Used thumb drive to install xp...now does not boot without it

[fsa259]

Reinstalled xp on my NC10 using a thumb drive. Whole process went ok. However, when I try to boot without the thumb drive, i only get a blank screen with a flashing dash. It does boot from the thumb drive when it is inserted. I did a search for boot.ini on my HDD, but nothing came up. Where should it be? Shall I copy the file from the USB to the root drive?

The HDD has two partitions and XP is installed on E drive. Thats the second partition, so afaik, the command in the bootloader should be multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS

The boot.ini on the USB is multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS

Presumably the HDD is rdisk1 when USB is primary boot source. Ive set rdisk to 0 and set HDD to primary......but I still get the flashing dash.

I tried fixmbr from the recovery console to no avail.

system partition is the C drive. according to DISKPART, that drive is partition 3 in disk 0. XP is on the smaller E drive, but there are two partitions appearing on diskpart of that size.....partition 1 is listed as extended and 2 as logical. i dont understand as there are only two partitions on my HDD.

how do i go about this? many thanks in advance!

[ilko_t]

Can you boot to XP using the USB drive?

Post a screenshot from disk management.

[jaclaz]

Blank screen with flashing dash is typical of a problematic bootsector.

Generally speaking it is due to one of three things:

1. UNbalanced CHS/LBA (unprobable)
   
2. on some *rare* ( but not much) BIOSes by a non-standard geometry sensed for the filesystem PBR
   
3. incorrectly set active partition
   

In practice:

• get HD hacker:
  http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/index.html
  
• boot from the "NC10" (whatever it is) thorugh the USB stick
  
• remove the USB stick
  
• run HD hacker TWICE, once saving the MBR (first sector of PhysicalDrive) and once saving the PBR or bootsector (first sector of LogicalDrive) (repeat for EACH LogicalDrive listed)
  
• compress the files together in a .zip archive and post the .zip as attachment (or upload somewhere and post a link)
  

I'll have a look at them and see if I can suggest you a way out/solution.

jaclaz

Edited December 29, 2010 by jaclaz

[fsa259]

Can you boot to XP using the USB drive?

Post a screenshot from disk management.

yes, it boots from usb

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[fsa259]

Thanks for your time, jaclaz...this is now going beyond my expertise. NC10 is a samsung netbook...absence of CD drive meant I had to use the USB to install XP from.

I have attached, as requested.

BootSector_DriveC.zip

[ilko_t]

In addition to what Jaclaz is going to instruct you, copy NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR, and BOOT.INI from the USB stick to C: and change rdisk(1) to rdisk(0) in C:\BOOT.INI.

[jaclaz]

Under which OS (AND using WHICH utility) was the hard disk partitioned/formatted?

The partition table is a mess , it uses fractional end cylinders for the NTFS (second) partition. (this should not happen if partitioned under XP with standard system tools).

The FAT32 (first) partition on the contrary uses "good" balanced CHS/LBA values, but it starts at a "queer" location, CHS 1/0/1, aka LBA 16065 (instead of the "normal" CHS 0/1/1, LBA 63).

The real problem about the flashing dash (or underscore) is however more likely in the NTFS bootsector (drive C:\ ) that has a "Sectors before" value of 161585152 (whilst sectors before are actually apparently 65625525 !

Same happen (though unrelated) to the FAT32 bootsector (drive E:\ ) that has a "Sectors before" value of 63 (which would be normally right) and instead an entry in partition table of 16065.

I am wondering how it can have happened to have both "botched" addresses. (I'd like to understand WHAT/WHY before suggesting posible solutions).

Also, what is the scope/need for the first (FAT32) partition?

jaclaz

Edited December 29, 2010 by jaclaz

[fsa259]

The original partitioning &formatting was done by the previous owner, its always had XP Pro..... I received it with a fresh installation of XP.

I reformatted the boot drive using the preinstallation menu from the XP USB. It was always C drive, but got renamed when I deleted and recreated the partition. There was a Win32/Ramnit infection working its way through all the system files which prompted the reinstallation of xp. apparently running antiviruses couldnt guarantee disinfection.

Which partition is appearing as FAT32? Both drives appear as NTFS on the disk management utility....I dont understand.

Is this too far gone to fix?

[fsa259]

In addition to what Jaclaz is going to instruct you, copy NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR, and BOOT.INI from the USB stick to C: and change rdisk(1) to rdisk(0) in C:\BOOT.INI.

Ive done that now, thank you. Flashing underscore still there...

[jaclaz]

Yep, sorry, I mistook first entry in partition table as being FAT32, but the entry is actually for an Extended partition, the bootsectors are BOTH NTFS.

Some more details.

File MBR_HardDisk0.dat

The partition table has two partition entries:

Entry/Type/Boot/bCyl/bHead/bSect/eCyl/eHead/eSec//StartSector//NumSectors

#0/0F/00/1/0/1/1023/254/63/-/16065/65609460

#1/07/80/1023/0/1/1023/21/20/-/65625525/246952523

The second one:

is NTFS, it is Active (i.e. is the one that the MBR code will attempt booting), has balanced CHS/LBA address BUT it is NOT rescpecting Cylinder boundaries, it starts at LBA 65625525

The first one:

is an entry for an Extended Partition, it has balanced CHS/LBA, it respects Cylinder boundaries, it starts at 16065

File BootSector_DriveC.dat

It is a NTFS partition, it is obviously connected to the second entry in the partition table in the MBR BUT it has sectors before 161585152 (instead of 65625525)

File BootSector_DriveE.dat

It is also a NTFS partition, it is necessarily connected to the first entry in the partition table in the MBR BUT it has sectors before 63 (instead of 16065) - which is allright - as this is a logical volume inside extended and won't be bootable

Now, a "normal" partitioning will have:

1. as first partition a Primary one (and NOT an extended one)
   
2. the CHS of ALL partitions will respect Cylinder boundaries
   
3. the "Sectors before" in the partition table will be the SAME as those in the bootsector for Primary partitions
   

"Fixing" the current partitioning to make "drive C" boot should NOT be a problem, all is needed is correcting the "sectors before", please find attached a modified bootsector for drive C that you can try restoring with the same HDhacker you used to create the one you sent.

Just try applying it to LogicalDrive C:\ and it should start booting allright without the USB stick connected.

But the disk will remain with the three partitioning inconsistencies previously detailed.

This should normally create NO problems in "normal" use, but you may find incompatibiilities and problems with some specific kind of software, such as drive imaging/backup and partitioning/resizing ones.

Still, something is not clear about HOW this non-standard partitioning happened - maybe there were remnants of a previous partitioning - possibly involving a "hidden recovery partition" - that *somehow* tricked XP into making this botched partitioning.

jaclaz

BootSector_DriveC_mod.zip

[fsa259]

you are a scholar and a gentleman, jaclaz!! Thank you very much! Your fix worked like a charm. Much obliged to you.

would you recommend i use some sort of partition fixing software to sort out the unorthodox partitioning? Or should I just delete all partitions and start afresh again?

[jaclaz]

you are a scholar and a gentleman, jaclaz!! Thank you very much! Your fix worked like a charm. Much obliged to you.

You are welcome.

would you recommend i use some sort of partition fixing software to sort out the unorthodox partitioning? Or should I just delete all partitions and start afresh again?

If you have access to some tool capable of moving/resizing partitions you can (partially) fix the current situation.

What you can do is to resize the second partition to respect cylinder boundary.

What I think you cannot do "plainly" with those tools is to have the second partition as first (as it should be). <- but this is a "minor" deviation from "standard"

I want to ressure you, if all it is required by that netbook is to do some e-mails, navigate the internet and more generally "used normally", the current setup won't create any problem.

If you are going to "play" with it using on it partitioning tools, installing other Operating Systems and the like, there is a concrete possibility that this non-standard situation may "trick" some program into doing something "non appropriate" (which I presume it is what happened to the XP install when it formatted the disk - keeping the previous partitioning scheme and creating the "wrong" Sectors Before value in the bootsector/PBR).

If the "E:\" volume doesn't contain DATA (or - as you should) you have a backup of the data, the procedure would be:

1. delete the "E:\" volume and Extended partition containing it
   
2. move the "C:\" primary to the beginning of the disk
   
3. resize it to respect cylinder boundaries
   
4. recreate an Extended partition in the rest of the disk
   
5. recreate the "E:\" volume inside the Extrended partition
   
6. restore (if any) the data to the E:\ volume
   

If you are "home" user, there are a few such tools freely available, examples:

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/comparison.html

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-express/

Point is that most probably they won't resize/move the actual system volume from which they are run, so you will need something like a PE running them from USB.

I have not experience with this kind of tools as I tend to do my partitioning by hand and never resize/move partitions, maybe there are some other available programs capable of doing the changes that are more easily bootable from USB, first thing that comes to my mind is parted Magic:

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

creating a USB key with it through Unetbootin:

http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

should be a breeze.

jaclaz