Help! I've installed a GNU on the same volume as XP

nottseagull

fwor wrote: »

This problem is spread over at least 2 threads now.

Actually this is the only thread on which I have mentioned this specific problem. If it has appeared elsewhere, it is because people
are responding to my problems on the wrong thread. For example here, I am still being advised to buy/download this or that distro whereas
I only ever wanted Linux temporarily as a means to downloading XP Service Pack 2 (on the new PC), which I thought was the easiest way I can get the dongle to work.

fwor wrote: »

. Can you remind me why you are trying to use the USB version instead of creating a CD and booting from that?

Well, I didn't have a blank CD with me on Saturday, but usually after inserting a CD ROM into most of the library’s PCs and clicking on the relevant drive (x) in My Computer, it just says ‘please insert a disc into drive x’. Also I am not adept at this 'burning' business, and am almost out of CDs as a result!

fwor wrote: »

On anything other than a recent PC, you are likely to have more problems booting from a USB device than a CD, if the BIOS allows it at all.

Although it is an old PC (256MB RAM), there are USB options on the (CMOS?) list in the BIOS.

fwor wrote: »

If you can boot Ok from a CD, download the CD version (if necessary temporarily to a pendrive if the library does not have CD writers), use Imgburn under Windows….....to burn it as a bootable CD

Thanks, I didn't realise the USB stick was suitable for transferring the CD version onto a PC. Would that be Super Grub Disk 0.9799 Cdrom Mirror #1 Mirror #2 ?
Yes, the PC will boot from a CD, but how would I use Windows if I can’t find a library PC that will recognize my CDs? I will however try tomorrow if I can’t install from the USB stick tonight. The library PCs have Creator Classic; will that do?

23n1th

nottseagull wrote: »

Actually this is the only thread on which I have mentioned this specific problem. If it has appeared elsewhere, it is because people
are responding to my problems on the wrong thread. For example here, I am still being advised to buy/download this or that distro whereas
I only ever wanted Linux temporarily as a means to downloading XP Service Pack 2 (on the new PC), which I thought was the easiest way I can get the dongle to work.

If you've install linux on your computer SP2 wont do anything for you. I've never tried but you might not even be able to download SP2 from linux. I am truely confused as to what you're trying to do!

Well, I didn't have a blank CD with me on Saturday, but usually after inserting a CD ROM into most of the library’s PCs and clicking on the relevant drive (x) in My Computer, it just says ‘please insert a disc into drive x’. Also I am not adept at this 'burning' business, and am almost out of CDs as a result!

That looks like they have the drives disabled. Tescos to buy a linux mag with a livecd???

fwor

nottseagull wrote: »

I didn't realise the USB stick was suitable for transferring the CD version onto a PC. Would that be Super Grub Disk 0.9799 Cdrom Mirror #1 Mirror #2 ?

Yes - it should just download as a file with a .iso extension. You can put that on any removable medium to transfer from one PC to another.

nottseagull wrote: »

Yes, the PC will boot from a CD, but how would I use Windows if I can’t find a library PC that will recognize my CDs? I will however try tomorrow if I can’t install from the USB stick tonight. The library PCs have Creator Classic; will that do?

That probably depends on which version of Creator Classic - Version 6 onward should have an option under the File menu with a title such as "Record disk from an image" which will write a .iso file as a bootable CD.

You would probably find that if the PC is still capable of booting the SliTaz distro, it is ~probably~ capable of writing a .iso file to CD as well. I've never used it, so I don't know for sure, but many Linux distros have a feature where if you right-click on a .iso file, one of the options will be "write to CD" or similar. If that's not built into the SliTaz kernel, it should be very simple to install a utility that will.

nottseagull

fwor wrote: »

You would probably find that if the PC is still capable of booting the SliTaz distro, it is probably capable of writing a .iso file to CD as well. I've never used it, so I don't know for sure, but many Linux distros have a feature where if you right-click on a .iso file, one of the options will be "write to CD" or similar.

You are spot on Fwor, SliTaz does indeed have that facility. Thing is, though, that I didn't need it because I went to a different library yesterday evening which had Roxio installed. Although My Computer still didn't recognize my CD, Roxio did; I downloaded it again, this time to the library PC's HDD and Roxio did the rest with a single click.
When I got home, I altered the BIOS to run SGD from the CD drive. However there is a myriad of menus and sub-menus, and I spent an hour trying different combinations, but only SliTaz would launch.
Is the problem that 'Linux has rewritten my MBR'? Am I supposed to be 'restoring GRUB to my MBR'? Should I be 'restoring my GRUB from inside GNU'? Do I 'activate partition of Windows'?
I have only been highlighting and pressing enter. Am I supposed to be running commands? I've never done that before.

nottseagull

stilltheone wrote: »

They have no idea as to whether you resized your partition before you installed Linux. As to your MBR, I'm quite sure that no one will help you with that tool.

Considering that I said the new PC came unpartitioned, don't you think I would have mentioned any change to that? There are 101 other things that I "didn't" do; did you expect me to list them for you?
I seem to have a volume of 85MB, but I don't know what it was; I managed to take a screenshot before I lost Windows. .before

nottseagull

23n1th wrote: »

If you've install linux on your computer SP2 wont do anything for you. I've never tried but you might not even be able to download SP2 from linux. I am truely confused as to what you're trying to do!

My 3 mobile broadband dongle wouldn’t work on the new PC (no other internet access at home) because it lacks Service Pack 2. SP2 was too large to download at the library, so I thought that if I could run a modestly sized flavour of Linux, then I could get it onto the PC that way. Unfortunately I can't connect the dongle using SliTaz; the drive won't even mount, let alone install the dongle's software. However, I have since discovered that my dongle can overide the library PC's slower connection, and with an extended session on a quiet day I should be able to get SP2 onto it. It is to this end that I am trying to restore Windows; hopefully Fwor will return to put an end to my misery!

23n1th

nottseagull wrote: »

My 3 mobile broadband dongle wouldn’t work on the new PC (no other internet access at home) because it lacks Service Pack 2. SP2 was too large to download at the library, so I thought that if I could run a modestly sized flavour of Linux, then I could get it onto the PC that way. Unfortunately I can't connect the dongle using SliTaz; the drive won't even mount, let alone install the dongle's software. However, I have since discovered that my dongle can overide the library PC's slower connection, and with an extended session on a quiet day I should be able to get SP2 onto it. It is to this end that I am trying to restore Windows; hopefully Fwor will return to put an end to my misery!

Ok thats fine.

Next question is have use installed SliTaz over xp or on a separate partition? ie can you boot xp or does it go straight to SliTaz?

With ubuntu the dongle will probably be supported out of the box so you could accomplish what you initially wanted to do with a livecd saving the download to your usb stick. You just plug everything and boot the livecd it should pick everything up.

That is of course if xp is still on the computer at all.

fwor

nottseagull wrote: »

hopefully Fwor will return to put an end to my misery!

I'm not sure I can do that. All of the Linux distributions that I've ever used (around twenty in the last year or so) have been well-behaved. I've never had one that installed itself on my hard drive without asking permission and giving warnings, and they all by default split an existing partition into two and install themselves in spare space on the drive.

If you still only have one partition on the HDD and SliTaz boots from it, then it is not a distribution that I would ever want to use.

However... if you are looking at the HDD with a partition manager designed for Windows, it will probably not even recognise a partition created under Linux, as by default it will probably have an EXT3 or EXT4 filesystem - which Windows does not understand. SliTaz should have GPARTED available, and that will give you an accurate view of what partitions are there. If you find that you now have 2 partitions, then I would use the "Linux has rewritten my MBR" option. You best outcome in that situation may be to reconfigure GRUB to include Windows as an option at boot time.

If there is only one partition, I would fear the worst, and that crucial parts of Windows are no longer where they should be.

nottseagull

fwor wrote: »

I've never had one that installed itself on my hard drive without asking permission and giving warnings, and they all by default split an existing partition into two and install themselves in spare space on the drive.

OK, I guess I asked for that! I was just annoyed as I felt I had been duped into downloading it. If you go to the SliTaz link in my OP you will find that the opening line is 'SliTaz is a free operating system, working completely in RAM and booting from removable media such as a cdrom or USB key.'
Obviously it doesn't, the damned thing is on my HDD. If I did say 'OK' to installing it then obviously I would have presumed it was to the RAM (however temporary that 'install' would be).

fwor wrote: »

However... if you are looking at the HDD with a partition manager designed for Windows, it will probably not even recognise a partition created under Linux...

The only reason I think the HDD is unpartioned is that no OS will boot when I change the BIOS to boot from HDD-1, HDD-2 or HDD-3
(those are the other hard drive options on the Award BIOS CMOS Setup Utility).
I will look for that GPARTED thingy you mentioned when I get home tonight and report back tomorrow.

fwor

nottseagull wrote: »

OK, I guess I asked for that! I was just annoyed as I felt I had been duped into downloading it. If you go to the SliTaz link in my OP you will find that the opening line is 'SliTaz is a free operating system, working completely in RAM and booting from removable media such as a cdrom or USB key.'
Obviously it doesn't, the damned thing is on my HDD. If I did say 'OK' to installing it then obviously I would have presumed it was to the RAM (however temporary that 'install' would be).

Ok - I can see how a misunderstanding about Linux distro terminology could cuase this to happen. It sounds as though SliTaz is like any other distro that can run as a LiveCD (most can). As a LiveCD, the OS will create a RAM-based filesystem, and won't touch any HDD. For any other typical distro (such as Ubuntu) you could have hit the same problem, as they would all interpret "install" as "install to hard disk".

nottseagull wrote: »

The only reason I think the HDD is unpartioned

Another terminology confusion. To most techies, "unpartitioned" means that there are ~no~ partitions present. If there is just one partition present, it would generally be considered to be "partitioned".

nottseagull wrote: »

is that no OS will boot when I change the BIOS to boot from HDD-1, HDD-2 or HDD-3
(those are the other hard drive options on the Award BIOS CMOS Setup Utility).

Those other options won't let you boot from other partitions. They are intended to allow you to boot from other devices (i.e. physical hard disks), and the BIOS will boot from whichever partition on that device is marked as "boot". A boot manager such as GRUB is intended to overcome that limitation by allowing you to boot from partitions which are not marked as "boot" - so allowing multi-boot on a single HDD.

Let us know what GPARTED tells you when you've had a chance to run it. Be careful - it's a fully functional partition editor, so treat it with respect...