Cannot reboot after setting 2 primary partitions

[lszlachetka]

Hi,

I have accidentally set set 2 primary partitions on my computer. Now
my computer cannot boot and just after starting I get the message
displayed: "No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup
utility"

My CD driver is not working. I tried to run from a USB hard drive
running Windows XP same version but reboot was just in the look
getting nowhere.

I even tried Knoppix from a flash memory stick but it didn't work.

Is there some way to fix it?

I have a dell laptop Inspiron - 630m and run Windows XP Professional
version (SP 2).

Any help is greatly appreciated,
Les

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi,

I have accidentally set set 2 primary partitions on my computer. Now
my computer cannot boot and just after starting I get the message
displayed: "No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup
utility"

My CD driver is not working. I tried to run from a USB hard drive
running Windows XP same version but reboot was just in the look
getting nowhere.

I even tried Knoppix from a flash memory stick but it didn't work.

Is there some way to fix it?

I have a dell laptop Inspiron - 630m and run Windows XP Professional
version (SP 2).

Any help is greatly appreciated,
Les

Creating two primary partitions does not hurt. However, one
of them must be marked as "active" in order for the machine
to boot into Windows. One way to fix this is to boot the machine
with a Win98 boot diskette from www.bootdisk.com. Now
run fdisk.exe and mark your Windows partition as active.

 

[Thee Chicago Wolf]

I have accidentally set set 2 primary partitions on my computer. Now

my computer cannot boot and just after starting I get the message
displayed: "No bootable devices--strike F1 to retry boot, F2 for setup
utility"

My CD driver is not working. I tried to run from a USB hard drive
running Windows XP same version but reboot was just in the look
getting nowhere.

I even tried Knoppix from a flash memory stick but it didn't work.

Is there some way to fix it?

I have a dell laptop Inspiron - 630m and run Windows XP Professional
version (SP 2).

Any help is greatly appreciated,

You're in a tough spot especially since you can't use your CD. The
easy fix is to boot the XP CD to recovery console and do a fixboot or
fixmbr command at the prompt. I'm sure there is a live Linux distro
you could somehow boot from a USB flash drive and use some crazy
command line tool to set the partition active but you'll have to
research that option yourself. You'll need to bite the bullet and
borrow or buy a working CD drive somehow to fix your problem.

- Thee Chicago Wolf