Fixboot an end partition of a large drive

[Krister Hallergard]

Have an 190 GB disk drive with XP. Wanted to make room for Linux
partitions so I did a shrink and move job(to the end of the drive) using
Presizer. This was successful, except I cannot boot the XP partition.
It starts on cylinder 5788, abt 46 GB from the beginning of the disk.
Appr 144 GB, FAT32.

Tried to Fixmbr and Fixboot using the XP boot disks' recovery console,
which seems to work, but when I boot I get the message: "Disk error".

Krister
Lytham, UK

 

[Guest]

In your partition there should be a boot.ini file. click Start, Run, and type
X:\boot.ini (where x is partition you want to use.) Type x:\yourwindows
installationfolder="WINDOWS XP"

 

[Krister Hallergard]

In your partition there should be a boot.ini file. click Start, Run, and type
X:\boot.ini (where x is partition you want to use.) Type x:\yourwindows
installationfolder="WINDOWS XP"


:

Thanks Brian, but I do not understand. Yes, there is a boot.ini file in
the root of the XP partition, which has this entry amongst others:
"default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS" and yes,
c:\windows is the XP installation folder.

As I cannot boot XP I cannot go to Start, Run etc

 

[Guest]

What comes up when you start your computer?

Thanks Brian, but I do not understand. Yes, there is a boot.ini file in
the root of the XP partition, which has this entry amongst others:
"default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS" and yes,
c:\windows is the XP installation folder.

As I cannot boot XP I cannot go to Start, Run etc

 

[Krister Hallergard]

After the BIOS comes "disk error"

What comes up when you start your computer?

:

 

[Bob Harris]

Three key files should be on the first partition of the hard drive, whether
XP is there or elsewhere. These are BOOT.INI, NTLDR, and NTDETECT.COM.

After that, the contents of BOOT.INI must point to the XP installation.
Your current BOOT.INI files says that XP is on the fourth partition on the
primary hard drive. If that is not true, then change it. BOOT.INI also
points to C:\Wndows, but you have moved XP, so it may no longer be on C:\.
Assuming that it really is on the fourth partition, the letter is likely F:.

But, be warned, moving a program, let alone an operating system, without a
full uninstall (or format) and re-install, rarely works. Evem if you figure
out how to start XP, something will soon crash when the registry points to
C:\...\some_file, but the some_file in question is on F:. or whatever.

I suggest that you consider moving XP back to C:, then set BOOT.INI to point
to the first partition:

"default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS"

Most LINUX distributions can accept being installed on a partition other
than the first one on the disk.

 

[Guest]

This might be an indication of a hardware problem. Try going to a computer
shop near you. They can help you because I can't identify the problem.

 

[Krister Hallergard]

Thanks Bob. Am using Ranish Partition Manager. Had deleted the other
three partitions and left XP as number 4. XP had the drive letter C
before I shrank the partition. On my other disk drive I have Win2K and
am able to boot the XP partition with
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\Windows="Windows XP\" /fastdetect.
As I boot from the other drive the rdisk value changes from 0 to 1.

Actually tried giving XP partition number 1, but same problem. My
opinion is that it is either the disk drive's MBR or more likely, the
partition boot record that is not accessed, i.e. before trying to read
BOOT.INI. Do have the XP NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM on both drives (to be
able to boot XP from the W2k boot menu).

 

[NoStop]

Have an 190 GB disk drive with XP. Wanted to make room for Linux
partitions so I did a shrink and move job(to the end of the drive) using
Presizer. This was successful, except I cannot boot the XP partition.
It starts on cylinder 5788, abt 46 GB from the beginning of the disk.
Appr 144 GB, FAT32.

Tried to Fixmbr and Fixboot using the XP boot disks' recovery console,
which seems to work, but when I boot I get the message: "Disk error".

Krister
Lytham, UK

Most new user-friendly Linux distros come with the capability to resize an
existing NTFS partition to free up space AFTER that partition for the Linux
partitions. I don't know why you chose to use Presizer (whatever that is)
and move your XP partition to the end of the drive? Must be a XP thing that
it is now unable to find your XP boot partition. How you get it booting
again, I'll leave up to the many talented MVPs that hang around here. I'm
sure one of them will offer you a non-destructive way to repair your
problem with XP.

 

[Bill Blanton]

Thanks Bob. Am using Ranish Partition Manager. Had deleted the other three partitions and left XP as number 4.

If the 3 partitions you deleted preceded the XP partition, then XP would
be partition(1) in boot.ini. An empty partition, "Type 0", in the partition
table is not enumerated.

XP had the drive letter C before I shrank the partition. On my other disk drive I have Win2K and am able to boot the XP partition
with multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\Windows="Windows XP\" /fastdetect. As I boot from the other drive the rdisk value changes
from 0 to 1.

The "drive letter" is irrelavent until the OS loads and assigns letters.

What's the exact configuration of your drives (hd0/hd1) and what
partitions do you have on each? And what are you using as the boot
manager? Win2K? Sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying above..

Actually tried giving XP partition number 1, but same problem. My opinion is that it is either the disk drive's MBR or more
likely, the partition boot record that is not accessed, i.e. before trying to read BOOT.INI. Do have the XP NTLDR and
NTDETECT.COM on both drives (to be able to boot XP from the W2k boot menu).

XP is on the second drive, and 2k is on hd0?


If the exact error is "A disk read error occurred...Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to
restart", then the boot sector loaded, but is having problems using the
int 0x13 extensions, or is not recognizing the extensions and so can't
load that high a cylinder.

I assume your BIOS supports the int 0x13 extensions? If it does you shouldn't
have any problem at that particular cylinder. Assuming your partitioning program
didn't screw anyhing up, have you tried moving it back to below the 1024
cylinder?

 

[Krister Hallergard]

If the 3 partitions you deleted preceded the XP partition, then XP would
be partition(1) in boot.ini. An empty partition, "Type 0", in the partition
table is not enumerated.




The "drive letter" is irrelavent until the OS loads and assigns letters.

What's the exact configuration of your drives (hd0/hd1) and what
partitions do you have on each? And what are you using as the boot
manager? Win2K? Sorry, but I don't understand what you're saying above..





XP is on the second drive, and 2k is on hd0?





If the exact error is "A disk read error occurred...Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to
restart", then the boot sector loaded, but is having problems using the
int 0x13 extensions, or is not recognizing the extensions and so can't
load that high a cylinder.

I assume your BIOS supports the int 0x13 extensions? If it does you shouldn't
have any problem at that particular cylinder. Assuming your partitioning program
didn't screw anyhing up, have you tried moving it back to below the 1024
cylinder?

My setup is as follows:
hd0: part Unused 2GB FAT16 backup Win95
1 Warp3 FP43 2GB HPFS
2 Warp 452 2GB HPFS
Unused 8GB FAT32 backup Win98
3 Win98/W2k 33GB FAT32
4 W2k 147GB NPFS Main backup partition
Unused 2GB not formatted
Boot Manager 8kB Ranish advanced BM
hd1: 1 Win95/Win311 2GB FAT16
2 Warp3 backup 2GB HPFS
3 Warp 452 backup 2GB HPFS
Unused 40GB not formatted, planned for Linux
4 Win XP 144GB FAT32
Unused 2GB not formatted
Boot Manager 8kB Ranish advanced BM

Ranish advanced BM remembers also what has no partition number. When I
deleted part 2 and 3 on hd1 I only took the partition numbers away, easy
to put back. To choose boot partition I use Ranish compact BM
(entering the part number) and hd0/part3 and 4 each have a W2k Boot
Menu, which includes the option of changing boot drive (default is hd0
part 3). To boot XP on the default Boot Menus (hd0/part3) I choose
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\Windows="Windows XP\" /fastdetect.

Plan was to also be able to use the W2k Boot Menu of hd1/part4 but it
dos not work as I cannot get the partition bootsector to function with
FIXBOOT. FIXMBR takes away the Ranish Boot Manager, but I still cannot
boot XP. Have tried this sereral times with varations of only having
part4 on hd1, changing part number to part1 (incl changing in the
boot.ini - but I never get to see the boot menu). The exact message is
"Disk error - Press any key to restart" when I press a key the message
is "Boot Failure.

Seems to me that FIXBOOT does not take as the partition starts as far as
46GB from the start of the disk. To test this I will copy over the XP
partition to the 40GB space intended for Linux, and see what happens
when I apply FIXBOOT.

 

[Bill Blanton]

My setup is as follows:
hd0: part Unused 2GB FAT16 backup Win95
1 Warp3 FP43 2GB HPFS
2 Warp 452 2GB HPFS
Unused 8GB FAT32 backup Win98
3 Win98/W2k 33GB FAT32
4 W2k 147GB NPFS Main backup partition
Unused 2GB not formatted
Boot Manager 8kB Ranish advanced BM
hd1: 1 Win95/Win311 2GB FAT16
2 Warp3 backup 2GB HPFS
3 Warp 452 backup 2GB HPFS
Unused 40GB not formatted, planned for Linux
4 Win XP 144GB FAT32
Unused 2GB not formatted
Boot Manager 8kB Ranish advanced BM

Ranish advanced BM remembers also what has no partition number. When I deleted part 2 and 3 on hd1 I only took the partition
numbers away, easy to put back. To choose boot partition I use Ranish compact BM (entering the part number) and hd0/part3 and 4
each have a W2k Boot Menu, which includes the option of changing boot drive (default is hd0 part 3). To boot XP on the default
Boot Menus (hd0/part3) I choose multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4)\Windows="Windows XP\" /fastdetect.

If you deleted hd1 (2 & 3) then XP would be counted as (2). If Ranish
is "hiding" partitions when you boot, you also have to take that into
account

Plan was to also be able to use the W2k Boot Menu of hd1/part4 but it dos not work as I cannot get the partition bootsector to
function with FIXBOOT.

If the 2k bootmanager in hd0(3) is able to load XP, then there is
nothing wrong with XP's boot sector. Just curious why you want to use
Ranish and win2k's boot manager anyway.. doesn't Ranish allow booting
from hd1?

FIXMBR takes away the Ranish Boot Manager, but I still cannot boot XP. Have tried this sereral times with varations of only
having part4 on hd1, changing part number to part1 (incl changing in the boot.ini - but I never get to see the boot menu). The
exact message is "Disk error - Press any key to restart" when I press a key the message is "Boot Failure.

By changing part number, you mean physically moving it in the MBR's
partition table? If you aren't seeing the boot menu, then the problem
is in the install that you are initially booting to. hd0(4)'s boot.ini

Seems to me that FIXBOOT does not take as the partition starts as far as 46GB from the start of the disk. To test this I will copy
over the XP partition to the 40GB space intended for Linux, and see what happens when I apply FIXBOOT.

You could try that, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the problem, and if
booting to hd0(3) -> XP works then there is nothing wrong with XP's
boot sector or its location.

BTW. 144GB is way to large for FAT32 to safely handle. Personally,
(considering the default cluster sizes), I wouldn't have a FAT32 drive
over 64GB, but definetly not greater than 128GB.

 

[Krister Hallergard]

If you deleted hd1 (2 & 3) then XP would be counted as (2). If Ranish
is "hiding" partitions when you boot, you also have to take that into
account

Ranish allows you to hide or just take away the the partition number,
which I call deleting. Yes you are right, you cannot boot a partition
if any of the lower partition number don´t exist. That is why I try to
do FIXBOOT on partition number 1 which means I give the XP partition
number 1 and delete the other numbers. That is why Ranish is so good,
you can change active partitions very quickly.

If the 2k bootmanager in hd0(3) is able to load XP, then there is
nothing wrong with XP's boot sector. Just curious why you want to use
Ranish and win2k's boot manager anyway.. doesn't Ranish allow booting
from hd1?

No, booting XP from the hd0(3) boot menu uses the W2k boot sector on
hd0(3)!! My main reason for persuing this is that I am now dependent on
hd0 working. Want to be able to boot XP from hd1

Have used Rainsh for years and preferred it to the OS2 boot manager as
it allows 4 and not just 3 bootable partitions per drive. Also don´t
like the the OS2 boot managers hiding the non booted primary partitions.
Only recently have I learnt using the W2k/XP boot menu to boot OS2
partitions and to change boot drive. Ranish allows changing boot drive
only if you don´t have any FAT partition on the drive you are on.

By changing part number, you mean physically moving it in the MBR's
partition table? If you aren't seeing the boot menu, then the problem
is in the install that you are initially booting to. hd0(4)'s boot.ini

Ranish changes the order of the lines in the MBR according to the number
you give the partitions. In Ranish you can set the default
partition, in my case hd0(3) and hd1(4). The default partitions are
hd0(3) and hd1(4) so I get the boot menu of hd0(3), which has one option
to change boot drive, so then I get the boot menu of hd1(4). One reason
for doing this is the W2k/XP boot menus can only handle one Win98 or Win
95 partition per drive.
This did not work either with the 40GB partition, so I started
considering that there was something wrong with the hard disk.
Suspected the first partition FAT16, hd1(1), so I reformatted it. Run
the boot disks and did FIXBOOT, rebooted and it worked. Did the same
procedure on the hd1(4) partition and rebooted and it worked too.
Solved! So I now have a 40GB backup copy of XP in the unused space on
hd1 (as I have taken the partition number away)

You could try that, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the problem, and if
booting to hd0(3) -> XP works then there is nothing wrong with XP's
boot sector or its location.

Sorry, but you are wrong, se above!

BTW. 144GB is way to large for FAT32 to safely handle. Personally,
(considering the default cluster sizes), I wouldn't have a FAT32 drive
over 64GB, but definetly not greater than 128GB.

My new box came with the two 190 GB, both FAT32 cluster 32k. Have
changed the cluster to 16k on the XP partition, is that a problem for 144GB?

Thanks Bill for your support

Krister

 

[Bill Blanton]

Ranish allows you to hide or just take away the the partition number, which I call deleting. Yes you are right, you cannot boot a
partition if any of the lower partition number don´t exist. That is why I try to do FIXBOOT on partition number 1 which means I
give the XP partition number 1 and delete the other numbers. That is why Ranish is so good, you can change active partitions very
quickly.

I've heard of Ranish, and get the impression it's a good program, but never used it.
I've got an investment in BootitNG already

No, booting XP from the hd0(3) boot menu uses the W2k boot sector on hd0(3)!!

It uses the 2k boot sector to find NTLDR, (and eventually ntdetect.com
and boot.ini) but the XP boot sector must be loaded eventually to get
the BPB information/parameters for the XP volume.

My main reason for persuing this is that I am now dependent on hd0 working. Want to be able to boot XP from hd1

Ah. ok.

Have used Rainsh for years and preferred it to the OS2 boot manager as it allows 4 and not just 3 bootable partitions per drive.
Also don´t like the the OS2 boot managers hiding the non booted primary partitions. Only recently have I learnt using the W2k/XP
boot menu to boot OS2 partitions and to change boot drive. Ranish allows changing boot drive only if you don´t have any FAT
partition on the drive you are on.

That's an interesting restriction. You might want to check out
BootitNG sometime. It does a "swap drive" at the BIOS level, which
makes hd1, hd0. It's also a partitioning/imaging program, and supports
imaging to CD/DVD?, etc..

Ranish changes the order of the lines in the MBR according to the number you give the partitions. In Ranish you can set the
default partition, in my case hd0(3) and hd1(4). The default partitions are hd0(3) and hd1(4) so I get the boot menu of hd0(3),
which has one option to change boot drive, so then I get the boot menu of hd1(4). One reason for doing this is the W2k/XP boot
menus can only handle one Win98 or Win 95 partition per drive.

I didn't know that about "one win9x".

This did not work either with the 40GB partition, so I started considering that there was something wrong with the hard disk.
Suspected the first partition FAT16, hd1(1), so I reformatted it. Run the boot disks and did FIXBOOT, rebooted and it worked. Did
the same procedure on the hd1(4) partition and rebooted and it worked too. Solved!

Interesting .. Glad to hear you figured it out.

My new box came with the two 190 GB, both FAT32 cluster 32k. Have changed the cluster to 16k on the XP partition, is that a
problem for 144GB?

Here's the default cluster size table.

Partition size Cluster size
-------------------------------------
512 MB to 8,191 MB 4 KB
8,192 MB to 16,383 MB 8 KB
16,384 MB to 32,767 MB 16 KB
Larger than 32,768 MB 32 KB

Notice that the last line only says "larger than" [32GB], but when
considering the count of clusters (and to equal the others), it should
be 32GB to 64GB. 64GB to 128GB would be 64KB clusters, but FAT32
doesn't support 64KB clusters, and the article was written before
these monster disks started to become common.

I don't have any hard evidence to say for sure that the NT/XP FAT32
file system driver would have a hard time with that, but it is a known
problem for some win9x code (most notably defrag) to fail if the
cluster count is too high. With 16KB clusters defining a 144GB volume..
that's a whole lot of clusters, and a _very_ fat FAT

Thanks Bill for your support

You're welcome, glad you got it sorted out.

 

[Krister Hallergard]

I've heard of Ranish, and get the impression it's a good program, but never used it.
I've got an investment in BootitNG already





It uses the 2k boot sector to find NTLDR, (and eventually ntdetect.com
and boot.ini) but the XP boot sector must be loaded eventually to get
the BPB information/parameters for the XP volume.

Yes that is probably how it works

My main reason for persuing this is that I am now dependent on hd0 working. Want to be able to boot XP from hd1

Ah. ok.

Have used Rainsh for years and preferred it to the OS2 boot manager as it allows 4 and not just 3 bootable partitions per drive.
Also don´t like the the OS2 boot managers hiding the non booted primary partitions. Only recently have I learnt using the W2k/XP
boot menu to boot OS2 partitions and to change boot drive. Ranish allows changing boot drive only if you don´t have any FAT
partition on the drive you are on.

That's an interesting restriction. You might want to check out
BootitNG sometime. It does a "swap drive" at the BIOS level, which
makes hd1, hd0. It's also a partitioning/imaging program, and supports
imaging to CD/DVD?, etc..

Ranish changes the order of the lines in the MBR according to the number you give the partitions. In Ranish you can set the
default partition, in my case hd0(3) and hd1(4). The default partitions are hd0(3) and hd1(4) so I get the boot menu of hd0(3),
which has one option to change boot drive, so then I get the boot menu of hd1(4). One reason for doing this is the W2k/XP boot
menus can only handle one Win98 or Win 95 partition per drive.

I didn't know that about "one win9x".

This did not work either with the 40GB partition, so I started considering that there was something wrong with the hard disk.
Suspected the first partition FAT16, hd1(1), so I reformatted it. Run the boot disks and did FIXBOOT, rebooted and it worked. Did
the same procedure on the hd1(4) partition and rebooted and it worked too. Solved!

Interesting .. Glad to hear you figured it out.

My new box came with the two 190 GB, both FAT32 cluster 32k. Have changed the cluster to 16k on the XP partition, is that a
problem for 144GB?

Here's the default cluster size table.

Partition size Cluster size
-------------------------------------
512 MB to 8,191 MB 4 KB
8,192 MB to 16,383 MB 8 KB
16,384 MB to 32,767 MB 16 KB
Larger than 32,768 MB 32 KB

Notice that the last line only says "larger than" [32GB], but when
considering the count of clusters (and to equal the others), it should
be 32GB to 64GB. 64GB to 128GB would be 64KB clusters, but FAT32
doesn't support 64KB clusters, and the article was written before
these monster disks started to become common.

I don't have any hard evidence to say for sure that the NT/XP FAT32
file system driver would have a hard time with that, but it is a known
problem for some win9x code (most notably defrag) to fail if the
cluster count is too high. With 16KB clusters defining a 144GB volume..
that's a whole lot of clusters, and a _very_ fat FAT

Yes indeed, at 26% of the partition in use the FAT is 36 MB! I had disk
access problems with OS2 with this partition, so I decided to get the
bugs out by reformatting. Had to stay with FAT32 to allow access to
main data files from OS2 and Win98. Could at first not find a
formatting tool for this large partition. XP and W2k only allowed 32
MB. So I used Ranish, which gave med the 16kB cluster size