Linux won’t boot – corrupt MBR (Master Boot Record) repair tip
How many times have I seen this, a dual-boot system with a sideways Master Boot Record (MBR). This is one of those ways that Windows systems sometimes don’t “play well with others”. This tip at linuxhelp.blogspot.com tells of an unfortunate Windows hibernate that rendered his system unbootable. A linux cd is all it takes to repair the damage.
Yet another good reason to hang onto those install cds or other livecds… There are instructions on the site for both grub and lilo. Mandriva/Mandrake and Red Hat have asimilar “linux rescue” boot from the setup discs that takes you to a rescue console. You essentially boot to the rescue console from a boot cd (or other boot media), mount the linux partition, then chroot /mnt/mylinuxpartition…. next running lilo (if lilo is your bootloader) is all that’s needed. Although, I recall running into a certain situation where that didn’t work as it should and I had to remount the partition with specific options. I’ll post if I recall/run into it again first hand. Until then, maybe the article linked above will be of use.