edborg

I answer my own question, in case it is of help to somebody else. I have found EaseUS Partition Recovery (freeware) that did everything automatically!!! I first backed up the corrupted MBR to be able to restart from there in case of failure. Then had EaseUS look for lost partitions and used the info I had from Bootice to select the right ones when there was overlap. Everything works fine now. edborg P.S. I have now backed up MBR and PT with Bootice, which I should have done before

After booting from a grub4dos floppy loading grldr, and booting the first partition of the first HD from its menu I ended up with a wiped out partition table :-( The first partition (primary, active) with Windows XP SP3 is OK as before, but all other (logical) partitions, containing not only data but also installed programs, have disappeared. What WinXP Disk Management sees now is a nice, healthy, unknown partition (attached). However Bootice still sees the original partitions (partition table and list attached), whereas PTEdit32 sees the new partiton table (attached) as per the new MBR (attached, rename it to .bin). I know this is a sort of "mission impossible", but I wonder whether the original PT could be reconstructed to try and rewrite it manually. Thanks for any suggestion, edborg Observation that may or may not be useful: If I try to reassign the missing drive letters to the original partitions as seen by Bootice, new partitions appear in Explorer that Windows asks to format. MBR_HardDisk0.txt

Nice video, but it is for an Asus eee PC 1001 HA, whereas mine is Asus eee PC 900. It's the version with two faster but small SSD (not the traditional HD) that came with Linux Xandros on sda (4GB on 4 partitions!) plus sdb (16 GB). Never conceived for a Win8 (or Win7) install. . I managed to install WinXP on sdb, coexisting with Linux, and I'm happy with it. I've also managed to install Win 7 and Win 8, obviously on external USB HD, just for fun and for testing newer OSes that, as said, I don't use in every day operations. Apart from obvious HD limitations that prevent installing to internal HD, all my previous USB installs made with this netbook have always worked well, with Win7 and also with Win8 (Developer Preview, Consumer Preview, and pro), if not for the screen limitations (not hardware, capable of much higher resolutions, but due to lack of drivers) that prevent the use of the "metro" GUI and limit the use to the "desktop" GUI (that for me is more than enough!). My tests with Win 8.1, that evidently has different requirements than Win8, were mainly due to curiosity and aimed to decide whether or not upgrade a Win8 pro internal install on another more performant PC, or to stay with it. Before you ask why I don't use that other more performant PC for my tests I'll say that it's not available right now. So, in the end, I'll postpone my further tests to when i have that better hardware available, rather than going crazy to solve hardware incompatibility issues for a temporary install. edborg

What a mess!!!! I have used an ASUS eee 900 that may well NOT be compatible with Win 8.1. It was with Win 8 though, unless for screen resolution that was low in Win 8 (800x600) due to lack of specific drivers. Ok, i will live without Windows 8.1, at least on this PC. Apparently MS have intentionally increased the (already significant) incompatibilities with earlier OSes, just to force users to abandon them. For instance you noticed that bootsect.exe from 8.1 does exactly the same as that from 8, unless it can't run on XP. edborg

Does anybody has a clue on what this could mean?

However, we go back now to the Win 8.1 32b Enterprise specific problems! Official ISO made available from Microsoft to IT developers. Immediately after the first (successful) reboot there is a progress bar at the bottom of the screen and: Windows could not start because of an error in the software. Please report this problem as : load needed DLLs for kernel. Please contact your support person to report this problem. Hardware incompatibility? edborg P.S. Fortunately, I don't really need Win 8.1. it's just for experimenting!

Grub4dos numbers partitions as follows: 1st partition (meaning Primary partition in first "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 0) 2nd partition (meaning Primary partition in second "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 1) 3rd partition (meaning Primary partition in third "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 2) 4th partition (meaning Primary partition in fourth "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 3) Any Extended partition (NO matter in which slot in partition table is) is NOT numbered (as a matter of fact it is not a "real partition/volume", it is a container for volumes). The volumes inside extended partitions are numbered (hdn,4), (hdn,5) ... etc. following their order in the EMBR's chain. If you prefer, in a MBR you can have either max 4 primary partitions or max 3 primaries and one Extended, the Primaries (please read as "volumes" are numbered 0,1,2,3 according to the entry they occupy in the MBR, the Extended (which is not a "volume) will NOT be numbered and the first volume in Extended will always be #4 (no matter how many primary partitions are in th epartition table) When you run the geometry command grub4dos tries to read (and verify consistency) of all volumes, so (because of the LBA28/48 issue) it will analyze (without errors) *anything* below the limit and throw an error about *anything* (i.e. including logical volumes inside extended) beyond that limit. jaclaz OK, not an error then, even if it looked strange at first sight. Actually I can't have (hdn,3) if I have an extended partition. But what about the risk of loosing data in the logical partitions? My reasoning is that BIOS only has to access primary partitions, if they are bootable. If these are all inside the 128 GB limit even a limited BIOS (not LBA48) won't make confusion. On the other hand, after booting the OS will take control and, provided it is LBA48 compliant (and even XP SP1+ is), it won't make confusion either. So it should be safe. But this is theory. How you once said in theory there'e no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is (or something like that) edborg Right now I'm keeping fingers crossed as I'm reinstalling Win8.1 on partition2 on my repartitioned USB HD P.S. The application of install.wim completed (as before) and reboot to partition 2 succeeded! Congratulations for spotting it right and thanks for your help and guidance

Another (hopefully last) doubt. As I've checked that Easeus Partition Master is capable to shrink my partitions without errors, would it be possible to fully fix geometry by shrinking all primary partitions moving them all below the 128 GB limit, without repartitioning the whole USB HD from scratch? That would save me the trouble to borrow extra space on another HD (that I don't have right now) to temporarily backup large valuable data in the logical volumes before deleting them and repartitioning. One approach could be ... try and see, but hopefully you have a better answer ready. Thanks, edborg

That was my conclusion, too. Thanks to your great help (and perhaps to my perseverance as well) I've learned a lot of things and tools. Thank you, edborg

The show goes on..... LAST ATTEMPT BEFORE REBUILDING THE WHOLE USB HD FROM SCRATCH 1. Shrinked partition 2 to 25 GB with Easeus Partition Master (Partition Magic was incompatible!) 2. Backed up MBR with HDHacker 3. Booted to active partition 1 on USB HD (OK, as before) 4. Loaded grub4dos and repeated tests 5. root [enter] geometry (same geometry errors) 6. root (hd0,1) [enter] chainloader +1 [enter] boot [enter] (OK!!!) 7. This was first boot to Win8.1 after install; installation continued as hoped 8. Installation failed later with "Windows Setup: Windows could not update computer's boot configuration. Installation cannot proceed" (perhaps lack of space? But at least the LBA48 issue was confirmed, and solved!) Next step is repartition USB HD from scratch with all three primary partitions below 128 GB (say 40 GB each) and extra space on logical volumes, and go back to see whether there are other issues specific to Win8.1 edborg Just FYI it doesn't boot to chainloader /bootmgr though

Now I've also added Plop to grub4dos boot menu and can boot to Plop ... but, unless I study the whole documentation, I don't know what to do with it to further analyse my partitions' geometry.... edborg Sent from smart phone with Tapatalk

No improvement with the latest grub4dos with USB LBA48 support. On the contrary, after usb --init there's read disk error also for partition 2 (hd0,1), as it was for partition 3 (hd0,2). edborg Sent from smart phone with Tapatalk

So, it was enough to set partition type to zero, no need to zero all fields as I have done. Easier than i had thought! Please note my previous edited post. edborg

I have started with the quickest test, that is using the latest-latest grub4dos (0.4.6a-2014-01-17) experimental version, but nothing changed. As for editing the MBR to clear entries, I do not know how to proceed. I've examined the partition table with PTEDIT32 and with Hex Workshop, but I'm not sure how to edit it correctly, not even with the partnew grub4dos command, so I wouldn't risk to do something wrong. I have zeroed all fields in partition table and rebooted to internat HD. WinXP correctly saw two NTFS partitions plus unallocated space in external HD. I then booted to external HD and checked root (hd0,2) Error 22: No such partition (as expected) Then repeated the grub4dos tests with no change whatsoever in results, both for chainloader /bootmgr and for chainloader +1 boot i have then restored the original MBR with original partition table. I could try shrinking the second partition with Partition Magic and see what happens. What about the other two actions I suggested? are they worth trying? edborg Edit: Partition Magic on the netbook doesn't recognize the three primary partitions and cannot shrink them! I will try with Easeus on another PC when I can.

I see...I now understand what you are aiming at!It's an interesting way of using grub4dos for debugging purposes. After completion of the first pre-test, I can confirm that:1. Booting from first partition, inside the 128 GB limit, works (we already knew that)2. Booting from second partiton, starting inside but exceeding the 128 limit, might work, but doesn't!3. Booting from third partition, outside the 128 Gb limit, doesn't (as expected) Attempts were made to boot both the partition and the OS bootloader.Both attempts on hd0,1 failed, but with different error messages: chainloader +1bootA disk read error occurredPress Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart [perhaps indicating that there's no bootloader at sector1?] chainloader /bootmgrFatal! Inconsistent data read from (0x80)314568838+2Error 16: Inconsistent filesystem structure[perhaps indicating that bootmgr can't be found?] On hd0,2 the chainloader /bootmgr error was even different:Will boot NTLDR from drive 0x80, partition 0x0 (hidden sectors=0x3f)[perhaps looking in the wrong place?] As the above seems to confirm the suspected LBA48 incompatibility I did some more research to answer your questions 1. I couldn't find a software to check BIOS LBA48 compatibility. If you know of one, please inform. Actually my netbook's (ASUS eee) BIOS could well NOT be fully LBA48 compatibile as the netbook comes with small SSD storage capacity, and doesn't NEED to be.2. I couldn't find out FOR SURE for the USB HD either, but I strongly guess it is, as there would be no point in making USB 3.0/2.0 HD with 1 TB storage like this one, that would not be LBA48 compliant. Moreover, the whole capacity is seen from OS (even XP SP2, which I've verified is LBA48 compatible). As you say that a specific 8.1 incompatibility cannot possibly yet be ruled out, your other tests must be done, but, as they are destructive, I cannot do them before I get additional extra space to temporarily backup valuable data that I have in the extended partition. What I could do in the meantime is the following:1. try deleting partition 3 WITHOUT deleting the extended partition and see what changes on partition 22. reformat partition 1 and install Win8.1 there and see whether it works.Let me know if these tests do make sense. Otherwise I shall come back when i manage to do the backup and restart from scratch. A last thought.Working with not so large storage I have never encountered this LBA48 problem up to now. Even with my other external USB HD of 320 GB my primary partitions where I have installed Win7 and Win8 are all within the 128 GB limit. The extra space up to 320 GB never gave me addressing problems.If this mean that the dreadful 128 GB limit only affects booting (if BIOS is not compliant) and once the OS is loaded addressing is correct, a quick workaround (at least for my needs) would be to always keep my threee booting partitions below 128 GB (say 40 GB each) and leave whatever extra space in logical partitions for storing data. Sorry for the lenghty post. regards edborg

After refreshing my memory re-reading the above mentioned thread, I realize that inconsistencies and incompatibilities may occur when working with theoretically (at least) backward compatible OSes, even if used correctly. During the various attempts to install Win8.1 on USB HD I may have used more than one OS and/or software to partition, format, write bootrecords, etc. I can't recall the EXACT sequence of actions. I have partitioned with XP Disk Management, formatted partitions, eliminated and recreated single partitions (without repartitioning the whole disk) checked/edited MBR/PBR with Bootice, edited PBR with various versions of bootsect.exe from the building utilities used (fujianabc, WinNTSetup), and even other more recent versions downloaded from newer WAIKs, etc. I have set partitions active from XP or Win8 Disk Management, etc. This has always been done following a rational approach and not randomly just to try and see what happens, but may still have caused the geometry inconsistencies on my USB HD. This issue has only emerged with Win8.1, not Win8, nor Win7 (even if my behaviour has always been consistent with the three of them), which had led me to think of a Win8.1 incompatibility, that however has been excluded. At this point in time I think i will repartition the whole USB HD and start from scracth with Win8.1 to partition1 without installing other OSes first, to see whether such problems recur . To reduce the risk of future problems I sum up my present understanding. Please confirm or correct what stated below: 1. MBR is written by the partition utility (and this has never been a problem because the HD has always booted at least from one partition) 2. PBR is written by the parttion utility, changed by Bootice, changed by bootsect.exe (but only for the code part, not for the data part?); so data should remain as it was set when partitioning 3. Various bootsect.exe versions exist, that change the PBR differently (how?), but in backward compatible way, so that the most recent one should be the best choice (?). If so, WinNTSetup might update its bootsect to the 8.1 version 4. The code in bootsector (PBR) loads a bootloader/manager (bootmgr in case of Win8.x) that load the OS. Bootmgr is OS specific and requires the use of an OS specific bootsect.exe 5. Different ways of making a partition active should give the same result (?) 6. I preferably work from XP where I have the most utilities, ease of access and familiarity. However some utilities (say latest bootsect.exe) refuse to run from there, so I can't completely avoid mixing OSes. 7. What else? edborg

I did the tests and found inconsistencies in the geometry. This made me recall that similar isssues (of which I had forgot) had already been discussed at lenght a few years ago here At the time it was an incompatibility in partitioning between XP and Vista; this time it might again be a problem due to working/partitioning with different OSes (WinXP, Win8, Win8.1) In any case, these are the results: root FileSystem type is NTFS, partition type 0x07 geometry drive 0x80 (LBA): C/H/S=12161/255/63, Sector count/size=1953520065/512 Partition num: 0, active, FileSystem type is NTFS, partition type 0x07 Partition num: 1, FileSystem type is NTFS, partition type 0x07 Partition num: 2, Fatal! Inconsistent data read from (0x80) xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx+2 (some 30 lines) Error 25: Disk read error root (hd0,1) FileSystem type is NTFS, partition type 0x07 chainloader+1 prompt chainloader /bootmgr Fatal! Inconsistent data read from (0x80) 314568838+2 Error 16: Inconsisten filesystem structure similarly for (hd0,2) edborg

Thanks for your help! I can't do anything right now. I shall let you know when done. edborg Sent from my phone using Tapatalk

Well, to be fair, no. I saw my post AND its attachment, and linked to it in the other thread. Then all of a sudden it disappeared ... and reappeared later at a different address. If you don't believe me look links in the other thread May be the upload went wrong (not my fault ) and LATER the board software cleaned up duplicated posts

Don't know how to check those compatibilities (unless you guide me). BIOS is ASUS 900 ACPI BIOS Revision 0501 HD is Toshiba USB 1 TB Not sure I understand the purpose of your other question. I've reset the first partition to active, added grldr, a menu.lst, a boot.ini to load grldr from bootmgr... and booted. It boots fine to either Win8 (the working one on partition1) or to the menu.lst of GRUB4DOS. Is this helpful? edborg

Where? How exactly you are testing (choosing) to boot form first, second or third partition? jaclaz Forum links are broken I can no longer see my own post with attachments that were downloaded To answer your question, I open Computer Management / Disk Management in Windows and make partition active, then boot edborg

Discussion continues here This link has been broken Post has been moved here

I start this topic to further explore the issue reported here: I have installed three instances of Win8.x 32b to three primary partitions of an USB HD with the WinNTSetup 3.6.1 utility. Whilst Win8 pro on partition1 works fine, Win8.1 Enterprise on partitions 2 and 3 do not. Installations reported success but reboot looped to a blinking underscore. All installations were made from the same laptop (2 GB RAM) from WinXP (the working one) and from WinXP and Win8 (the other two). The USB HD is a Toshiba 1 TB with three primary partitions NTFS and a few logical volumes. MBR and bootsectors of the primary partitions (read with HDHacker) are enclosed. Apparently it is a bootsector problem, though only happens for the Win8.1 installations on partitions 2 and 3, not for Win8 (not even when it was installed on partitions 2 and 3). Some attempts to rewrite the bootsectors with different versions of bootsect.exe have been made, to no avail. Any suggestion is welcome. edborg

Happy to "see" you here jaclaz! Based on your always detailed and reliable info I could ascertain that the bootsect.exe included in WinNTSetup v3.6.1 is the Win8 version (8/Waik4/PE4.x->6.2.9200.16384->25/07/2012->117,688 bytes). I therefore downloaded with GetWaikTools the Win8.1 version (8.1/Waik5/PE5.1->6.3.9600.16384->21/08/2013->100.968 bytes) and updated the boot code with that. However, as expected (by you), this did not solve the issue. The USB HD I am using has three primary partitions with one Win8 working installation (and two non working Win8.1 attempts ). How could I solve the issue with the DATA in the bootsector without repartitioning?Could I only (once more) delete and recreate THAT partition, without affecting the others?If repartitioning is a MUST, how could I make sure that the problem doesn't show again on the freshly repartitioned and reformatted disk? Thanks edborg