Re: Munged up XP install. Partition table?

From: Eddie (eddie180_at_xshentel.xnet)
Date: 11/28/03 

Date: Thu, 27 Nov 2003 22:40:39 -0500

David wrote:

> Eddie wrote:
>> David wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Edward Crismond wrote:
>>>

>
> Ok I haven't used any M$ products in at least 5yrs so this may be
> the long way to fix the problem but it should work.
>
> If it was working before you compiled the kernel and changed
> /etc/lilo.conf I would make sure I had a working linux bootdisk
> or CD so you can get back into the linux system after fixing windows.
>
> Then use a windows bootdisk or CD and fix the MBR and make sure
> that you can boot into windows without any problems. Run scandisk
> or whatever to make sure there are no problems.
>
> Then use the linux bootdisk to boot into linux and run lilo again
> to update the MBR.
>
> ALWAYS before making changes to a file make a backup. It is much
> easier to copy it back into place if something goes wrong rather
> than trying to remember what you changed.
>

Well, I tried what you suggested above, before I read your
latest post, exept only to try to
reinstall Windows XP. Yesterday and early this morning, I was
able to get the XP install disk to go into a recovery console,
but today, the system hangs at "checking hardware..." etc...

I tried an fdisk /mbr today, this didn't solve that problem. I
deleted the Windows XP parition from ms-dos fdisk, still hangs.
I booted up into Linux and reformated /dev/hda1 FAT32. I did
Linux's fdisk and got some error reports that don't look to good.
Like this..

root@cosmosii:/WindowsXP# fdisk /dev/hda

The number of cylinders for this disk is set to 2434.
There is nothing wrong with that, but this is larger than 1024,
and could in certain setups cause problems with:
1) software that runs at boot time (e.g., old versions of LILO)
2) booting and partitioning software from other OSs
   (e.g., DOS FDISK, OS/2 FDISK)

And this...

Command (m for help): v
Warning: partition 1 overlaps partition 5.
Warning: partition 1 overlaps partition 6.
Warning: partition 1 overlaps partition 7.
16450553 unallocated sectors

And here is fdisk -l...

root@cosmosii:/WindowsXP# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 20.0 GB, 20020396032 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 2434 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

   Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1025 2434 11325825 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)
/dev/hda2 1414 2434 8201182+ 5 Extended
/dev/hda5 1414 1960 4393746 83 Linux
/dev/hda6 1961 2021 489951 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda7 2022 2434 3317391 b W95 FAT32

Its saying /dev/hda1 ends at 2434, but then so does /dev/hda2 which
as you pointed out contains two Linux and one FAT32 partition.

I no longer have a Windows XP on there, and I haven't tried to
see what happens when I stick the XP setup disk in there and boot
not that I know this about the hard drive. I may have to back up
all my critical data and clean off the whole drive. And try to
fix the partition table. Or maybe I can create the Windows partition
with some user defined parameters. I've never done that.

I'm going to have to do some math here, and see if I can get this
thing un-munged.

Thanks for your time.
Ed

 

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