Re: XP boot floppy works, but can't fix disk
From: Pegasus (I.can_at_fly.com)
Date: 07/30/04
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Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 00:45:39 +1000
"Jerry Natowitz" <a@b.c> wrote in message news:cedlv5$jb0$1@news3.bu.edu...
> Hi,
>
> This is kind of long - I decided more detail is better than less ...
>
>
> I have a dual OS (XP Home and Linux) system that is setup:
>
> IDE0 (KT266A MB): DVD
> IDE1 (ditto) : CDW
> IDE2 (Promise TX2-133): Maxtor 80GB
> IDE3 (ditto, 2nd channel): WD 13GB
>
> The Maxtor disk was setup to boot XP - I use a floppy when I want Linux.
>
> The partitions are:
>
> Maxtor:
> 1: 13 GB FAT32 (C:)
> 2: 67 GB secondary
> 5: .5 GB Linux (/boot)
> 6: 1 GB Linux swap
> 7: 13 GB Linux (/)
> 8: 13 GB FAT32 (D:)
> 9: 13 GB Linux (/root)
> 10: 13 GB FAT32 (E:)
> 11: 13 GB Linux (/new)
>
> WD:
> 1: 13 GB FAT32 (F:)
>
> Everything worked beautifully - until I decided to upgrade from XP Home
> to XP Pro.
>
> First thing I did was backup C: to F: - using Linux. So F: was not
> bootable, but I didn't care.
>
> During the setup, I have to load drivers for the Promise card. If I
> don't, I get a blue screen at the first reboot in the setup process.
>
> I wasn't paying attention, and when setup said that the drivers on the
> floppy where newer than those on the CD, I didn't tell it to use the
> newer drivers. BIG MISTAKE.
>
> The resulting system ran slower than molasses in January. While
> attempting to apply big update patch, the system got into a loop,
> updating the same files again and again. I killed the update and
rebooted.
>
> Splat! XP wouldn't boot. I restored C: from F: and found that it still
> would not boot - as expected.
>
> Booted the XP CD, found it wouldn't do an upgrade.
>
> Made a boot floppy, was able to boot up C: with it. Started setup from
> XP CD, failed on first reboot.
>
> Modified boot floppy with new boot.ini, etc. Rebooted. I don't
> remember if this failed, or if it took one more reboot until it failed.
>
> Restored C: from F: Booted XP CD. Did a recovery. Ran both fixmbr and
> fixboot. Still wouldn't boot - I get a "disk error".
>
> I have one idea - I've looked at the C: root directory. boot.ini,
> ntldr, etc. are towards the end of the directory - all the directories
> come before them. I would also assume that the files are the end of the
> 5 GB on that partition. I'm wondering if I need to make sure that those
> files, and perhaps the others, like msdos.sys etc., need to be on the
> disk (and in the root directory) first, before any other files.
>
> Another question: does it matter what order fixboot and fixmbr are run?
>
> Thanks a lot in advance.
> --
> Jerry Natowitz
> Boston University Medical Center
> Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics
> natowitz at bu dot edu
I recently had a similar problem. It turned out that the drive geometry
was wrong. My hard disk came from some other system and had a
heads/sector setting that was only partly compatible with the automatic
heads/sector setting assumed by my BIOS. This caused extremely
slow operation, and prevented the system from booting off the hard
disk. WinXP did not detect the discrepancy but PQMagic did.
The cure? I went into the BIOS and tried each of the three available
settings. When PQMagic stopped protesting, everything else worked
too.
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