Big time screw up with WinXP

[LuDaCriS66]

My problem is I now cannot boot into WinXP without a bootdisk. What happened was, I was trying to get Partition Magic 7 to format my Win98se partition which happened to be on the C drive into the ext2 format. The computer rebooted and PM started to work.. all of a sudden, PM gives me an error saying something about wrong sizes so it reboots. Now everytime I turn the computer on it gives me the "Error loading operating system" message.

This was my previous configuration
C:\Win98se - FAT32
E:\WinXp - NTFS
F:\Storage - FAT32
G:\Storage - NTFS

H:\ Separate 8GB hard drive ---- I had to unplug this so I could get the right partition number for my boot disk to work

So I believe my MBR was screwed up.. so I thought maybe installing Linux on there might give me my boot loader bacK.. wrong... that didn't work..

Now I can't boot up without this boot disk.. I've tried using my WinXP CD to use the recovery feature or to re-install the OS on top of my current configuration so I can preserve my settings but it asked for the administrator password but I never set on. I don't even see the administrator account in "User Accounts" anymore.

This is what my boot.ini file has to look like for it to work
[boot loader]
timeout=30
Default= multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows

[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\windows="Windows XP"

This is what my configuration now looks like in Partition Magic 7

1 - * - Linux Ext2
1 - * - Extended
1 - E:WinXP - NTFS
1 - F: - FAT32
1 - * - Unallocated <--- this was some space from a previous screwed up partitioning job with PM 7
1 - G: - NTFS

Oh yeah and whenever I try to re-install WinXP over my current installation, it says "your partition is not Windows XP compatible".. how can that be if I already have WinXP installed on there??

Any ideas?

 

[LuDaCriS66]

bump

 

[Jwyatt]

You might consider letting XP reformat or repartition the space your using for xp. It will loose all your data and programs, but might be worth it.

 

[CQuinn]

Getting rid of the first FAT32 partition threw off what the NT Bootloader thought was the right partition
information to load the OS.

It is looking to load XP from the second partition it can recognize, but you blew away the first, so it doesn't know
where to look anymore. Make a backup of the Boot.ini file, then try editing it to point at
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows, to see if that makes a difference.

If that does not work, then try again to get in thru the recovery console (if you did not put in a password, doesn't
just hitting enter when it asks work?). If you get into recovery mode, try running the MAP command to
see what XP thinks the partition layout is for boot.ini to reference.

Otherwise, try booting from the Linux install CD, and see if its disk management utilities can help. At least
check the ext2fs partition to see if it seems reasonable to install on. If you can install Linux, you might be in
a better position to re-add the XP partition into LILO or grub.





Are you using PM 7.0 or PM 7.01? The updated version has not given me any major problems with partitioning so far.

 

[LuDaCriS66]

Really?? I'm using PM Pro 7.0. I haven't updated it cuz I don't use it that much but this version has screwed up the last 3 times I've run it. WTF??

 

[CQuinn]

Get PM 7.01

Its a full install that you will have to download, but a free update for registered owners of PM 7.

I think there were some last minute issues with XP and larger hard drives that they had to work out.