PartitionMagic + Re-Lettering Windows Partitions = No Boot

  • Thread starter Thread starter thogek
  • Start date Start date
OK. You need to make a BartPE CD (around 15 minutes). Don't worry about all
the plugins at this stage, just do the basic CD. Boot to the CD, press F6 to
install SATA drivers if needed. Don't worry about Network Support. Open the
A43 File Management Utility (it's like Windows Explorer) and in the C: drive
double click boot.ini. Edit it and save if appropriate.

It has helped me several times when the wrong Windows partition was listed.

Brian
 
Also, you will see all of your other partitions and you can remove data to
an external HD or to a network share. BartPE will open your active OS which
I think is Win 2003 at present.

Brian
 
While you are in Bart, run chkdsk /f on your partitions to exclude bad
sectors, fix errors etc. I found out about a failing HD in a situation very
similar to yours (not booting after PM ).

Brian
 
That's more or less my clueless guess. :-(
Click to expand...

Mine also.......... ;0(
That's what I'm hoping, and if I can't get it otherwise to recover,
that's going to have to be my fallback resort. Just hoping that if I
do drop and reinstall the Windows XP OS, the Windows 2003 Server
partition data will indeed be accessible...
Click to expand...

I don't see why not though.....Re-installing XP may also recognize
another OS and clean up your bootstrapping giving you your Server
back....I've never had a scenario like that before as far as re-
installing with an existing OS that was the main strap using windozes
features......I use a combination of BMagic & PartitionMagic for
multiboots using Primary only partitions.....Less annoying & less
probability of error if another OS gets hosed..........
Something like that is more or less what I'm guessing. From what I do
understand, it sounds like PM placed a registry entry telling it where
in the Windows XP Pro partition to find the batch file that it should
run in the next reboot, but I screwed that up by changing the Windows
XP Pro drive letter...

Arg. Hopefully I'm making some degree of sense at this point. It's
been a very long day.

Thanks.

- Tom Kiefer
thogek @ earthlink . net
Click to expand...

I would try Brian K's suggestion though....I have never used BartPE but
it sounds interesting enough......I read the remainder of replies to you
and would be safe to say that you may as well re-install......I really
don't see ya losing the server drive though, it should show up as an
ordinary data disk...Than again as I said I've never allowed windoze to
bootstrap & manage my multiboots.....If you decide to clean both OS's I
can give you a good hint on installing where by both OS's will be hidden
from each other when each is booted seperately............

I would just re-install, probably be a lot quicker than trying to
repair/figure this mess out........... ;0)
 
Stan said:
in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support:

Rather tough for those of us without floppy drives.

It seems a curious oversight on the part of the PM folks, since
computers without floppy drives are increasingly common and CD-Rs
aren't hard to write. I suspect now that Symantec has swallowed PM,
it will just grow more bloated wthout actually growing more useful.
Click to expand...

Precisely the reason I ditched PM and bought Acronis Disk Director
(www.acronis.com) as it appears to be the only company with the foresight to
realise that fact. It will allow you to make a bootable rescue CD (it's the
same with its imaging application - True Image - too, I believe that Ghost
only creates floppies). Given the choice, I much prefer to create CDs over
floppies. Now, if more BIOSs supported booting from a USB port, then I'd
like to see the option to boot from a USB pen drive included.
 
HAWAIIANTIM said:
I HAVE DONE THE SAME THING A FEW TIMES . I EXPERIMENT ALOT TO LEARN
MORE. tHE RECOVERY CONSOLE IS THE BEST PLACE TO STAR, IF YOU DIDNT
CREATE THE P.MAGIC FLOPPYS. IT COULD BE YOU NEED TO MAP THE DRIVES
OR FIXMBR, FIXBOOT,OR IF YOU KNOW HOW REWRITE THE MASTER BOOT RECORD,
OR...USE ANOTHER COMPUTER TO CREATE THE PART. MAGIC FLOPPYS AND BOOT
WITH THOSE, OR SET YOUR COMPUTER TO BOOT FROM CD AND THE PART. MAGIC
CD IS BOOTABLE!!! I HAVE DONE IT ALL OF THESE WAYS,OHONE MORE WAY A
FREE SOFTWARE LIKE ACTIVE UNERASER

http://www.uneraser.com/orderfax.htm

THAT CAN READ THE DISK IN DOS WOULD HELP YOU SEE THE PROBLEM
Click to expand...

I see you're another f*ckwit that doesn't know where its caps lock key is...
All caps is yelling, is incredibly rude, and makes your posts extremely hard
to read. It also earns you a place in may people's killfiles.
 
in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
Somebody (not you) said PM 8.01 preceded the first "reputable"
computer without a floppy drive. Even if that's true, what has the
company been doing for the past year-plus? :-)
Precisely the reason I ditched PM and bought Acronis Disk Director
(www.acronis.com) as it appears to be the only company with the foresight to
realise that fact. It will allow you to make a bootable rescue CD (it's the
same with its imaging application - True Image - too, I believe that Ghost
only creates floppies).
Click to expand...

I've heard many good things about Acronis in this newsgroup. I
downloaded the evaluation version but haven't got around to
installing it -- struggling along with NTI Backup for now. Seems
like I need to make Acronis a priority. Thanks for the extra nudge!
 
Since Symantec Purchased PowerQuest - NOTHING!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)

If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
ByTor said:
I would just re-install, probably be a lot quicker than trying to
repair/figure this mess out........... ;0)
Click to expand...

I'm beginning to agree with you, there. I'm learning a bit more about
where things are. I've managed to get the limited command-line access
of the Recovery Console, but couldn't actually do much more than verify
that the boot.ini file appears to be fine, and appears to be employed
correctly during initial startup. I still have no idea why both OSs
refuse to boot.

If nothing else presents itself, I'll try reinstalling the Windows XP
Pro partition (which doesn't currently contain any important data), and
see if that gives me at least data-access to the Windows 2003
partition, and go from there.

Thanks.

- Tom Kiefer
thogek @ earthlink . net
 
Brian said:
While you are in Bart, run chkdsk /f on your partitions to exclude bad
sectors, fix errors etc. I found out about a failing HD in a situation very
similar to yours (not booting after PM ).
Click to expand...

I did, while in Recovery Console, run "chkdsk /p" on each partition (OS
and data), and all of 'em reported with "one or more error" (no
explanation). Running "chkdsk /r" took awhile, but seemed to clear up
all errors so that successive "chkdsk /p" runs turned up no errors.

Unfortunately, this appears to have made no difference. Both OSs still
won't boot; behaviors unchanged.

- Tom Kiefer
thogek @ earthlink . net
 
Stan said:
in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:

Somebody (not you) said PM 8.01 preceded the first "reputable"
computer without a floppy drive. Even if that's true, what has the
company been doing for the past year-plus? :-)


I've heard many good things about Acronis in this newsgroup. I
downloaded the evaluation version but haven't got around to
installing it -- struggling along with NTI Backup for now. Seems
like I need to make Acronis a priority. Thanks for the extra nudge!
Click to expand...

And look at the price - Ghost and PM together £90 (Bizarrely, Symatec don't
offer Ghost and PM as one of their bundle deals). Disk Director and True
Image as a bundle £48 - that's less than PM on its own (if you opt for the
Extended Download Service it's only an extra £3.20 and you can redownload
the software for three years I think).

Best £52.20 I've ever spent. I was all ready to purchase Ghost before I
stumbled across TI by chance. Buy it. Now.
 
in
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general:
And look at the price - Ghost and PM together £90 (Bizarrely, Symatec don't
offer Ghost and PM as one of their bundle deals). Disk Director and True
Image as a bundle £48 - that's less than PM on its own (if you opt for the
Extended Download Service it's only an extra £3.20 and you can redownload
the software for three years I think).

Best £52.20 I've ever spent. I was all ready to purchase Ghost before I
stumbled across TI by chance. Buy it. Now.
Click to expand...

Given that I've already got Partition Magic, do I gain anything
from Disk Director?
 
I'm beginning to agree with you, there. I'm learning a bit more about
where things are. I've managed to get the limited command-line access
of the Recovery Console, but couldn't actually do much more than verify
that the boot.ini file appears to be fine, and appears to be employed
correctly during initial startup. I still have no idea why both OSs
refuse to boot.

If nothing else presents itself, I'll try reinstalling the Windows XP
Pro partition (which doesn't currently contain any important data), and
see if that gives me at least data-access to the Windows 2003
partition, and go from there.

Thanks.

- Tom Kiefer
thogek @ earthlink . net
Click to expand...

Okay, let me know how ya work out.....As I said if you'd like to dual
boot the way I do I'd be more than happy to help.....

BTW: I run 4 OS's on 1 HD, all Primaries assigned letter C.......Sooooo,
I've been there, done that, & have been doing it for years without a
hitch......All MS OS's by the way....no Linux, well, not yet anyway. ;0)
 
Okay, I hate feeling stupid. And OS/boot issues make me feel stupid.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm feeling slightly less stupid, now, as I've finally resolved
my mess, and without losing any data or having to reinstall any of the
software extant on my primary Windows 2003 Server partition. (Yay.)

In case anyone's interested, here's basically what I ended up doing:

I used the Windows XP Pro CD to to attempt a "repair" install on the
Windows XP Pro partition, but that failed. Apparently, the process was
unable to resolve many of the DLL files from the CD, even though it was
looking in the correct directory for them, and the "Retry" button was
no help, so I had to hit the "Cancel" button a few dozen times. The
resulting "repaired" install was no better than before the repair.

So, finally, I installed a fresh new Windows XP Pro install over the
old one, reformatting the partition and all. (There wasn't much on
that partition beyond the OS, anyway.) That worked, and I was able to
boot into my renewed Windows XP Pro partition without problem, and from
there I could view the Windows 2003 Server partition as a data
partition, and back up copies of various data files thereon. (BTW, I
like Zip disks.)

The Windows 2003 Server still greeted attempts to boot with a blank
black screen, so I used the Windows 2003 Server CD to run a "repair"
install on that partition. This repair worked, and afterwords I was
able to boot into the Windows 2003 Server partition without problem,
with all data files and installed programs intact.

So, it appears that I'm back to normal, more or less. I do, however,
have a few things to add to my don't-do-that list... and eleven hours
lost that I won't get back...

Thanks to everyone who helped. Your comments and suggestions helped me
hold on to my sanity when I might otherwise have started playing
croquet with my CPU, and gave me some good ideas to look into for
future reference. Thanks!

- Tom Kiefer
thogek @ earthlink . net
 
Well, I'm feeling slightly less stupid, now, as I've finally resolved
my mess, and without losing any data or having to reinstall any of the
software extant on my primary Windows 2003 Server partition. (Yay.)

In case anyone's interested, here's basically what I ended up doing:

I used the Windows XP Pro CD to to attempt a "repair" install on the
Windows XP Pro partition, but that failed. Apparently, the process was
unable to resolve many of the DLL files from the CD, even though it was
looking in the correct directory for them, and the "Retry" button was
no help, so I had to hit the "Cancel" button a few dozen times. The
resulting "repaired" install was no better than before the repair.

So, finally, I installed a fresh new Windows XP Pro install over the
old one, reformatting the partition and all. (There wasn't much on
that partition beyond the OS, anyway.) That worked, and I was able to
boot into my renewed Windows XP Pro partition without problem, and from
there I could view the Windows 2003 Server partition as a data
partition, and back up copies of various data files thereon. (BTW, I
like Zip disks.)

The Windows 2003 Server still greeted attempts to boot with a blank
black screen, so I used the Windows 2003 Server CD to run a "repair"
install on that partition. This repair worked, and afterwords I was
able to boot into the Windows 2003 Server partition without problem,
with all data files and installed programs intact.

So, it appears that I'm back to normal, more or less. I do, however,
have a few things to add to my don't-do-that list... and eleven hours
lost that I won't get back...

Thanks to everyone who helped. Your comments and suggestions helped me
hold on to my sanity when I might otherwise have started playing
croquet with my CPU, and gave me some good ideas to look into for
future reference. Thanks!

- Tom Kiefer
thogek @ earthlink . net
Click to expand...

Good, good.....glad to hear it worked out....I at least learned
something from your situation.....Doing a clean install & repairing your
server install like that re-bootstrapped it successfully..........

Good going! Live & learn as I say..... ;0)
 
I did that once before on a laptop that had NT 4.0 Server and Win 98SE. I
tried changing the drive letter for 98 but since PartitionMagic uses a file
to direct itself to the files it needed to run, changing the drive letter
creates a mismatch to where it looks in the original drive letter and not
the new. I later learned at the supporting FAQ at PowerQuest's website that
they recommend not changing the drive letter of the partition that any OS
resides on.
 

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