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ISSUE RESOLVED!! ****Converted FAT32 to FAT32 (4K Aligned) Now Can't Fully Boot..Serious Help Needed. Going to CRY!

S

SpeedsterZZZ

Junior Member
hi,

let me be the first to say how great these forums are and I have been a "lurker" for quite some time..This is the only place I would go for this help.
In anticipation to moving to NTFS...I converted my drive to FAT32 (4K aligned) from regular FAT32...

After completion of this (which ended successfully)..My computer rebooted which was great..
Upon reboot it started to boot normally, after it showed the IRQ/PCI settings when it normally starts to load XP, it just halted...It searched the A:/ (floppy) and then the boot just halted...

Im positive its at the EXACT stage where it would normally start to load XP...
As you can imagine I am sickened at the thought...I can't believe this...
I am fairly knowledgable on MOST topics regarding computing...but this is the first time I have attempted this procedure...


Can someone please lend a hand?
Thanks in advance..You guys are always great
 
are you using a program like partitionmagic ? Is the partition active ? I remember doing the same once (fat32 --> fat32 4k -> ntfs) using partitionmagic
 
Do you have another computer that can read NTFS file systems? If so, take the drive out, put it in the other computer as a secondary drive, and see if you can view the files. To copy them out, you may need to reset Ownership of them first, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it 😉

Bottom line, you are probably going to end up rescuing your data (if possible), deleting the existing partition, and reinstalling Windows using NTFS this time. And that isn't the end of the world, just takes a few hours to get everything installed, patched and ready for action.
 
Originally posted by: flexy
are you using a program like partitionmagic ? Is the partition active ? I remember doing the same once (fat32 --> fat32 4k -> ntfs) using partitionmagic
Click to expand...

Thank you for your reply.

I had 2 partitions setup..
My MAIN C:\ partition with my XP os and some main apps.
I also had a D:\ partition for massive storage

I DID in fact use Partition Magic 8.0 which I've never had a problem with.
I simply told it to convert from FAT32 to FAT32 (4K Aligned).

It took a while but did so WITHOUT incident.
There must be some explanation as to why it will now not boot into XP. It just halts after it shows me my IRQ settings (after Bios load and all that)...



Is the Partition Active?
Well it was prior to the conversion....I dont see how this would have changed...What is the EASIEST way to check this? (mind you I cant get into XP)
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Do you have another computer that can read NTFS file systems? If so, take the drive out, put it in the other computer as a secondary drive, and see if you can view the files. To copy them out, you may need to reset Ownership of them first, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it 😉
Click to expand...

I do in fact have another hard drive (which Im on now..but its a lot smaller than the other one)..Both hard drives were FAT32.

There must be a reason why it is not now loading XP. The conversion completed successfully!.. I am aware that I could copy needed files off of it, onto this drive, then reformat and such.....but since there were no actual ERRORS...There has to be some reasonable explanation..or I would think....


Do you have any idea what would cause this?
 
Big picture: I bet you won't try this stunt again 😉

Here is my suggested course of action, anyway. I'm just going to quote my reply from elsewhere:
Originally posted by: mechBgon

1) Start Windows Setup from the CD. If your motherboard uses a driver floppy for the SATA drivers, also press the F6 key when prompted. [this guy had SATA]

2) It gets going and asks if you want to Repair. This first time, do not say "Repair". Act as if you're going to do a fresh installation.

3) Windows Setup will proceed a little further, ask you to accept the license terms, possibly ask for your SATA drivers on floppy diskette, and then ask where you want to install to. Point it at the C: partition.

4) Windows Setup will notice that there's a directory C:\WINDOWS that already contains a Windows installation, and ask if you want that one repaired. Now say "Repair."

5) Make sure your network cable is unplugged. When you're done, you'll have a "raw" WinXP installation. Any patches you had installed will be gone. So if it's at Service Pack 1a level, you're going to be vulnerable to worm attacks. Don't plug into broadband until you've either enabled the WinXP Firewall (see Help if needed) or installed ZoneAlarm or another firewall, or Service Pack 2 which enables Windows Firewall and plugs the vulnerabilities too. If you have a hardware firewall then you are ok, however (unless there's a worm-infected computer on your side of it).

6) Get all your security patches at Windows Update.


This routine should adopt your programs and data. Good luck, hope that helps 🙂
Click to expand...
 
Originally posted by: SpeedsterZZZ
Do you have any idea what would cause this?
Click to expand...

Yeah. Partition Magic. 😛

I'm not so familiar with the whole "convert FAT32 to FAT32 4K aligned". I run FAT32 on all of my partitions (*except one), partly because I don't like NTFS, and partly because I run a multi-boot rig and that ensures that I can read every partition in every OS. (*) I made a 5.6GB NTFS partition, strictly to work with DVD image files, which often exceed the 4GB filesize limit under FAT32. (Possibly I should have made it closer to 20-32GB, in order to rip and convert dual-layer DVDs too. I might do that in the future.)

I know that there is a way to fiddle with cluster sizes when creating FAT32 filesystems with undocumented ("/X:" I think) parameters to FORMAT, but I always leave it to the MS defaults, because you never know when you'll come across some app or system tool that "expects them to be that way". Going outside the norm occasionally causes problems. That's another reason why my OS FAT32 partitions are all under 8GB, so that they have 4KB cluster-size naturally, which allows some versions of Windows to use some special-case fast-path code in the paging functionality, when the disk cluster size is the same size as the VM page size.

However, you don't mention 4K cluster sizes, you mention "4K aligned". You might well have activated a function that you didn't understand. I know that there is an optimizer for FAT32 partitions, that will actually modify the on-disk executable binary files, and adjust the PE section sizes to be aligned on 4KB boundries. This makes them slightly more efficient for demand-paging on x86 systems with 4KB pages, at the expense of slight extra memory usage. I'm not sure if this was built-in to the defragmenter in Win98se, or if that specific feature required obtaining the full tool from Intel. (One reason why the built-in defragmenter included in Win98se has the Intel logo - it included part of this technology.) I'm guessing that Partition Magic probably has the same sort of functionality. (I don't own it, so I can't check that - might be a good idea to RTFM at this point and see if the option you chose, does what I described above.)

Anyways, if you randomly started chopping up binary (PE-format) executable files, then no wonder your system isn't booting any more. You probably modified some of NT's boot-stage binaries, and it is puking. (Also - NTLDR does some sort of initial CRC-check of the files that it loads, if they fail, it will refuse to load/boot them.)

Edit: Found some more info here . Apparently there is another alignment issue at work here. XP's "CONVERT" util to convert FAT32 to NTFS, will be able to use FAT32's cluster-size unchanged, IFF the clusters are aligned on a multiple of the cluster-size. Meaning, 4KB clusters (8 sectors @ 512B/sector) that are aligned on a multiple-of-8 sector LBA boundry on the block-device, can be converted from FAT32 to NTFS without being forced to 512B clusters.

So perhaps that is what you were trying to do with PM8, not what I suggested earlier. If it failed, but claimed to succeed, I guess take it up with PowerQuest, and .. I hope you had a Ghost backup or something.
 
Originally posted by: VirtualLarry
Originally posted by: SpeedsterZZZ
Do you have any idea what would cause this?
Click to expand...

Yeah. Partition Magic. 😛


Anyways, if you randomly started chopping up binary (PE-format) executable files, then no wonder your system isn't booting any more. You probably modified some of NT's boot-stage binaries, and it is puking. (Also - NTLDR does some sort of initial CRC-check of the files that it loads, if they fail, it will refuse to load/boot them.)
Click to expand...

This was actually the "recommended" way to convert from FAT32 ---> NTFS....I know it wasnt NECESSARY, but it's what I read as the right way to do it...

Imagine my look when I thought it was a harmless procedure and then it proceeds not to boot...
Very discouraging.

Thanks for the reply.
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Big picture: I bet you won't try this stunt again 😉

Here is my suggested course of action, anyway. I'm just going to quote my reply from elsewhere:
Click to expand...

Yeah really...I honestly did think it was very painless and not a "big step".
I will attempt the repair now....Whats the worse it will do? lol...Its not like I will lose the DATA by doing this...so it's worth a shot...Installing patches again for XP is nothing...

Thanks
 
FYI, you can convert a partition using this command-line command if you need to in the future:

convert C: /fs:NTFS
 
Originally posted by: mechBgon
FYI, you can convert a partition using this command-line command if you need to in the future:

convert C: /fs:NTFS
Click to expand...

Yeah thank you..I saw that...but since I never had a problem with partition magic...I figured it was a simple solution!

I wonder if I would have suffered the same fate anyways....
I was told its much better and efficient to go from Fat32 4K Aligned to NTFS...than from straight FAT32 to NTFS.


Now my adventure will continue when I actually go from FAT32 TO NTFS...

Computers...Always an adventure....always fun...
 
PS. Just a random but semi-related FYI trivia tidbit - for some reason, in the historical past of my system, doing a Ghost 2002 paritition image backup and restore, caused the "hidden sectors" value in my FAT32 filesystems, to change from the default MS value of 32, to 34. Meaning, everything on the drive, is shifted over - by two sectors. Quite strange, really. I have no idea why it did that, but I'm certain that it was the fault of PM. So the interesting thing is, when I boot my WD DataLifeguard diag disk, which uses Caldera DOS and a FAT32.SYS driver, it always warns me about invalid FAT32 partitions. (Because the start and hidden-sector values were offset, but the total-sector-size wasn't decremented, the FAT32 filesystem metadata shows that it overruns its partition-table allocation size by two sectors too.) I also noticed that Ghost 2002 "marked" my disk in the hidden area in track 0 past the MBR but before the filesystem boot sector. I'm guessing that it shifted everything over purposely so that it could leave that "sector mark" there. 🙁 On the positive side, I don't believe that 2003 does that anymore.

Anyways, haven't ever had a smidgen of trouble with it that way, not from Win98se's real-mode DOS, nor Win98se, nor W2K, nor XP, so who knows. If it works, I'm just going to leave it, all of my files are backed-up using Ghost (2003 now) anyways, so if anything hoses, I can recover if need be. I should write a program to just shift everything on my drive down two sectors, but I'm a bit too lazy to do that.
 
Guys....
Looks like I am screwed...

I tried to do what mech suggested for a repair...and when I got to the screen to select where I wanted windows installed I selected C: partition

Upon doing so it told me the partition was corrupt, not formatted, or not formatted with a recognizable format....

So I think put in my backup drive.....and also plugged in the trouble drive on another channel...to see if I could at least READ the data off of it...

NO LUCK...Shows up in windows as if it is not even formatted at all....
Sounds to me like Partition Magic screwed me big time..............



BUT..When I go into Partition Magic...it shows the proper amount of DISK USAGE for both partitions...so it definitely see the data is THERE...and it shows FAT32 format.....It shows what would be C:\ as active.....

Wonder why I cant READ the data off it.....ANY IDEAS?
 
If I try to use the CONVERT function now on the drive in question in Partition Magic...it goes on to tell me that this function can not be used on RAW drives....

It does show the proper DISK USAGE....and it shows that it is formatted as FAT32....

This is SO frustrating!!! I know the data is THERE..I just cant seem to READ it.

Would any type of screenshots I could take help anyone?
 
if you load partitionmagic (DO YOU HAVE A BOOT/RESCUE CD FROM WHICH TO LOAD PARTITIONMAGIC ?????) and you see all the partitioninfo....the partition must be marked as "active" to even boot onto it...also, PM has an option to set a partition as active.

you can post screenshots/info what partitionmagic says about these partition(s)....i bet that you screwed the MBR (master boot record)...

Another alternative is that you get a tool called "BootIt TNG"...which has a lot of options, and AFAIK also options to write a new MBR (master boot record)..so the HD should become bootable

Edit: i see no reason why the convert should have "destroyed" your data....but i can see that you need a new MBR (master boot record) for the HD
 
I think I am home free....
Here is what I did...


I used the troubled hard drive as 2nd hard drive in XP (booted from my backup)..
Ran Partition Magic

When I went to Browse Partition..NOTHING showed..

So I went to the "split" option where it lets you copy directories/files you choose to a NEW partition...
When I chose this option..ALL MY DIRECTORIES/FILES in question...SHOWED UP AND COULD BE MOVED!!!!

Once this operation was complete (took 10 mins) I could then access all the folders/files via MY COMPUTER....

I am not attempting to copy the C:\ (boot) drive and see if that will allow me to boot up using it...if not I will just copy the files I need off of it and then reformat...but at least my files are saved!


Thanks All!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
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