code at the MBR is the best option because it doesn't
/*usually*/ leave your system in an unbootable state.

You could also prepare a boot floppy for XP for those rare occasions
when XP is required.

end cut & paste

 

[John Corliss]

EXCELLENT advice! too often ignored, unfortunately.




Maybe, but I doubt it. IMHO, Mepis Linux would be a better choice. Mepis
is a live CD version. That is, you can run it from the CD, without
installing it to your hard drive, to see how well it plays with your
hardware and such. If you like it, you can install it to the hard drive
for better performance and to retain any data you create or download.

http://www.mepis.org/

Again, IMHO, the installation to hard disk is an order of magnitude easier
than with SuSE. Mepis' hardware recognition is probably the best out
there, the instalation the quickest, and the general performance is
excellent. It comes with quite a collection of good software, and
installing new software is fairly easy since it's Debian based and can use
most .deb packages, as Red Hat and Mandrake can use .rpm packages.

It is far from perfect, and I still have to dual boot with Windows, but of
those I've tried so far, Mandrake, Suse, Knoppix, Slax, Morphix, and a few
more specialized distros, Mepis is the best. YMMV.

Looks good alright. A little concerned about the following From their
site:

"You can download testing and released versions of MEPIS for free from
the following mirror sites. Usually the mirrors are a bit behind the
MEPIS Premium download site. Some mirrors get out-of-date from time to
time. If you can't find a particular version at one site, it may be
available at one of the other sites."

Suse download is always the most recent. However, hopefully this is
not a big deal so here are the download links for a free copy of MEPIS:
___________________________________________
North American Mirrors

ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/mepis
ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributions/mepis
http://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/linux/mepis/
ftp://ftp.cise.ufl.edu/pub/mirrors/mepis

European Mirrors

ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/mepis/
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/mepis/
ftp://flo-jlg.no-ip.org (user:mepisfr pwd:mepisfr)
ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distributions/mepis
http://www.debianworld.net/pub/mirror/mepis/

Other Download Sources

http://www.mrbass.org/linux/mepis
___________________________________________

I'm still going with SuSE. It's easy enough to remove it if it doesn't
work out.

 

[Fabrice DEJAIGHER]

REM wrote in

I have XP SP1 installed.
I've installed Mandrake linux 10 for AMD 64, wich was a big s..., on
antoher disk (slave)
I tried "lilo -u" wich didn't work... and so lilo -U, and my MBR was lost...
I boot on a Win98 installation CD, promt DOS
Make fdisk /mbr (c: was not recognized, but it doesn't matter)
As my BIOS setting prevents from writing MBR, i have to confirm.
I reboot... XP detects the win98 MBR, and change it (BIOS Confirmation !)
And now everything works fine.


--
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<http://rencontres.chtiland.com> - Emploi <http://emploi.chtiland.com>
Page de démarrage <http://start.chtiland.com> - Communauté Chtiland
<http://communaut%E9.chtiland.com>

2xMoinsCher <http://www.2xmoinscher.com/?Coupon=chtiland>/ (7,5
euros de réduction offerts à partir de 45,5 euros)/

 

[John Corliss]

Your best bet is to buy Mandrake Linux in a box at a software store.

That (a purchased copy, not the downloaded version) would hardly be
freeware, would it? And this group is named alt.comp.freeware.

That will eliminate the problems you might encounter trying to download
and burn a copy (not too much of a chore, but it does take some fiddling
to learn how to do it).

Oh bull. It's about as easy to do as any other download only the
download file size is larger. If a person has a slow connection they
can use a download manager to download the file overnight and in
pieces. Then, burning a CD from an ISO is very easy with Burnatonce:

http://www.burnatonce.com/

Why Mandrake? Because it is the best Linux
version for a beginner (Linspire is somewhat braindead).

I disagree and so does this review (link kindly provided, I believe,
by Richard Steven Hack):

http://www.flexbeta.net/main/articles.php?action=show&id=70

When you install Mandrake, its boot loader LILO will automatically set
up a dual boot for your computer, giving you the option of which OS you
want to boot to each time you start your computer. It works very well.
After you screw up Linux so much that it won't boot anymore (as you
probably will),

Now where do you come off making an unsubstantiated remark like that?

just boot your computer from a Windows98 startup floppy,
go to your C drive, and enter the DOS command "fdisk /mbr" (without the
quotation marks). This will restore your Windows XP boot loader, and
your computer will once again boot directly into Windows XP. Then you
can erase Linux and forget the whole shuddersome experience with open
source operating systems.

What are you, a shill for Microsoft or something? Don't you know that
such a remark is going to get your ass flamed so hard by Linux
advocates that when you come around your clothes will be out of style?

I know, I know, Linux is great.

Then you shouldn't be making remarks about it being a "shuddersome
experience".

But most people who try it end up going back to Windows.

Just where do you come up with that notion? MY understanding is that
Linux use is growing and expecially in the business community.

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

They are both live CDs, and both generally good.

Simply Mepis is, of course, the newer release. It is supposed to be a
one-CD release for desktop use and does not have software such as Apache
web server stuff. It is also more Debian compliant than was the 2003.10
release.

There will be another version, Mepis Pro, released later. This will be
more full-blown.

I suggest Simply Mepis.

Andy

Had a look at the site just now, and had trouble finding the system
requirements for Simply Mepis. After a search I found a couple of
cites and one link in the forums. It seems the only official hardware
requirements listing is for the earlier 03 version, no system
requirements are given for Simply Mempis. And the requirements for the
03 version are considerably higher than for Knoppix.

 

[Roger Johansson]

Had a look at the site just now, and had trouble finding the system
requirements for Simply Mepis. After a search I found a couple of
cites and one link in the forums. It seems the only official hardware
requirements listing is for the earlier 03 version, no system
requirements are given for Simply Mempis. And the requirements for the
03 version are considerably higher than for Knoppix.

I tried SimplyMepis yesterday. It worked very well on my hardware,
and many other Linux distros have had problems with my machine.

It works a little better even than Knoppix, and that makes SimplyMepis
the best live-CD I have ever tried.

You will probably not find any hardware specifications for Mepis, or any
general linux distro, because the distros are put together from thousands
of drivers for different hardware pieces, the best and easiest way to find out
if it works on your machine is to try it out.

It would take months to find hardware specifications for a certain distro,
and specifications of the hardware in your computer. It takes just a few minutes
to try to apply the distro and see how it works and what doesn't work.

Mepis is not only a live-CD, it can be used to install Linux on a hard disk too,
so it is the best start for a Linux system I have found so far.

 

[REM]

Hi REM, I'm gonna jump back in here and the following is extracted
from a post in comp.os.linux I think that it will answer your
question.

begin cut & paste:

Inline Reply...

I had the exact same result with trying to boot NT using LILO. You
may need to read the LILO documentation to boot XP correctly using
LILO. See: comp.os.linux.setup Saturday, March 27, 2004 8:49 PM
"LILO problems...Debian Woody 3.0r2"

I went with Grub and it works nice. The only problem is that I
installed several linux distros and had to destroy old linux
partitions each time. I didn't create the same sized partitions for
each reinstall of linux and I had a couple of boot problems (linux).
Each was solved by simply reinstalling the linux package. I guess the
second time around Grub was updated with the correct partition
information.

I could tell from this that I'd be in pretty bad shape, boot
manglerwise, should I have problems with XP booting. So, I began
wondering... after I discovered that XP doesn't have fdisk, exactly
how I can recover the mbr.

So far it's smooth sailing as far as Grub goes. I'm working on a
mirror, or image system. I've tested (but not yet booted from)
DrvImagerXP and it looks like this program does a perfect job at
imaging XP. I'm going to try a bootable XP CD this week when I get the
chance to put the image on my jump drive. If the image program works
from the boot CD I think my problems are solved. XP seems to need to
be reapplied from image due to exploitations from my short experience
with it anyway. Maybe I just need a hardware firewall...

DrvImagerXP:

http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/13/2/13-2-39.shtml

Windows UBCD:

http://www.windowsubcd.com/

If these work, I'm pretty sure the mbr is copied to the image and I
have drive space to have a working XP partition, a linux partition and
images for XP and several linux packages. I just need a static size
for the linux partitions to keep Grub straight.

If you did not back up your MBR before you told LILO to install in
the MBR it is probably too late to do anything short of reinstalling
XP.

I did not, but it's working fine as is.

I couldn't fix my NT installation using the NT emergency repair disk
either. Had to use low level disk editing software after booting
from my NT emergency boot disk (luckilly, I had backed up the MBR).
I could go into a few more details here but it would start a thread
that would probably become endless (i.e. Microsoft vs Linux, MS copy
protection, dirty deeds done by Microsoft that only a programmer
would under- stand or believe, etc.).

True, no need for OS war.

Use DOS 6.22, Windows '98, etc. boot disk with DOS fdisk on it and
wipe out the partition table. Then try installing XP onto a clean
HDD. If this doesn't work you might want to download the diagnostic
utilities for your HDD and do a zero fill onto the HDD after you run
the diagnostic tests. This is as close to a low level format you can
get with a modern HDD. This should remove any trace of either OS.

This is good to know!

I think your problem might be more related to Microsoft's copy
protection / licensing requirements than anything else. I've read
that XP won't even let you repair a legitimate licensed installation
without putting you through a lot of extra trouble to prove you are
the licensed owner of the OS software. That's why I suggested zero
filling the HDD. That would (should) erase any disk signatures MS
may have written to some obscure sector of the HDD to keep track of
your installation attempts.

Also good to know!

One more thing, my windows environments are fat32 rather than ntfs
so I can read and write to them while in my Linux environments.

I went NTFS, but I have a small fat32 partition so I can move files
between the two.

I don't know why your XP is stopped at the black screen, but I have
heard a rumor that you can fix the MBR without re-installing the
entire OS (as suggested by M. Glen Lewis.) The rescue console is
_not_ entered from "an old win 98 boot disk" (as suggested by
refv2). I have heard a rumor that the WinXP setup cd can be used to
enter a "rescue console." Google around a bit. Maybe read this,
(and BTW, I won't read it):

Short answer: "fixmbr" at the rescue console restores Microsoft's
MBR code. Not "fixboot" (the boot sector is _not_ broken).

Other information, if you want to fix your system: I also don't use
lilo anymore because grub is a more flexible loader for dual boot,
in my opinion.

Recently, I participated in this discussion in this forum:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=92d3
f983.0403231745.1af85c27%40posting.google.com

IMO grub's code at the MBR is the best option because it doesn't
/*usually*/ leave your system in an unbootable state.

You could also prepare a boot floppy for XP for those rare occasions
when XP is required.

All good info left...

Thanks very much Kurt!

 

[Kurt]

Achim Nolcken Lohse wrote in

Had a look at the site just now, and had trouble finding the
system requirements for Simply Mepis. After a search I found a
couple of cites and one link in the forums. It seems the only
official hardware requirements listing is for the earlier 03
version, no system requirements are given for Simply Mempis. And
the requirements for the 03 version are considerably higher than
for Knoppix.

Unless there have been big changes in Mepis, Simply Mepis will require
a minumum of 128mb RAM. It simply won't boot with less than that much.

 

[Kurt]

REM wrote in

Thanks very much Kurt!

YW, Friend REM!

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

I tried SimplyMepis yesterday. It worked very well on my hardware,
and many other Linux distros have had problems with my machine.

It works a little better even than Knoppix, and that makes SimplyMepis
the best live-CD I have ever tried.

You will probably not find any hardware specifications for Mepis, or any
general linux distro, because the distros are put together from thousands
of drivers for different hardware pieces, the best and easiest way to find out
if it works on your machine is to try it out.

It would take months to find hardware specifications for a certain distro,
and specifications of the hardware in your computer. It takes just a few minutes
to try to apply the distro and see how it works and what doesn't work.

Not in my case, I'm afraid. The target PC is a laptop with no internal
CDROM. To run a LiveCD on it, I need both a floppy boot diskette and
pcmcia support at boot-up. That's why it makes more sense to find out
the system requirements (and by that I mean minimum CPU speed, hdd
space, and RAM) before investigating further.

....

 

[Achim Nolcken Lohse]

....

Unless there have been big changes in Mepis, Simply Mepis will require
a minumum of 128mb RAM. It simply won't boot with less than that much.

It seems to me that there was a posting to the effect that 03 could be
made to work with 64MB of RAM...

Knoppix 3.4 will boot and run with KDE on only 96MB of RAM.

Aside from the lack of a bootable CD-ROM or internal CD-ROM on my
target laptop, requiring both floppy boot and pcmcia boot-up support,
it's also maxed out at 96MB of RAM.