Emergency Help Needed

[Keith Russell]

For the first time ever, PartitionMagic has made my Windows system
unbootable 8-(.

I was resizing my c: partition. Halfway through, PM failed with:

Error 1517. Required file attribute missing.

Now, when I try to boot, I get a BootMagic screen, which does have a
Windows XP choice. However, selecting XP quickly scrolls diagnostic
messages on the screen and fails.

When I run PM from the CD now and check the c: partition, it shows me a
critical error 46: seek error. It shows the partition as completely full,
with no unused space. All my partitions are listed, but what was originally
my c: drive is unnamed, and the only lettered partition is the BootMagic
partition, which is called c:.

The PowerQuest (now Symantec, unfortunately) Web page says to run chkdsk,
but I can't figure out how to do this. I created PM and BootMagic floppies,
but all they give me is DR-DOS, which of course, doesn't have chkdsk, and
finds only the BootMagic Partition.

I tried booting to the recovery console from the XP CD. It asks me:

Which Windows installation would you like me to log into?

However, it lists only:

1: D:\WINNT

(I have Windows 2000 and Lindows installed to logical partitions.)

Is there any way I can run chkdsk on my c: partition? Is there any way out?
Or am I going to have to reformat the partition and reinstall XP?

Thanks for your help. I'm desperate at this point.

 

[Keith Russell]

For the first time ever, PartitionMagic has made my Windows system
unbootable 8-(.

No help out there? Does the lack of replies just mean that I'm totally out
of luck? 8-(.

 

[Jupiter Jones [MVP]]

Keith;
No answer for possibly a couple of reasons:
1. This newsgroup is supposed to support issues with the Help and
Support feature of Windows XP, not quite what you are asking about.
2. The biggest reason is this question probably needs to go to
Symantec the experts of their software.

You could see if a Repair Installation of Windows XP may help:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/repaxp.htm
Although I am unsure how this may effect the rest of your boot with
other OSs assuming it is possible.
The data may already be effectively destroyed, is it important:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/datrec.htm

 

[Keith Russell]

No answer for possibly a couple of reasons:
1. This newsgroup is supposed to support issues with the Help and
Support feature of Windows XP, not quite what you are asking about.

Ah...Thank you SO much for explaining that! I assumed its purpose was to
provide help and support for XP problems. My apologies to everyone for the
mispost. Note that I've changed the followup group to
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general, which I hope is the correct one.

2. The biggest reason is this question probably needs to go to
Symantec the experts of their software.

Symantec can tell me why the problem occurred in the first place. I'm not
convinced that they could provide me the expert help I need to get my OS
back. And I'm not ready to pay $35 just to have them tell me to format my
drive and start over. 8-(.

You could see if a Repair Installation of Windows XP may help:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/repaxp.htm
Although I am unsure how this may effect the rest of your boot with
other OSs assuming it is possible.
The data may already be effectively destroyed, is it important:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/datrec.htm

Thanks. I'll check this out.

 

[TT]

Keith;
No answer for possibly a couple of reasons:
1. This newsgroup is supposed to support issues with the Help and
Support feature of Windows XP, not quite what you are asking about.
2. The biggest reason is this question probably needs to go to
Symantec the experts of their software.

You could see if a Repair Installation of Windows XP may help:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/repaxp.htm
Although I am unsure how this may effect the rest of your boot with
other OSs assuming it is possible.
The data may already be effectively destroyed, is it important:
http://www3.telus.net/dandemar/datrec.htm

to get around the bootmagic issue, I have done a fixmbr from either a
floppy or the XP recovery function-it will return it to the mbr that
windows prefers to see...

 

[TT]

to get around the bootmagic issue, I have done a fixmbr from either a
floppy or the XP recovery function-it will return it to the mbr that
windows prefers to see...

I don't think I replied to the OP, sorry...