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Geek Culture / WinXP Install, Hard drive partition problem

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Wandering Swordsman
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Posted: 15th Apr 2007 13:45 Edited at: 15th Apr 2007 13:47
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Alright here’s my sad tale:

A while ago my motherboard broke and I had to get it replaced, unfortunately the changing of the motherboard for some reason prevented the machine from booting until WinXP was re-installed on it. (Don’t know why, Tech said to do it so I did. I’m not as familiar with WinXP as Win98.) It worked, I swapped the hard drive in my machine and attempted to repeat the procedure.

So I re-install my OS and noted the partitions looked odd during the setup/install… so I did something really stupid and delete one of them with no knowledge of how to restore it. (Wasn’t really thinking about it at the time…) The partitions seemed to be wrong, it’s an 80G drive and it read something like “500MB unpartitioned, 743248 MB C:” I can’t remember the exact number for the C: partition.

So with the partition gone I had to return to the Tech to fix my mistake. (Partitions are not something I’ve learned to deal with…) After I got the drive back he said it would just install WinXP as normal.

Unfortunately something’s not right and it’s with the partitions. (I think…) When I try to install WinXP and come to the Partition Selection Screen:

Screen’s Drive Partition Data:


When I select C: to install the OS I am presented with the following message:



I’ve never seen it do this before.


I own the program Norton Ghost 2003 and have a second 80G drive made by the same company, would it be possible to apply the ghost drive image from one onto the other fixing the problem?

If that’s possible, is there anything I should look for on the drives information to make sure they’re compatible for the process. Although they are the same size and brand one drive was made about 2 years after the other. The messed up drive is the older of the two.


Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

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Benjamin
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Posted: 15th Apr 2007 13:49
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If you format/delete a partition, you may lose the information that is used when booting up the PC (the MBR). I made this stupid mistake one day. Still, the installation disc will replace this for you.

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Phaelax
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Posted: 15th Apr 2007 14:33 Edited at: 15th Apr 2007 14:34
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@Ben,
You could just use fixboot or fixmbr from the recovery console.

If you're reinstalling XP, you could lose data anyway. You could either try one of the commands I stated above, or you could recreate the partition using FDisk. You could also search google for how to repair a partition, there's a ton of different tools out there that might offer more insight.

Btw, does Norton Ghost create bit-stream drive copies? If not, then I don't think ghosting the image over to that drive will fix the MBR issue.


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Benjamin
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Posted: 15th Apr 2007 14:42
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Quote: "You could just use fixboot or fixmbr from the recovery console."

True..

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heartbone
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Posted: 16th Apr 2007 05:40 Edited at: 16th Apr 2007 05:45
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Wandering Swordsman, you can fix this problem quickly and easily if you have access to another working computer with a CD burner.

First download this
GParted-LiveCD-0.3.3-7.iso and burn it to a CD.
Then boot off it and you WILL SOLVE all your partition problems.

Gnome Partition editor - it's great.

Use the 0.3.3-7 build,
because I had problems with the latest 0.3.4-6 build although it runs fine on my older system.

GParted + Cute Partition Manager (to set FAT32 disk flags, not needed for NTFS) = Cheap Partition Magic

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Wandering Swordsman
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 10:09 Edited at: 18th Apr 2007 10:12
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This is what the drive currently looks like according to Windows XP’s Install/Setup:
76317 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
Unpartitioned Space 8MB
C: Partition1 <Name> [NTFS] 76309 MB (76241 MB Free)

Do I destroy the C: Partition and remake it? I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing here.

This is new and alien territory for me…


Benjamin:
Quote: "If you format/delete a partition, you may lose the information that is used when booting up the PC (the MBR)."

Is there a way to check to see if this is what has happened?

Benjamin:
Quote: "Still, the installation disc will replace this for you."

How do I get WinXP’s disc to replace the MBR information?


Phaelax:
Quote: "You could just use fixboot or fixmbr from the recovery console."

What and where is the recovery console? And what are Fixboot & fixmbr?

Phaelax:
Quote: "If you're reinstalling XP, you could lose data anyway."

I'm not worried about loosing any data from the Hard-drive, I'll be re-installing all the programs from scratch and replacing my files from backups. By data you mean files on the machine?
(Example .txt .exe .bat .com ?)

Phaelax:
Quote: "you could recreate the partition using FDisk."

I have heard of FDisk... but I don't know anything about it or how to use it.

Phaelax:
Quote: "does Norton Ghost create bit-stream drive copies?"

I can't seem to find any information saying that it does (Or does not.) If it doesn't, would 'ghosting' an image onto the drive potentially cause any damage with it in it's currant state?


@heartbone
I 'may' be able to get my hands on another machine with a burner.

Been wandering the Gnome Partition Editor site. Nice!

I'm not completely sure how to use it though. (Or how to burn the .iso CD image... I think heard that Ahead's Nero program can do that.)

Could you walk me through repairing the drive with this tool?


*Sigh* I’m a total newb when it comes to this stuff.

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heartbone
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 16:25 Edited at: 18th Apr 2007 16:48
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After you download the iso image.

Assuming that you use Nero Burning Rom,
select the
CD - Copy and Backup - Burn image to disc
option from the StartSmart main menu.

After you burn the image to CD then reboot from the new GParted CD.

You'll have to have your computer (BIOS) set to boot from a disc.

There is a cut down version of Linux on the boot disc,
and your machine will be booting into Linux!

Let it boot (You'll have to press the return key twice) until you see to the orangeish background containing the main GParted menu.

The system will automatically scan the disk(s), and also rereads them after any changes are made.

It is all point and click, although you can specify the partition sizes by typing.
Basically all you have to do is select the hard disk area to be modified and select the operation (create, delete, grow, or shrink).

The documentation tells you all that you need to know.
For example How to resize partition, step by step.
However, this is where you should start.
GPARTED GENERAL DOCUMENTATION

This is a non destructive process if you had a working OS,
but you are starting from scratch since only 68 MB is used on your C: drive.

For your drive I reccommend a 16 GB C: partition, with the rest of the drive allocated to another extended partition containing one or more logical drives.

My system has 2 - 160 GB drives, each with 2 partitions (There are unused areas on both drives that I can activate later.)
MAIN ( C: ) 32 GB
VIDEOS ( E: ) 114 GB

MUSIC ( F: ) 51 GB
STUFF ( G: ) 77 GB

It is really a good idea to only put core OS items (drivers, installed apps, etc) on C:, and your data elsewhere.
Doing that allows me to have a single DVD OS restore disc.
My data is contained seperately in regular archives.

GParted is the only tool that I need for low level NTFS disc maintenance.

I hope that this helps.

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heartbone
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Posted: 18th Apr 2007 16:36 Edited at: 18th Apr 2007 16:46
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Quote: "Do I destroy the C: Partition and remake it? I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing here."


I'd select everything on the drive and purge it.
Then create two new NTFS partitions 16GB & the remainder (~58GB), setting the first one as primary and bootable.

Read through the GParted documentation twice and you'll be as comfortable as an expert.

Once that hard disk is properly reinitialized, you'll be able to install XP with no problems.

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Wandering Swordsman
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Posted: 20th Apr 2007 09:05
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Thanks for the instructions!
(I've obtained access to a machine with a CD burner and Nero Express, hope the lite version will do.)

I’m reading the GParted documents, could take me a bit before I’m ready to try anything.

I’ll post the results.

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heartbone
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Posted: 29th Apr 2007 19:29
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This may not be good....

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Wandering Swordsman
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Posted: 3rd May 2007 03:25 Edited at: 3rd May 2007 03:33
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Quote: "This may not be good...."

Uh Oh!?


Finished reading the documents.
Almost ready to make the fix attempt.

But first,
More questions emerge!

1)
Is there a reason I should leave any space in its unallocated/unpartitioned/unused state?
I think I heard Win XP leaves 8M unpartitioned for some reason.


2)
In the Gnome Partition Editor documentation (Section: -2- Few operations > Creating a new partition > chose the size you want > Figure 15) it displays: (IMAGE)



What is (MiB)? And what is the Space Preceding & Following (MiB)
Also, what is the check box doing that’s Round to cylinders?


3)
How do I close the LiveCd version of Gnome Partition Editor once it’s running?
Click ‘Session’ > Click ‘Exit’ > Power Down Computer??? (Image)

Just making sure I don’t botch it and corrupt/break everything.

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heartbone
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Posted: 3rd May 2007 15:48 Edited at: 3rd May 2007 16:05
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1) I have 28 GB unused on my old 160 GB FAT32 drive to be later split into partitions for Linux installs.

2) MiB = Millions of Bytes = MB
This partition editor allows you to specify unused areas on the disc before and after the partition that you are defining.
I'm guessing that the partitioning process could leave two partitions sharing the same disk cylinder and the checkmark prohibits that.

3) As long as all processes have finished, press the reset button on your computer to exit.

Good luck, however you should not need it.
------------
(edit) That last screen shot does not seem to be from GParted but from QEMU. I haven't seen that seen that screen because I havent used QEMU directly (it is part of the Puppy Universal Installer).

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Wandering Swordsman
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Posted: 5th May 2007 04:10 Edited at: 5th May 2007 04:17
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I downloaded 'GParted-LiveCD-0.3.3-7.iso' from the official SourceForge site, but I couldn't get it to work.
(It would load desktop interface but I couldn't bring up the Gnome Partition editor by clicking the icon or right clicking and selecting it from the menu.)

I then downloaded 'gparted-livecd-0.3.4-6.iso' from the SourceForge site and it auto-started the Gnome Partition editor after loading the desktop. And everything seemed fine.

However, I wasn't expecting to see this being displayed in the editor.

Editor Display:


It seems like the 'ntfs' partition is inside the 'extended' partition. Like one is a folder for the other?

I was only expecting to see Unallocated space and an ntfs partition.

I don't seem to have an option to delete the extended partition.
The option to delete the ntfs partition is available.

I haven't done anything yet, what action should I take?
(Edit: Fixed the 'Editor Display: Code Snippet')

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heartbone
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Posted: 5th May 2007 05:42 Edited at: 5th May 2007 05:50
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That's the thing about Linux, it either works on your gear or it won't.
I'm glad that one version worked.
Yesterday I ran Gparted in Puppy Linux and it looked different but it was the same program.

------------------------------------------------

Leave the extended partition alone.

It contains the user partitions that you actually see when computing.

I would first either
1) resize the DName partition to 32GB
or
2) delete and recreate the DName partition at 32GB
your call.
Make the partition bootable for use to install Windows ( C: ).

Before installing Windows, I would create another Windows NTFS partion or two.
Later after installing Windows and making sure that you have enough disk space, I'd make one or two much smaller Linux partitions in the remaining unused space.

Windows D: 24GB, Windows E: 12GB, Linux /dev/hda8 3GB, Linux /dev/hda9 3 GBs seem like good sizes to me for your drive.

I'd leave the last two partitions (6 GB) unallocated for now and just concentrate on the Windows partitions.

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Wandering Swordsman
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Posted: 9th May 2007 23:09 Edited at: 9th May 2007 23:16
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Ack, didn't work still generating the 'Not windows compatible partition' error message.

I deleted the ntfs partition and remade it.

But, I’m not sure how to make the partition 'windows bootable'.
(I thought it just automatically was windows bootable.)

And thus: I have three more questions.

1)
If I delete the extended partition with the Gnome Partition Editor will the space automatically remerge with the rest of the unallocated space?

2)
How do I make the partition bootable for use to install Windows?

3)
How do I create a partition from the WinXP CD's install partition selection screen?
(That's got to create a WinXP compatible partition!)


If possible I'd like to keep the drive with one single 'ntfs' partition.

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heartbone
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Posted: 10th May 2007 03:26 Edited at: 10th May 2007 03:27
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1) Yes.

2) Right mouse click on the graphical box that designates the partition.
Under Information you should see the flags: boot, lba
If you don't see them, then you must set the flags.
Right mouse click on the partition box and select Manage Flags which brings up a menu to set the partitions flags.

3) Why bother?

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