Partition Magic, dual boot, crash.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ed H
  • Start date Start date
E

Ed H

Sorry if this off topic, I can't seem to get an answer from Symantec. Was
dual booting XP and XP, tried to format and re-install one, after the first
re-boot got a message something about MBR messed up. Tried to boot again,
got a blue screen error, crashed. Cleaned everything up, tried it again,
uninstalling Boot Magic first, still no go.The only way to get rid of the
error was to format both OS's and re-install both. How can I resolve this
for future use? If I want to change an OS for another how do I keep Boot
Magic from messing up my MBR? And do you know a good link to explain the
boot process? Where are these files stored?

Thank you,
 
Ed H said:
Was dual booting XP and XP, tried to format and re-install one,
after the first re-boot got a message something about MBR
messed up. Tried to boot again, got a blue screen error,
crashed. Cleaned everything up, tried it again, uninstalling
Boot Magic first, still no go.The only way to get rid of the
error was to format both OS's and re-install both. How can I
resolve this for future use? If I want to change an OS for
another how do I keep Boot Magic from messing up my MBR?
Click to expand...

How careful were you in controlling which was the active partition? That's
a common source of malfunctions. If you have BM, you must have
PartitionMagic, so the most controlled way would have been to deactivate or
uninstall BM, use PM to set the target partition active and hide the
alternate OS, boot from your Dell restore CD and reinstall XP to the target
partition, then finally reinstall BM.
And do you know a good link to explain the boot process?
Click to expand...

See if my webpage at www.goodells.net/multiboot helps -- in particular, see
the sections on the boot process and multibooting principles.
Where are these files stored?
Click to expand...

If you mean the BootMagic files, there are two parts to BM. One is the
replacement MBR, which overwrites the standard MBR (some 400-odd bytes in
the first sector of the hard disk). The other is the BM program itself,
which resides in the \BTMAGIC.PQ directory on one of your partitions. The
BM MBR interrupts the boot process, redirecting it to \BTMAGIC.PQ, which
draws your BM menu, etc. To remove BM you can simply delete the \BTMAGIC.PQ
directory and restore a standard MBR by "fdisk /mbr" (from a Win98 boot
floppy) or "fixmbr" (from XP's recovery console).
 
Thanks for writing:
How careful were you in controlling which was the active partition? That's
a common source of malfunctions. If you have BM, you must have
PartitionMagic, so the most controlled way would have been to deactivate or
uninstall BM, use PM to set the target partition active and hide the
alternate OS, boot from your Dell restore CD and reinstall XP to the target
partition, then finally reinstall BM.
Click to expand...

The first time around I forgot to uin-install BM, I figured that might be
the problem. However, do I need to un-install BM if I am to change an OS on
a partition? Twice after this, I did un-install BM but got the same results.
I did use the PM wizard to install a new OS which should of set the proper
partition active.
 
Ed H said:
The first time around I forgot to uin-install BM, I figured that
might be the problem. However, do I need to un-install BM if
I am to change an OS on a partition? Twice after this, I did
un-install BM but got the same results. I did use the PM wizard
to install a new OS which should of set the proper partition active.
Click to expand...

For reliable results, I recommend temporarily disabling BM. It's been
awhile, but IIRC, the PM wizard uses BM functions to automatically set the
proper partition characteristics. While that normally should work, remember
that installing a Windows OS *will* disable your boot manager by overwriting
the MBR, so you'll have to reinstall/reactivate BM afterward, no matter what
method you follow. And if you're going to do that, you may as well disable
it yourself and not count on something else to set the partition
characteristics, which may or may not do it correctly. Setting the
partitions yourself only takes a minute or two, which timewise is cheap
compared to the time involved starting over if Windows doesn't get setup
right the first time.
 
I think it was PM malfunctioning, not BM, now that I think about it, I used
to avoid using PM's wizards but I loved what the software itself could do, I
just needed to control each step. Let me try that.

Thanks again,
 
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