M
mm
I think I brought parts of this up in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general so I've included them in the
follow-up, now that everything works.
In short, Sector errors in win98 partition and inability to start
win98 solved by running MS Windows Defrag from within XP partition.
Details follow:
To recap, I have dual boot, 98 and XP and my first step in fixing the
problle is explained fairly far below in the quoted text with four
asterisks****.
I was always able to access every file in the win98 partition C from
within XP, which is in its own partition D.
But then I was at this point:
Since the problem started when I used Easeus Partition Master** to
make a win98 partition smaller, after I moved data to its own
partition, I thought maybe I could just readjust the partition size,
even just a little bit, with a partition program that wouldn't screw
up win98, for example, Partition Manager 8, which was written when
win98 was king.
But before I did that, I wanted to put all the empty space at the rear
of the partition, so I thought I would use winXP defrag.
After I ran Defrag, I tried to boot to win98 again, just to be sure
which step fixed it, and voila, it worked fine after the defrag. I
guess the files I couldn't access in win98 DOS were all moved around,
to good addresses, or something like that. Maybe you DOS people know
what fixed it?
IIRC, some people suggested that the harddrive was going bad, because
of the sector errors, but I've seen no sign of that in the ensuing
weeks, and the drive is still listed as healthy by SMART.
**I think the System Requirements and what little other documentation
there is for Easeus PM is cryptic and misleading. It says that it
runs on winXP, and doesn't list win98, but it doesn't say that one
can't change the size of a fat32 partition that happens to hold win98
without screwing up the win98. I've learned that I'm not the only one
whose computer has been screwed up by this. I don't think most people
know that the contents of a partition would complicate resizing,
especially when a partition is being shortened at the end, not the
beginning where some important files are. So be warned that Easeus PM
won't work with win98.
Thank you all for your help.
The rest of the story, before I fixed it:
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general so I've included them in the
follow-up, now that everything works.
In short, Sector errors in win98 partition and inability to start
win98 solved by running MS Windows Defrag from within XP partition.
Details follow:
Can't boot win98! Sectors not found Dos error, right?
I've posted before about the problems I've had booting to win98SE,
after I used Easeus*** to shrink the win98 partition, and I've made
progress**, and I can now boot to Win98 DOS.
To recap, I have dual boot, 98 and XP and my first step in fixing the
problle is explained fairly far below in the quoted text with four
asterisks****.
I was always able to access every file in the win98 partition C from
within XP, which is in its own partition D.
But then I was at this point:
But I get a DOS error if I try to do much when I'm there. If I try
to continue on to the Windows of win98, it loads a lot of the things
it is supposed to load, but eventually I get
Since the problem started when I used Easeus Partition Master** to
make a win98 partition smaller, after I moved data to its own
partition, I thought maybe I could just readjust the partition size,
even just a little bit, with a partition program that wouldn't screw
up win98, for example, Partition Manager 8, which was written when
win98 was king.
But before I did that, I wanted to put all the empty space at the rear
of the partition, so I thought I would use winXP defrag.
After I ran Defrag, I tried to boot to win98 again, just to be sure
which step fixed it, and voila, it worked fine after the defrag. I
guess the files I couldn't access in win98 DOS were all moved around,
to good addresses, or something like that. Maybe you DOS people know
what fixed it?
IIRC, some people suggested that the harddrive was going bad, because
of the sector errors, but I've seen no sign of that in the ensuing
weeks, and the drive is still listed as healthy by SMART.
**I think the System Requirements and what little other documentation
there is for Easeus PM is cryptic and misleading. It says that it
runs on winXP, and doesn't list win98, but it doesn't say that one
can't change the size of a fat32 partition that happens to hold win98
without screwing up the win98. I've learned that I'm not the only one
whose computer has been screwed up by this. I don't think most people
know that the contents of a partition would complicate resizing,
especially when a partition is being shortened at the end, not the
beginning where some important files are. So be warned that Easeus PM
won't work with win98.
Thank you all for your help.
The rest of the story, before I fixed it: