Vista load error "preparing desktop" with Drive Letters mixedup.

G

Guest

So after having a stable and successful dual-boot with XP and Vista Ultimate
32Bit for a couple of months now, I got over-confident.

I had the bright wee hours of the morning idea that I could quickly increase
my Vista partition size as it was getting a little light (it shares an
internal HDD with another drive letter) and promptly stuffed my Vista boot.

Setup = C:\ XP Boot (original OPSYS). V:\ Vista Partition (shared on same
drive as D:\)

What I did...

* Booted into XP, loaded Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.
* Resized D:\ (shrunk by 25GB) and Resized v:\ (increased by 25GB).
* Applied actions.
* Had a PC lock-up in XP some time later during same session, reset PC.
* Boot error - no Windows Vista found (load original disc).
* Loaded Vista disc and used "r" option. Located vista partition, repaired.
* Vista Booted (had rundll.exe error or something similar) and died.
* Re-booted, hit F8 and selected "last known good config." Vista ran lengthy
disc check.
* Re-Booted- Vista loaded to login. Keyed normal user/password, and
"preparing desktop" appeared.
* My desktop and startup programs fail to boot and I get stuck in a plain
blue empty screen with cursor and CTR-ALT-DEL accessing Task Manager or
log-off / shutdown screen only.

I have re-checked the Vista Drive in XP and it is all there
(profile/data/opsys etc). However, when I boot back to command prompt in
Vista - V:\ has become H:\. No wonder my profile/desktop/start-up and Vista
doesn't kick-in properly!

I think the problem I have is that running the Vista Boot Disc with repair
option - bypasses the boot setup on my HDD. Therefore, Vista does not see my
XP install on my C:\. Also, I cannot access the repair option from the Vista
Disc within my XP boot - as opposed to the "install" options which I
originally did to install Vista dual-boot.

This means that my V:\ (visible in my XP boot as V:\) is reassigned when I
select Vista in my start-up boot options. It then becomes H:\. This stops all
my apps, profile and Vista botting properly - hence the plain blue vista
screen after "preparing desktop".

When I boot to XP, and load Acronis or Disk Management in XP, C:\ is an
"active" partition with my XP Boot & System files.

However, V:\ (a primary partition shared with D:\ on a 320GB HDD) is not an
"active" partition.

If I make v:\ active in XP, will this help when I try and reboot and select
my Vista boot ?

If not, how can I (from within XP) lock Vista to recognise the system drive
as V:\ and not assign it's own letter ?

Thanks,
Striderlps.
 
J

John Barnes

The drive letters assigned or changed to in an operating system have nothing
to do with the drive letters enumerated in command prompt.
They are not even necessarily the same in the different systems unless
installed from the other system. Vista always is the C system when
installed from the DVD.
My guess for the problems is that in moving the data to change your
partitions, something was screwed up, therefore your chkdisk problem. That
is why they always say to make a full backup BEFORE making any disk changes.
Hope you followed their advice.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Similar Threads


Top