Re: xpp home wont boot from HD

Yes you were right, there was a small partition in front. It was an IBM computer. Too late now I wiped the HD and reformatted it and installed win XP pro. Although they will not be able to update it since its not activated on that computer.

Thanks

Bob Harris wrote:
A wild thought, but any chance there is a small hidden partition before the XP partition? Some recovery/restoration programs use such things. I understand that Norton GHOST 2003 played with somehting like this, and could leave a PC unbootable, until one used a Symnatec tool to fix it. Anyway, if such a partition exists, then fixing the MBR might simply make it the boot partition. Of course, you want the XP partition to be the boot partiton.

Thus, try running FDISK to see what partitions you have, and maybe that will lead to some insight.

The second link below has good screen shots of FDISK in action, with info about options. In fact, you can walk-through a simulated
FDISK session on their website, without actually running FDISK.

Links to using FDISK:

http://www.fdisk.com/home/
http://www.computerhope.com/sfdisk1.htm
http://www.onecomputerguy.com/install/fdisk.htm
http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module6a6.htm

See the following for bootable floppy images, include a special FDISK for disks > 64 Gig. Link also has "setup disks for XP", which can run its recovery console form a multi-flopy set.

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm


"justintime" <just@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:%23EOjmf3OGHA.916@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
My Father got a computer from my brother with xp home on it. I spent some time removing all the junk on it and adding things for him to use. I added a new network dialup for an ISP I signed him up for and it checked ok, I was then changing the email login when the computer locked up.
I rebooted and it would not recognize the HD. I just get a - at the top of the screen.
I removed the HD and put it on my computer and it looked ok. I copied the HD (files) to my HD. I then reformatted and copied back all his files. It still wont boot from his HD. So I downloaded a XP boot disk that has
boot.ini
ntdetect.com
ntldr
on it, it boots from the floppy and loads into XP on his computer with his HD as long as I boot to the floppy first. So I know everything is ok. However I cant make it boot from his HD Drive 0 without booting to the floppy first. I also tried booting into safe mode. Same problem.
I copied all the files to C: but it still wont boot.
I tried booting with my XP pro cd into the recovery consol but it wants the Admin password and I dont know it nor does he and my brother forgot it. I tried to change it with a linux floppy that goes through the motions except changing the password which doesnt change. I only have XP pro and nobody has a xp home CD. I am guessing that the MBR is bad but dont know how to fix it without the recovery consol. If I cant find an answer soon Ill have to put a copy of XP pro on it but it wont be legal which the XP home was.

Does anybody know how to get the computer to boot from the HD?

Thanks


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Windows multiboot (aaargh!)
    ... >> The Linux boot floppy is a bit more tricky. ... So I tried adding cfdisk to a spare Debian Woody boot ... > I reduced all the partition sizes by a third. ...
    (Debian-User)
  • Re: OSR5.0.7 LSIL BTLD problem
    ... > Since modern laptops and servers DON'T come with floppy drives, ... Boot the CD. ... Make sure this is a _primary_ partition, ...
    (comp.unix.sco.misc)
  • Mystery Solved - Boot CEPC from Hard Disk
    ... The reason for this is that as you increase the size of your partition (why ... Download and install the IDE and floppy drivers from the same site. ... Boot the device (BTW, the "Del" key is the key that gets you to the ... and the NK.bin file will get copied over to your hard disk. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsce.platbuilder)
  • Re: usb hp floppy drive recognition fedora 4 installation
    ... >> Boot into Linux and copy the boot image from the first sector of your ... You'll want to take 512 bytes of this partition once, ... floppy device may be the SCSI device of 'sdc' or something else. ...
    (linux.redhat)
  • RE: RE grub-install command
    ... Try boot specifying the hdd in the boot selector ... I m able to view my boot partition in fdisk.. ... Subject: RE grub-install command ...
    (RedHat)
Loading