Can't recover partition to install xp

[Al Botteon]

Just trying to resize an 80GB NTFS partition so I could add a drive and all
went crazy (as did I, as you will see). Didn't have floppy installed, so
used Gpartd to resize and during process it said internal error, no go.
Tried Partition Magic and completed partition deletions, create NTFS, and
when booted to Xp, it would get to point of "starting windows" and then
would error out saying no hard drive. Western Digital couldn't help. Said I
needed a linux disk utility to zero out hard drive. Just tried win98se
fdisk, and ended up with a fully (not really) formatted hard drive, set
primary and active, but only registers 10GB, not 80. Help! Just want to use
XP. Not even interested in 2 NTFS drives anymore, so bummed out.

 

[Mike Easter]

Just trying to resize an 80GB NTFS partition so I could add a drive and
all went crazy (as did I, as you will see). Didn't have floppy
installed, so used Gpartd to resize and during process it said internal
error, no go. Tried Partition Magic and completed partition deletions,
create NTFS, and when booted to Xp, it would get to point of "starting
windows" and then would error out saying no hard drive.

To solve this part use a tool that will let you zero out the boot sector.

Western Digital
couldn't help. Said I needed a linux disk utility to zero out hard
drive. Just tried win98se fdisk, and ended up with a fully (not really)
formatted hard drive, set primary and active, but only registers 10GB,
not 80. Help! Just want to use XP. Not even interested in 2 NTFS
drives anymore, so bummed out.

Don't use w98's fdisk for that 80G hdd.

Get your boot sector zeroed then use one of those tools like gparted or PM
to set up the disk, and then go.

 

[Al Botteon]

To solve this part use a tool that will let you zero out the boot sector.

I don't know how to zero out boot sector. This is what Western Digital said
to do

 

[Paul]

Just trying to resize an 80GB NTFS partition so I could add a drive and all
went crazy (as did I, as you will see). Didn't have floppy installed, so
used Gpartd to resize and during process it said internal error, no go.
Tried Partition Magic and completed partition deletions, create NTFS, and
when booted to Xp, it would get to point of "starting windows" and then
would error out saying no hard drive. Western Digital couldn't help. Said I
needed a linux disk utility to zero out hard drive. Just tried win98se
fdisk, and ended up with a fully (not really) formatted hard drive, set
primary and active, but only registers 10GB, not 80. Help! Just want to use
XP. Not even interested in 2 NTFS drives anymore, so bummed out.

I'm not clear on what you're trying to achieve. Were you originally
trying to preserve disk contents when you were resizing ? And now
you've decided to blow the disk away and start over ?

DBAN from sourceforge, can be used to erase a disk sector by sector.
Even the "quick erase" isn't very quick. By erasing a disk, then installing
WinXP from scratch, WinXP should be able to do the whole thing as one
partition. If the WinXP installer disk is slipstreamed to some
Service Pack level, you should be able to make relatively large
partitions (I used SP3 for example, to make a single partition on
my spare 250GB SATA drive).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBAN

This port of "dd" might be able to erase a disk. If the purpose
is to get the WinXP installer CD to start all over again and
treat the disk as one partition.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 bs=512 count=1000

That should wipe out the beginning of Harddisk0, so there is no longer
an MBR or partition table. I usually do stuff like that in Linux. But
maybe that dd would run from DOS. I haven't tried it from DOS, but
have tested dd.exe from a command prompt window in WinXP, using the
--list option to get the names of the disks.

dd --list (an option of the chrysocome "dd")

There is a free partition manager here, but you'd need an OS to run it from.

EASEUS Partition
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

In Linux, you can prep a disk as well. You can use the Linux "fdisk"
command to set up partitions. The mk---- type programs can make a
file system on each partition after you're finished. I think you can
make FAT32 or NTFS partitions while in Linux, as well as the more
normal EXT2 for Linux.

But at this point, I'm not clear on where you are now, and what is
left on the disk. That EASEUS might be able to resize your current
10GB FAT32 volume. And the WinXP "convert" command can convert a
FAT32 partition, to NTFS (I understand it doesn't go from NTFS to
FAT32, so you cannot go backwards with it).

From Windows Help and Support

convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

HTH,
Paul

 

[Mike Easter]

"Mike Easter
I don't know how to zero out boot sector. This is what Western Digital
said to do

The last time I had trouble with junk in the boot sector that was hard to
get rid of with normal mbr restorations and 'cleaning' tools, I used some
kind of sector editor to manually zero it -- but I don't remember what I
used. It seems like it might've been on Hiren's boot disk, which someone
said was a little piraty.

Where 'someone' was citing the wikipedia article on hiren's and to me 'a
little piraty' means more gray than black, where 'black' means definitely
piraty.

 

[John Doe]

I would post in the storage group too.

 

[Mike Easter]

"Al Botteon"

Pretty sure it's one of the Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools - you
can download from
http://support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?modelno=wd200bb&x=6&y=6

I've used it before but it's been awhile

When I was working on my little problem, it was a WD drive and I couldn't
get the job done with WD tools.

Hiren's has an ancient 2002 Norton Disk Editor on it.
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd All in One Bootable CD which has all
these utilities - Hard Disk Tools - Norton Disk Editor 2002 - a powerful
disk editing, manual data recovery tool.


Cone in on sector zero and starting zeroing the hex.

 

[Al Botteon]

When I was working on my little problem, it was a WD drive and I couldn't
get the job done with WD tools.

I found my floppy for Data Lifeguard ver 11 and it will zero the drive.

I tried my Data Lifeguard and it booted to tell me it couldn't find a hard
drive

 

[Mike Easter]

"Mike Easter"

I found my floppy for Data Lifeguard ver 11 and it will zero the drive.

Not the boot sector (as I recall).

 

[Al Botteon]

I'm not clear on what you're trying to achieve. Were you originally
trying to preserve disk contents when you were resizing ? And now
you've decided to blow the disk away and start over ?

DBAN from sourceforge, can be used to erase a disk sector by sector.
Even the "quick erase" isn't very quick. By erasing a disk, then
installing
WinXP from scratch, WinXP should be able to do the whole thing as one
partition. If the WinXP installer disk is slipstreamed to some
Service Pack level, you should be able to make relatively large
partitions (I used SP3 for example, to make a single partition on
my spare 250GB SATA drive).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DBAN

This port of "dd" might be able to erase a disk. If the purpose
is to get the WinXP installer CD to start all over again and
treat the disk as one partition.

http://www.chrysocome.net/dd

dd if=/dev/zero of=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 bs=512 count=1000

That should wipe out the beginning of Harddisk0, so there is no longer
an MBR or partition table. I usually do stuff like that in Linux. But
maybe that dd would run from DOS. I haven't tried it from DOS, but
have tested dd.exe from a command prompt window in WinXP, using the
--list option to get the names of the disks.

dd --list (an option of the chrysocome "dd")

There is a free partition manager here, but you'd need an OS to run it
from.

EASEUS Partition
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

In Linux, you can prep a disk as well. You can use the Linux "fdisk"
command to set up partitions. The mk---- type programs can make a
file system on each partition after you're finished. I think you can
make FAT32 or NTFS partitions while in Linux, as well as the more
normal EXT2 for Linux.

But at this point, I'm not clear on where you are now, and what is
left on the disk. That EASEUS might be able to resize your current
10GB FAT32 volume. And the WinXP "convert" command can convert a
FAT32 partition, to NTFS (I understand it doesn't go from NTFS to
FAT32, so you cannot go backwards with it).

From Windows Help and Support

convert drive_letter: /fs:ntfs

HTH,
Paul

I'm so pissed. I just sat for more than 3 hours while DBAN zeroed out
everything. Said worked fine. Rebooted and put in xp and it couldn't find
HD. Put in Partition Magic diskettes and created a partition. Still no HD
when booted from xp. What's Up!

 

[Paul]

I'm so pissed. I just sat for more than 3 hours while DBAN zeroed out
everything. Said worked fine. Rebooted and put in xp and it couldn't find
HD. Put in Partition Magic diskettes and created a partition. Still no HD
when booted from xp. What's Up!

Does your hard drive interface need a driver installed via F6 ?

Describe for me, what motherboard this is, and if multiple interfaces
are available on the motherboard, what connector or chip you're connected to.

If this is a pre-built PC (Dell/HP/Gateway/Acer), then give a complete
model number, so I can go look up some details about the hardware.
Sometimes I get lucky, and there is a picture of the motherboard
for machines like that, on Ebay.

Paul

 

[Paul]

The boot sector is a physical location on the first few
sectors/cylinders of the drive. It contains (among other things) the
physical location of the partition(s). It's mot a part of the
partition(s).

I suspect you've gotten trapped in a rabbit hole of chasing your tail on
this one, and it's time to start from scratch.

I've always had good luck with an old DOS utility called CLEARHDD.
Samsung used to have it in their drive tools software, but they dropped
it. It's getting hard to find, but I found it here:

http://downloads.uol.com.br/windows/utilitarios/clear_hdd.jhtm
( I checked the download, it's the same as my archive copy, easy to
check as it's only 11KB in size- no malware there)

Put it on a Win 98 boot floppy, make sure that the problem hard drive is
the ONLY one in the machine, and type in the command

'clearhdd 0' (note the space and leave out the quotes).

It will ask you Y/N twice, answer Y both times.

It will wipe/zero out the first ten cylinders, blowing the partition
table away. It doesn't zero the rest of the drive, so you save much time.

I've used it to get rid of bootsector viruses, botched FDISK errors,
failed linux LILO installs, and such. It's faster than wading thru FDISK
deletions, XP's drive management, etc. It's worked on every drive brand
I've tried it on.

You'll still have to set up partition(s) afterwards with either XP's
install preparation prompts or another partition utility, of which
you've already been thru. Finish up by formatting the partiton(s), and
DON'T use the "quick format" option.

One caveat... I haven't tried it on SATA drives yet, so it may not work
but I doubt that. It's worth a try, all you will lose is a few minutes.


HTH...

"dd" in Linux will do this too. For example, this command would wipe
out the first 1000 sectors, and would cover the MBR and the partition
table.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1000

I've used that before, when Windows would not install on a disk.
Knoppix is a convenient LiveCD to use, to issue the command.

If the OP needs a driver for that hardware, then pressing F6 and
offering the disk controller driver on a floppy, during installation,
will allow the disk to be seen by the installer.

Paul

 

[Al Botteon]

Thanks, I actually knew this a few years ago but forgot due to being swamped
at my real job. I'm retired now so I can
start playing with computers again and tending to the fruit trees and vegi
garden. )

I also found a new Seatools utility that will zero the beginning of the
drive or the entire drive (takes hours). I'll
play with both utilities when I get my neighbors broken computer later this
week that I'm betting I can fix up like new
now that his son bought him a new one.


Can't believe the ultimate solution. And I didn't get this till very early
in the am (3:00am). I worked on this all day, took advantage of all your
suggestions. I'm sure the fix happened way earlier in the day. Just to
summarize, I had used an XP Pro installation CD to format my drive on my
Dell Dimension 8400 (which I bought used, w/no CDs) and install XP Pro. I
even experimented with slipstreaming SP3, and all worked ok. Actually have
used this CD numerous times in experimenting. Here's when trouble began: I
tried resizing (at this point thinking to save data and set up new
partition)my only partition (NTFS) with Gparted because I had no installed
floppy and couldn't use older Partition Magic (8.0) diskettes. For first
time in using Gparted, it failed to execute. I went thru trouble of grabbing
a floppy from another machine and installing, using PM diskettes, and tried
to resize and it failed. (said I need to upgrade to 8.01 then apply 8.01
patch). So I used PM to reformat, thinking let's start from scratch, and I
don't care about data. Backed up what needed, and this is when horror
started with getting to the boot point where it says now starting windows,
would hang briefly, then tell me can't find hard drive, use F3 to quit. So I
tried all suggestions in post. Nothing changed. I had already planned to
send the WD HD back for a new one (expires july 09), when at 3:00 am I took
an old purple colored Dell Home edition xp install disk (can't remember what
it came with, certainly not this computer) and it setup fine and recognized
whole 80GB HD. From there I finished install, then upgraded to Xp Pro SP3
with slipstreamed disk. Now you tell me why this happened. It's Dell
somehow. Yet I used this non Dell Xp Pro cd (both slipstreamed and bare)
many times successfully. I'm out to lunch on this one, but I'm back in
business. Thanks for the help. Even learned a little more about Linux.

Al

 

[Al Botteon]

Can't believe the ultimate solution. And I didn't get this till very early
in the am (3:00am). I worked on this all day, took advantage of all your
suggestions. I'm sure the fix happened way earlier in the day. Just to
summarize, I had used an XP Pro installation CD to format my drive on my
Dell Dimension 8400 (which I bought used, w/no CDs) and install XP Pro. I
even experimented with slipstreaming SP3, and all worked ok. Actually have
used this CD numerous times in experimenting. Here's when trouble began:
I tried resizing (at this point thinking to save data and set up new
partition)my only partition (NTFS) with Gparted because I had no installed
floppy and couldn't use older Partition Magic (8.0) diskettes. For first
time in using Gparted, it failed to execute. I went thru trouble of
grabbing a floppy from another machine and installing, using PM diskettes,
and tried to resize and it failed. (said I need to upgrade to 8.01 then
apply 8.01 patch). So I used PM to reformat, thinking let's start from
scratch, and I don't care about data. Backed up what needed, and this is
when horror started with getting to the boot point where it says now
starting windows, would hang briefly, then tell me can't find hard drive,
use F3 to quit. So I tried all suggestions in post. Nothing changed. I had
already planned to send the WD HD back for a new one (expires july 09),
when at 3:00 am I took an old purple colored Dell Home edition xp install
disk (can't remember what it came with, certainly not this computer) and
it setup fine and recognized whole 80GB HD. From there I finished install,
then upgraded to Xp Pro SP3 with slipstreamed disk. Now you tell me why
this happened. It's Dell somehow. Yet I used this non Dell Xp Pro cd (both
slipstreamed and bare) many times successfully. I'm out to lunch on this
one, but I'm back in business. Thanks for the help. Even learned a little
more about Linux.

Al

I just wanted to update this post with a question that still remains.
Although the above indicates that I have solved the issue, that is not the
case fully. I did manage to get a Windows installation occupying the full 80
GB. So apparently Linux influence is gone. However, unlike any previous
experience I've had with this HD, the way it is now is that if I throw in
any Windows bootable OS CD, it will load to a point and then say can't find
HD, and ask me to F3 quit.Why is this? The only CD that will successfully
load is any Linuxd distribution, or just the purple, old Dell Xp Home CD.
Why not any other Windows OS CD? Never had this b4. So where I was
originally going to mail back and get a new HD (under warranty till July),
now I am still considering. Unless someone recognizes exactly what happened.
Somewhere I read that if I did a Win98 startup disk and did fdisk /mbr that
I possibly screwed some recognition or state that I didn't understand. Did I
stop my system from recognizing Windows unless somehow it's a Dell disc.
Never had that happen before that I couldn't use any windows cd to reinstall
on a Dell or Gateway computer, once formatted. Help

Al

 

[Andy]

I just wanted to update this post with a question that still remains.
Although the above indicates that I have solved the issue, that is not the
case fully. I did manage to get a Windows installation occupying the full 80
GB. So apparently Linux influence is gone. However, unlike any previous
experience I've had with this HD, the way it is now is that if I throw in
any Windows bootable OS CD, it will load to a point and then say can't find
HD, and ask me to F3 quit.Why is this? The only CD that will successfully
load is any Linuxd distribution, or just the purple, old Dell Xp Home CD.
Why not any other Windows OS CD? Never had this b4. So where I was
originally going to mail back and get a new HD (under warranty till July),
now I am still considering. Unless someone recognizes exactly what happened.
Somewhere I read that if I did a Win98 startup disk and did fdisk /mbr that
I possibly screwed some recognition or state that I didn't understand. Did I
stop my system from recognizing Windows unless somehow it's a Dell disc.
Never had that happen before that I couldn't use any windows cd to reinstall
on a Dell or Gateway computer, once formatted. Help

Sounds like the disk interface is SATA, and the SATA interface on the
motherboard is set to AHCI/RAID mode in BIOS setup. Standard Windows
2000 or XP CDs only recognize native IDE mode disk interfaces.

 

[Al Botteon]

On Fri, 3 Apr 2009 11:04:28 -0400, "Al Botteon"
Sounds like the disk interface is SATA, and the SATA interface on the
motherboard is set to AHCI/RAID mode in BIOS setup. Standard Windows
2000 or XP CDs only recognize native IDE mode disk interfaces.

I was ready to send in a claim today, then read your post. Was so excited
after having gone into Bios and changing Sata Operation from Raid
Autodetect/AHCI to Raid Autodetect/ATA. XP disk booted nicely, so when I
F3'd out to reboot to Windows, no go. Couldn't boot into windows. Tried the
other Bios option Combination and that did same. Tried last Bios setting
called Raid On and booted windows ok, but not the installation disk. And by
that I mean it didn't recognize hard drive. Do I have an option. Really
don't fully understand your comments but did research and see what you were
talking about. Only things that puzzle me is that these are new problems
that I never had before with formating, reinstalling, etc on this unit. And
why is it that the only cd that will boot is that old Dell xp home cd?
thanks for responding.

al

 

[Andy]

I was ready to send in a claim today, then read your post. Was so excited
after having gone into Bios and changing Sata Operation from Raid
Autodetect/AHCI to Raid Autodetect/ATA. XP disk booted nicely, so when I
F3'd out to reboot to Windows, no go. Couldn't boot into windows. Tried the
other Bios option Combination and that did same. Tried last Bios setting
called Raid On and booted windows ok, but not the installation disk. And by
that I mean it didn't recognize hard drive. Do I have an option. Really
don't fully understand your comments but did research and see what you were
talking about. Only things that puzzle me is that these are new problems
that I never had before with formating, reinstalling, etc on this unit. And
why is it that the only cd that will boot is that old Dell xp home cd?
thanks for responding.

With the motherboard SATA interface set to AHCI mode, I can install
Windows XP using the F6 floppy disk method to load the Intel ICH10R
AHCI driver, and then changed the motherboard SATA interface to IDE
mode and successfully boot to Windows XP.

Sounds like the Dell XP CD is customized to install only the drivers
Dell deems to be necessary.

 

[Al Botteon]

With the motherboard SATA interface set to AHCI mode, I can install
Windows XP using the F6 floppy disk method to load the Intel ICH10R
AHCI driver, and then changed the motherboard SATA interface to IDE
mode and successfully boot to Windows XP.

Sounds like the Dell XP CD is customized to install only the drivers
Dell deems to be necessary.

Got everything resolved. To boot my slipstreamed disc, or the original, for
that matter, I need to go into my bios and change the AHCI to APA on the
SATA setttings and then they boot ok. I guess I'm understanding that the
purple Dell disc had the Sata drivers on it. I never could create a CD with
the driver on it, and I couldn't use the floppy disk method because this
unit doesn't have a floppy. But learned a lot, and good to go. Thanks again
for the help.

Al