I have two installs of XP (Home Edition Retail) on one hard drive. XP Home,
for general use, is on the C partition. XP Music, which is optimized for pro
audio, is on the G partition. This dual boot was working fine until I had to
enlarge the C partition and reduced the size of the G partition. This meant
that I needed to move the OS from one place to another within that G
partition. I was using GParted, a third party partitioning program that I am
very familiar with, and one that I have used extensively in the past with no
problems.

When I started Windows after the changes in the partitions, I still had the
menu of the two installs but XP Home would start and XP Music would not. My
first indication of trouble was my discovery that Windows had changed the
drive letter of the G partition to either E or F. I don't remember for sure
which one it was. Since it wasn't working anyway, I used Partion Magic 8 on
my BartPE disk to change it back to G.

It has been a couple weeks now and XP Music still will not start. I have a
thread on the PC Help Forum and the techs there have pretty much given up on
my ever getting this dual boot to work again. I have tried everything that
was suggested to me there, including a variety of commands using the Recovery
Console (fixboot, fixmbr, chkdsk and bootcfg, none of which helped) and
repeated attempted repair installs which would not complete. I have been told
to just back up the data and do a clean install. I don't want to do that
because I went to great lengths to get all my pro audio hardware and software
properly registered and authorized.

This is what happens when I try to boot XP Music. It gets to the XP is
starting screen, then goes to a sold gray blue screen with a cursor in the
middle of it. It will not move on to the welcome screen. There is no error
message. I am pretty sure there is some confusion on the drive letters buried
somewhere in one of the registries but I have no idea how to go about
correcting that. I am hoping there is some knowledgeable individual here who
can help me sort this out. I need to record some music and this has been a
nightmare that I never intended or expected.

My system: Asrock K8NF4G, Sempron 64 3000, 1 GB G.Skill RAM, 2 Seagate
Barracuda HD (160 & 320 GB). My apologies for the length of this post but I
wanted to paint as clear a picture as I could of my problem and the steps
that have already been taken. Any assistance would be very much appreciated.
Thank you.

"WT" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:2D5FF1ED-853D-48A0-93CC-(E-Mail Removed)...
>I have two installs of XP (Home Edition Retail) on one hard drive. XP Home,
> for general use, is on the C partition. XP Music, which is optimized for
> pro
> audio, is on the G partition. This dual boot was working fine until I had
> to
> enlarge the C partition and reduced the size of the G partition. This
> meant
> that I needed to move the OS from one place to another within that G
> partition. I was using GParted, a third party partitioning program that I
> am
> very familiar with, and one that I have used extensively in the past with
> no
> problems.
>
> When I started Windows after the changes in the partitions, I still had
> the
> menu of the two installs but XP Home would start and XP Music would not.
> My
> first indication of trouble was my discovery that Windows had changed the
> drive letter of the G partition to either E or F. I don't remember for
> sure
> which one it was. Since it wasn't working anyway, I used Partion Magic 8
> on
> my BartPE disk to change it back to G.
>
> It has been a couple weeks now and XP Music still will not start. I have a
> thread on the PC Help Forum and the techs there have pretty much given up
> on
> my ever getting this dual boot to work again. I have tried everything that
> was suggested to me there, including a variety of commands using the
> Recovery
> Console (fixboot, fixmbr, chkdsk and bootcfg, none of which helped) and
> repeated attempted repair installs which would not complete. I have been
> told
> to just back up the data and do a clean install. I don't want to do that
> because I went to great lengths to get all my pro audio hardware and
> software
> properly registered and authorized.
>
> This is what happens when I try to boot XP Music. It gets to the XP is
> starting screen, then goes to a sold gray blue screen with a cursor in the
> middle of it. It will not move on to the welcome screen. There is no error
> message. I am pretty sure there is some confusion on the drive letters
> buried
> somewhere in one of the registries but I have no idea how to go about
> correcting that. I am hoping there is some knowledgeable individual here
> who
> can help me sort this out. I need to record some music and this has been a
> nightmare that I never intended or expected.
>
> My system: Asrock K8NF4G, Sempron 64 3000, 1 GB G.Skill RAM, 2 Seagate
> Barracuda HD (160 & 320 GB). My apologies for the length of this post but
> I
> wanted to paint as clear a picture as I could of my problem and the steps
> that have already been taken. Any assistance would be very much
> appreciated.
> Thank you.

The information about the current system drive is held in the registry.
There is no point in attempting to change drive letters with third-party
products such as PQMagic unless these products "know" how to fix the
registry.

It's a little difficult to give you a good answer because much depends on
your level of experience. Here are the broad steps:
1. Boot into WinXP General.
2. Use mountvol.exe to obtain the partition signature of your
WinXP Music partition. It looks like so:
5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f
3. Use regedit.exe to load the System hive belonging
to WinXP Music.
4. Locate the registry value under HKLM\System\MountedDevices
in this hive that is
5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f
5. Make a note of binary data against this value. It looks like so:
5c 00 3f 00 3f 00 . . .
6. Locate this same binary data further down on the same screen
under one of the \DosDevices\ values.
7. Rename this \DosDevices values to \DosDevices\G:

The success of this method depends on how much good or damage your previous
repair efforts did. To prevent any further damage you should create a backup
copy of the WinXP General "System" file before starting Step 3 above.

Good luck!

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:

> The information about the current system drive is held in the registry.
> There is no point in attempting to change drive letters with third-party
> products such as PQMagic unless these products "know" how to fix the
> registry.
>
> It's a little difficult to give you a good answer because much depends on
> your level of experience. Here are the broad steps:
> 1. Boot into WinXP General.
> 2. Use mountvol.exe to obtain the partition signature of your
> WinXP Music partition. It looks like so:
> 5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f
> 3. Use regedit.exe to load the System hive belonging
> to WinXP Music.
> 4. Locate the registry value under HKLM\System\MountedDevices
> in this hive that is
> 5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f
> 5. Make a note of binary data against this value. It looks like so:
> 5c 00 3f 00 3f 00 . . .
> 6. Locate this same binary data further down on the same screen
> under one of the \DosDevices\ values.
> 7. Rename this \DosDevices values to \DosDevices\G:
>
> The success of this method depends on how much good or damage your previous
> repair efforts did. To prevent any further damage you should create a backup
> copy of the WinXP General "System" file before starting Step 3 above. (snip)

Thank you for a prompt and informative response. It makes sense to me. I ran
mountvol.exe from the command prompt and my G (XP Music) partition signature
is:
\\?\Volume{00d5443b-da42-11dd-a4dc-806d6172696f}\ I assume what I am
concerned with here is the combination of numbers and letters between the
brackets.
Is that correct?

My issue at the moment is how to load the hive for the G (XP Music)
partition in regedit.exe, which I gather is the one on the C (XP Home)
partition. If you could give me step by step directions on how to do this, it
would be most helpful. I can't seem to find the appropriate instructions
online.

My experience with computers is moderate, having dealt with a variety of
obscure problems using Windows 98, 2000, XP, and Simply Mepix Linux.

I hope this does not appear as a duplicate. I submitted a response earlier
but it did not appear to post in the usual amount of time.

"WT" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:58196880-D592-4D55-AAE3-(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
>
>> The information about the current system drive is held in the registry.
>> There is no point in attempting to change drive letters with third-party
>> products such as PQMagic unless these products "know" how to fix the
>> registry.
>>
>> It's a little difficult to give you a good answer because much depends on
>> your level of experience. Here are the broad steps:
>> 1. Boot into WinXP General.
>> 2. Use mountvol.exe to obtain the partition signature of your
>> WinXP Music partition. It looks like so:
>> 5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f
>> 3. Use regedit.exe to load the System hive belonging
>> to WinXP Music.
>> 4. Locate the registry value under HKLM\System\MountedDevices
>> in this hive that is
>> 5b21c8e0-b18f-11dc-afb6-806d6172696f
>> 5. Make a note of binary data against this value. It looks like so:
>> 5c 00 3f 00 3f 00 . . .
>> 6. Locate this same binary data further down on the same screen
>> under one of the \DosDevices\ values.
>> 7. Rename this \DosDevices values to \DosDevices\G:
>>
>> The success of this method depends on how much good or damage your
>> previous
>> repair efforts did. To prevent any further damage you should create a
>> backup
>> copy of the WinXP General "System" file before starting Step 3 above.
>> (snip)
>
> Thank you for a prompt and informative response. It makes sense to me. I
> ran
> mountvol.exe from the command prompt and my G (XP Music) partition
> signature
> is:
> \\?\Volume{00d5443b-da42-11dd-a4dc-806d6172696f}\ I assume what I am
> concerned with here is the combination of numbers and letters between the
> brackets.
> Is that correct?
>
> My issue at the moment is how to load the hive for the G (XP Music)
> partition in regedit.exe, which I gather is the one on the C (XP Home)
> partition. If you could give me step by step directions on how to do this,
> it
> would be most helpful. I can't seem to find the appropriate instructions
> online.
>
> My experience with computers is moderate, having dealt with a variety of
> obscure problems using Windows 98, 2000, XP, and Simply Mepix Linux.
>
> I hope this does not appear as a duplicate. I submitted a response earlier
> but it did not appear to post in the usual amount of time.
>

If your experience with computers is moderate then your best bet would be to
ask a Windows-literate friend to assist you. Editing an off-line registry is
not exactly child's play.
1. Run regedit.exe.
2. Navigate to HKLM.
3. Click File/Load Hive.
4. Enter the location of the WinXP Music "System" file, e.g.
M:\Windows\System32\config\system
and click Open.
5. Enter a name, e.g. WT-System and click OK.
6. Open HKLM, then WT-System.
You're now editing the System hive of the Music installation.
You must be careful not to stray outside this hive.
7. When finished, click the WT-System key, then File / Unload Hive.

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:

> If your experience with computers is moderate then your best bet would be to
> ask a Windows-literate friend to assist you. Editing an off-line registry is
> not exactly child's play.
> 1. Run regedit.exe.
> 2. Navigate to HKLM.
> 3. Click File/Load Hive.
> 4. Enter the location of the WinXP Music "System" file, e.g.
> M:\Windows\System32\config\system
> and click Open.
> 5. Enter a name, e.g. WT-System and click OK.
> 6. Open HKLM, then WT-System.
> You're now editing the System hive of the Music installation.
> You must be careful not to stray outside this hive.
> 7. When finished, click the WT-System key, then File / Unload Hive.

Your instructions were exactly what I needed. The DosDevices value was
correct. I matched the Binary with the Partition Signature, then matched the
Binary with DosDevices for G and every thing was as it should be. There was
nothing to fix there.

What's next? I really should have come here first. Thanks again for your
help.

BTW, what is with all the Kopie spam on this newsgroup? And...I seem to have
some problems with my responses posting correctly. This is a second attempt
for this one as well.

"WT" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:7A8161EE-A184-42D0-8320-(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
>
>
> Your instructions were exactly what I needed. The DosDevices value was
> correct. I matched the Binary with the Partition Signature, then matched
> the
> Binary with DosDevices for G and every thing was as it should be. There
> was
> nothing to fix there.
>
> What's next? I really should have come here first. Thanks again for your
> help.
>
> BTW, what is with all the Kopie spam on this newsgroup? And...I seem to
> have
> some problems with my responses posting correctly. This is a second
> attempt
> for this one as well.
>

The Kopie posts are spam, some of them infected. I have created a rule in my
newsreader to suppress them.

You did not say what you're using for your newsreader. Most people use
Outlook Express. It lets you tag your messages.

I have just re-read your first post and I admit that I'm confused by this
statement: "This meant that I needed to move the OS from one place to
another within that G partition". What exactly does this mean? How does one
move an OS within one partition?

"Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:

> The Kopie posts are spam, some of them infected. I have created a rule in my
> newsreader to suppress them.

Wow. It is amazing how many messages there are.

> You did not say what you're using for your newsreader. Most people use
> Outlook Express. It lets you tag your messages.

I am using the web reader. I just avoid anything that looks suspicious.

> I have just re-read your first post and I admit that I'm confused by this
> statement: "This meant that I needed to move the OS from one place to
> another within that G partition". What exactly does this mean? How does one
> move an OS within one partition?

The two partitions were adjoining. My C (XP Home) partition was 35 GB and
the G (XP Music) partition was 25 GB. C is the first partition on the HD and
G is the second. I needed to increase the C partition in order to run defrag
so I made it around 40 GB. That reduced the size of the G partition to around
20 GB. I suspect that the XP install on the G partition was, physically
speaking, in that 5 GB that I was re allocating. So it appeared to me that
GParted moved the install to the beginning of the newly sized 20 GB
partition. I hope that makes sense.

The date and time was Friday, January 09, 2009 10:36:02 AM, and on a
whim, WT pounded out on the keyboard:

> "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
>
>> The Kopie posts are spam, some of them infected. I have created a rule in my
>> newsreader to suppress them.
>
> Wow. It is amazing how many messages there are.
>
>> You did not say what you're using for your newsreader. Most people use
>> Outlook Express. It lets you tag your messages.
>
> I am using the web reader. I just avoid anything that looks suspicious.
>
>> I have just re-read your first post and I admit that I'm confused by this
>> statement: "This meant that I needed to move the OS from one place to
>> another within that G partition". What exactly does this mean? How does one
>> move an OS within one partition?
>
> The two partitions were adjoining. My C (XP Home) partition was 35 GB and
> the G (XP Music) partition was 25 GB. C is the first partition on the HD and
> G is the second. I needed to increase the C partition in order to run defrag
> so I made it around 40 GB. That reduced the size of the G partition to around
> 20 GB. I suspect that the XP install on the G partition was, physically
> speaking, in that 5 GB that I was re allocating. So it appeared to me that
> GParted moved the install to the beginning of the newly sized 20 GB
> partition. I hope that makes sense.
>

Hi WT,

So you have one hard drive partitioned into two drives, correct? If so,
the partitioning software just moved the data in G: over to shrink the
G: partition and reallocate the space to C:. Usually that is
non-destructive, as no data was removed from G:, it was only moved over.
But there is always the possibility of failure. That's why it's good
(no, imperative) to perform a backup done prior to making changes like that.

What do the contents of boot.ini contain? Right click on My Computer,
select Properties. Click on the Advanced tab, under Startup and
Recovery, click the Settings button, then under System startup cick the
Edit button. Press Ctrl-A to select everything and then use Ctrl-C to
paste it into your reply.





--
Terry R.

***Reply Note***
Anti-spam measures are included in my email address.
Delete NOSPAM from the email address after clicking Reply.

"Terry R." wrote:

> Hi WT,
>
> So you have one hard drive partitioned into two drives, correct? If so,
> the partitioning software just moved the data in G: over to shrink the
> G: partition and reallocate the space to C:. Usually that is
> non-destructive, as no data was removed from G:, it was only moved over.
> But there is always the possibility of failure. That's why it's good
> (no, imperative) to perform a backup done prior to making changes like that.

Oh, I am well aware of that. This XP is optimized for music and I had a
couple more programs I wanted to install before I fired up Acronis and made a
backup. I have moved things around in the past and never had a problem.
Tracks and samples are on another HD so that is not an issue here. Everything
looks fine on G; but it simply will not start no matter what I do. There are
other partitions on this disk (3 little ones for Linux and 10 GB or so for
data storage (NTFS). The rest of it is unallocated space. It is a 160 GB HD.

> What do the contents of boot.ini contain? Right click on My Computer,
> select Properties. Click on the Advanced tab, under Startup and
> Recovery, click the Settings button, then under System startup cick the
> Edit button. Press Ctrl-A to select everything and then use Ctrl-C to
> paste it into your reply.

Here we go:
[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP HOME"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="XP MUSIC"
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Recovery Console" /cmdcons

BTW, this is identical to what it was when the dual boot was working.

Thanks for responding.

"WT" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:0F6D03C1-7336-4B6E-AA8B-(E-Mail Removed)...
> "Pegasus (MVP)" wrote:
>
>> The Kopie posts are spam, some of them infected. I have created a rule in
>> my
>> newsreader to suppress them.
>
> Wow. It is amazing how many messages there are.
>
>> You did not say what you're using for your newsreader. Most people use
>> Outlook Express. It lets you tag your messages.
>
> I am using the web reader. I just avoid anything that looks suspicious.
>
>> I have just re-read your first post and I admit that I'm confused by this
>> statement: "This meant that I needed to move the OS from one place to
>> another within that G partition". What exactly does this mean? How does
>> one
>> move an OS within one partition?
>
> The two partitions were adjoining. My C (XP Home) partition was 35 GB and
> the G (XP Music) partition was 25 GB. C is the first partition on the HD
> and
> G is the second. I needed to increase the C partition in order to run
> defrag
> so I made it around 40 GB. That reduced the size of the G partition to
> around
> 20 GB. I suspect that the XP install on the G partition was, physically
> speaking, in that 5 GB that I was re allocating. So it appeared to me
> that
> GParted moved the install to the beginning of the newly sized 20 GB
> partition. I hope that makes sense.

You're punishing yourself if you use a web interface to process your
newsgroup messages. Outlook Express is far superior, and there are a few
other good ones too.

I suspect that your partitioning software has damaged your Windows
installation. The boot process appears to be fine, the drive letter seems to
be correct but things get off the rails later on. You could try a manual
System Restore as described here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545. It
works very nicely when the System registry branch is damaged (I fixed one of
these today) but in your case I'm clutching at straws.

Keep in mind that there is always a small but non-zero risk when using
partition managers. This is why I tend to create an image before going
ahead. It's tedious but rebuilding a machine is far more tedious.