A week or two ago I posted a message about how I was running the Gimp, it froze the computer, and when I rebooted, I got a message indicating that the computer was no longer able to identify the hard disk--the MBR had been hosed. I had installed LILO on the MBR, but I was able to boot the machine using the SuSE bootdisk, and everything else appeared to be intact and functioning. I received several suggestions, including reinstalling LILO, using MSDOS's fdisk program with the /MBR option (running it three times). Nothing worked. However, once when I shut down the computer and rebooted, it found LILO and booted up. When I tried it a second time, it was back to square one. But on a whim, I tried booting the computer with a McAfee rescue disk set that I had created on another machine. It suggested that I run the "diskminder" program on the disk. I tried that, but it couldn't find the hard drive (the selection screen just showed A:). So I exited the program, and all of a sudden, I found myself looking at the C:\ prompt. Previously, the C: prompt was the CD drive, since with no MBR, the hard drive wasn't "there" (although the BIOS knew it was). I did a "dir" listing and saw a whole list of programs, none of which were on the hard drive or the SuSE disk 1 which is in the CD tray. I don't know where they were, but I thought "sh*t, I've really screwed things up!" So I pulled the disk from the A: drive and rebooted. Lo and behold, LILO appeared. I let it start Linux, then I shut it down and rebooted. And it worked a second time. I'm hoping it will continue to work, but I think it's the oddest thing. Thanks to all who offered suggestions. I can only add that a McAfee rescue disk is yet another option when the hard drive seems to be hosed. Stan Koper -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/