I can't access my old partition anymore...any help?

[ManDooM]

I goofed. I have XP home installed on one partition. I installed a new hard drive and wanted to format it so I booted from the XP disk and formatted it, then quit without completely installing Windows, thinking that I could just go in and delete the temp files it put on the new partition. Apparently that doesn't work because I think it wrote something on the boot sector of the main partition that I can't get fixed. It thinks that there is another OS on the other partition and errors out at the selection screen. So I deleted the new partition. Didn't help. I went to the repair console and tried fixboot, and fixmbr but it didn't work. I would appreciate any advice. Thanks!

 

[ManDooM]

Okay, update... I can access the old partition if I select it fast enough. If I'm not fast enough, I get an error for a missing dll file. I think it's trying to finish installing Windows on the new partition.

So...do I need to fix the boot sector and if so, how? I can get into the old windows so if I need to run a batch file or something it would be simple.

Thanks again!

 

[lansalot]

You should be able to fix your boot.ini file. Easiest way might be to open the disk in another machine, or if you're feeling lucky/smart, have a crack with linux livecd that will allow ntfs read/write.

 

[ManDooM]

I hoped it would be simple as that. What do I need to change in the boot.ini file?

 

[lansalot]

Copy the contents here and we'll tell you, but if you can see it it should be obvious.

It will likely be the one with a zero-wait time, that points to the new drive you installed.

Can't remember if boot.ini can be edited within the recovery console - I think it can. Do a 'help' when you boot the console, that would be safest.