Major Dual-Boot Issue

**Lixus Looser** · 03-19-2005, 02:32 PM

I have a potentially serious problem: I have my 40gb Hard Drive dual booted with Win XP Pro and Fedora Core 3. Everything has worked fine for months until yesterday when I went to boot Windows and it went directly to a black DOS-looking screen that said EXCEPTION in bold letters at the top and then listed a bunch of codes. THis happened IMMEDIATLY after I selected "Other" in the Grub Boot Loader, so I'm hoping its just a simple problem with the boot loader that can be remedied.

So, couple of things: A) I would be happy to reformat my C: partition and reinstall Windows, but not until I can get my important documents off the disk. B) Is there a way to recover, i.e. access those documents through Fedora? Can I mount my C: drive and copy the documents, assume they are still there? C) Is it possible that its just a problem with the boot loader that can be fixed?

If you think you have an answer, please try to go easy on me as I am still not much of a linux expert.

Thanks for your help in advance.

**trickster** · 03-19-2005, 04:57 PM

Hi,

We have a tutorial on accessing these partitions under linux.
Check it out here.

If you can post the error codes, we might be able to help you with that too.

Trickster

**Lixus Looser** · 03-19-2005, 09:46 PM

Here is the "code" of the error:

Code:

Trap 00000006   ===================EXCEPTION==========

tr=0028  Cr0=0000011  Cr2=00000000  Cr3=00030000

gdt  limit=03FF  base =001700  idt limit=07ff  base = 0017400

CS :cip=0008   :00423C01  ss :esp0010 :0061FEC  errcode=0000

flags = 001006 NoCy NoZr IntDis Down TrapDis 0000

eax=000110C  ebx=00401280  ecx = 00001618  edx = 534D0040 ds = 0010  es=0010

edi = 00461643  esi = 00051D68  ebp = 00061FF0  cr0=00000011 fs = 0030 gs = 0000

OK, that's about it, the spaces and layout may have appeared a bit different, but that is essentially all of the text.

Also, I was able to mount windows from Linux, but once I started copying files from the Windows partition, I ran out of room on my linux partition. I don't have that much on this partition, yet I've seemed to have used up more than 6 gigs. Are there built-in linux files I can do away with to save some room? RPM packages hidden somewhere I can delete?

Thanks,

John

**pbharris** · 03-20-2005, 07:10 AM

hi john,
sounds like a nasty problem - i would remove as much desktop stuff as i i could, e.g. gnome and kde games, if you have kde and gnome installed get rid of one or the other...

good luck!