Idiot needs advice

[exray]

My old computer broke...it's well backed up, so I bought a new one with a
200G hard drive, XP preinstalled, wanting to set up its partitions in a way
similar to those on the old machine so I could restore the backups.

I didn't want to buy partition magic for one use...shrinking an existing
partition and making an extended partition, and I hate people who steal
commercial software.

I downloaded something called systemrescuecd, which is a linux based system
that has gparted on it. I shrank the partition, created an extended
partition, and then fought my way out of linux and attempted a reboot into
Windows XP, intending to use one of the many good freeware tools to work
with the extended partition.

No Go.

When I power the computer I get a very simple message:

a disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

I can boot from the CD into the linux systemrescuecd, but one of the things
I learned from this experience is that I know more about classical Greek
than I know about Linux. I suppose I can find an XP disk somewhere and boot
into that and install...I can probably get in touch with the vendor and buy
a licensed replacement XP disk for not a hell of a lot of money....but the
question is whether I've done something utterly non-recoverable, or if
there's something fairly simple that this simpleton can do to make this
thing live again.

Thanks.

 

[Rod Speed]

My old computer broke...it's well backed up, so I bought a new one with a 200G hard drive, XP
preinstalled, wanting to set up its partitions in a way similar to those on the old machine so I
could restore the backups.

How did you do the backups, with what ?

You dont necessarily need the old partition structure
if you just want to restore your backed up data etc.

And you cant just restore the apps from your backup either.

I didn't want to buy partition magic for one use...shrinking an existing partition and making an
extended partition, and I hate people who steal commercial software.

I downloaded something called systemrescuecd, which is a linux based system that has gparted on
it. I shrank the partition, created an extended partition, and then fought my way out of linux
and attempted a reboot into Windows XP, intending to use one of the many good freeware tools to
work with the extended partition.

No Go.

When I power the computer I get a very simple message:

a disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart.

I can boot from the CD into the linux systemrescuecd, but one of the things I learned from this
experience is that I know more about
classical Greek than I know about Linux. I suppose I can find an XP
disk somewhere and boot into that and install...I can probably get in
touch with the vendor and buy a licensed replacement XP disk for not a hell of a lot of
money....but the question is whether I've done
something utterly non-recoverable, or if there's something fairly
simple that this simpleton can do to make this thing live again.

Hard to say. You wouldnt normally expect to see that particular
error message if you have just stomped on the MBR etc.

Presumably you didnt image the entire physical drive before
molesting it. Thats not a good idea at all with any repartitioning.

You could try one of the free data recovery programs, one
of them might be able to reverse what you did to the drive.

 

[exray]

exray <[email protected]> wrote:

<snipped>

Thanks Rod,

I did some web searching on that message and I saw the suggestion that I
might be able to get back "in" by setting the bios to its default settings.
It's a phoenix/award, and the default settings aren't too exciting...but one
does get the chance to get into "recovery", and that is what I need at this
point. So recovery tested the HD and says it's OK, and is now restoring all
the AOL, Trial, and other junk that comes on new computers. Far better than
a machine that says I should push Ctrl+Alt+Del. Considering that it runs
and that if formats the drive, I'm pretty confident that it'll work OK.

Maybe Partition Magic isn't such an awful investment after all.

To answer your question about the backup, I have used something called
dfincbackup, which seems to make zip files of both complete partitions and
also makes delta zip files of just changes....I've got them on an external
drive. I also did a files and setttings transfer wizard thing from the old
computer (an xp pro machine), but it didn't transfer to the new
machine....it got to some point and then spent overnight sitting at the same
place on the progress bar, with the HD light off and nothing happening
except for effectively a CPU burnin test.

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks Rod,

I did some web searching on that message and I saw the suggestion
that I might be able to get back "in" by setting the bios to its
default settings. It's a phoenix/award, and the default settings
aren't too exciting...but one does get the chance to get into
"recovery", and that is what I need at this point. So recovery tested
the HD and says it's OK, and is now restoring all the AOL, Trial, and
other junk that comes on new computers. Far better than a machine
that says I should push Ctrl+Alt+Del. Considering that it runs and
that if formats the drive, I'm pretty confident that it'll work OK.

Maybe Partition Magic isn't such an awful investment after all.

I prefer Acronis Disk Director Suite myself if you are going to buy something.

To answer your question about the backup, I have used something called dfincbackup, which seems to
make zip files of both complete
partitions and also makes delta zip files of just changes....I've got
them on an external drive.

Doesnt sound like a very satisfactory backup app if it cant restore
to the new drive with the original partition structure on that.

I also did a files and setttings transfer wizard thing from the old computer (an xp pro machine),
but it didn't transfer to the new machine....it got to some point and then spent overnight sitting
at the same place on the progress bar, with the HD light off and nothing happening except for
effectively a CPU burnin test.

I'd try that again, it does work.

If you are just moving the data files, no applications etc, you can just connect
the two PCs with a crossover cable and move the files across that way.

Or put the drive thats in the old system into the new one temporarily.

 

[Ed Light]

Maybe you need to set XP as the default partition so it will boot.

I use bootitng. You can make a floppy of it (on another computer) and do
that without buying it.

--
Ed Light

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