SP2 incompatible with Win2000 on same harddisk?

[Lucvdv]

I had a test platform I used for XPe (SP0 and SP1) with three partitions on
harddisk:

C: Primary, 1GB NTFS, XPe
D: Primary, 2GB NTFS, Win2000 (booted only to copy new targets to C
E: Primary, 2GB NTFS, containing some test and debugging apps so XPe never
needed to touch D:.

The rest of the disk was sometimes an additional partition, or sometimes
used for EWF. Currently it was an F: partition, also NTFS.


After installing my first SP2 target in C: and letting FBA run, the Win2000
setup didn't boot anymore (it was shut down cleanly: soft rebooted after
copying the new target to C.


It turned out that something strange had happened:

The boot.ini file hasn't been replaced or edited ever since SP0, it has
always contained the same two entries: disk(0)partition(1) for XPe, and
disk(0)partition(2) for Win2000.

Ntldr and ntdetect.com were replaced by their XPe SP2 versions.


After reinstalling win2000, I noticed that a new entry was added in boot
ini: disk(0)partition(3), and that's where W2k was now started from.

Checked the partition layout, and D, E and F are no longer primary
partitions: they were now logical drives inside an extended partition.


Then I tried to remove F to free space for EWF.
Result: "unknown hard error", and gone are the extended partition along
with all three logical drives in it, all I've left is C: and empty space.

 

[Lucvdv]

It turned out that something strange had happened:

Something like a defective harddisk apparently.


I reinstalled on the same HD after cleaning it through DiskPart, but after
a few reboots, new (other) problems appeared.

Then I installed a new HD, and everything seems to work now.

A surface scan on the old HD didn't turn up any bad sectors though.

 

[Slobodan Brcin \(eMVP\)]

Lucvdv,

This is something that you have done but I can't tell what exactly.
Anyhow preassigning volume letters might interest you so you can read:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/community/community/tips/xp/rtpartin/default.aspx

Regards,
Slobodan

 

[Lucvdv]

Lucvdv,

This is something that you have done but I can't tell what exactly.

I don't think so.

Emptying the original harddisk completely with the DiskPart CLEAN command
and then reinstalling everything didn't solve it, but taking a brand new
harddisk (another type) and creating the same partition structure there
did. Nothing was changed in the XPe target.

Either the first HD had physically gone bad, or it's incompatible with SP2
(I hope it's the first).