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New XP install does not recognize new partition on HDD


oldtiger64

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Another idea (to be tested). :unsure:

 

Let's set explicitly (and as *recommended*):

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx#PartitionStructures

 the 100 mb partition as ID 0x27, keeping it Active, there would be NO practical difference for Windows 7:

http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/182645-system-reserved-changing-partition-type-id-0x27.html

 

What would do Windows XP setup?

It won't see it, but would it "force" or "require" the "W: thing" to be active? (or refuse to install if not, not knowing where to put NTLDR, etc.?)

And how would it behave for the partition "in the middle" (the largish one hosting Windows 7)?

Most probably it will assign to that partition the C:\ drive letter, so a migrate.inf would be needed anyway. :(

 

If we pre-add to the "W:\ thing" a BOOT.INI with a grldr entry, grldr and a menu.lst pointing to the BOOTMGR on the Windows 7 "system" partition, the XP setup should "keep it", adding to it the actual arcpath to the new install, and you could (once) boot through grub4dos to the Windows 7 and from it "fix the booting" (without needing booting form "external", i.e. (this might be interesting as a side note), what if the 100 Mb partition, set as either 0x07 or 0x27, is made active after (and a copy of NTLDR/NTDETECT.COM and BOOT.INI is made from the ones the setup placed on the (at the time of install)  active "W: thing" (which should have gotten according to your experiment the C:\ because it was active at the time of install)?

 

Would the Windows 7 bcdboot (or similar) command add *automagically* the XP as dual boot to the \boot\BCD?

Or we still need to edit it manually with BCDedit or similar?

 

jaclaz

Edited by jaclaz
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the 100 mb partition as ID 0x27, keeping it Active

What would do Windows XP setup?

Given a AMD AHCI hardware. And XP SP3 files with sp57528.exe ahci 3.3.1591.17 driver integrated.

The same hard disk as previously.

XP setup assigns:

J: to 100 mb partition (several card readers at system)

C: to 200 GB partition (XP setup announces later intention)

H: to 40 GB partition (XP target)

XP Installation does finish.

The 200 GB Windows 7 partiton is active. And contains XP ntldr and boot.ini

Windows 7 dosn't boot anymore. Has to be adjusted, set 100 mb partition active.

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Aren't we getting hung up on the "Drive Letter" a bit too much?

 

If (and I can't remember offhand) XP Install indeed can't "see" an x-27 Parition Type, couldn't an LiveXP/LiveLinux (WinBuilder or similar) that can allow for editing it allow XP to be installed, then go *back* and change the Types back to original value, set the Boot Parition bit back On, "fix" the MBR with Win7 CD/DVD/(whatever tool it takes), boot to Win7 and use EasyBCD to "fix" the BCD Store, then uninstall EasyBCD?

 

Odd procedure (and maybe incomplete/incorrect?), I know, but AFAICT, the OP has formatted (incorrectly) using Win7 when the partition *should* have been created and formatted using XP Install CD.

 

Or am I rowing a boat with large leaks in it?

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Aren't we getting hung up on the "Drive Letter" a bit too much?

Not at all, we are currently hung up on a partition/volume that is not "seen" by the Windows XP setup and in the meantime (until that issue is - hopefully - solved) we are playing the drive letter game. :yes:

 

Or am I rowing a boat with large leaks in it?

You are actually rowing on a huge hole :w00t::ph34r: with some remnants of the boat around it. :whistle:

 

To sum up:

  1. most people like (or are forced by ignorance - no offence whatever intended :) ) to have their Windows (be it XP or 7 or *whatever*) installed to the C:\ drive letter
  2. even those that know how (and like or want ) to install to a different drive letter, when dual booting choose (wrongly [1] BTW) to have SAME volumes have DIFFERENT drive letters assigned to them according to the actual OS booted
  3. a few people (rightly[1] BTW) set up their system in such a way that NO MATTER WHICH OS is booted all accessible/mounted volumes have the SAME drive letters assigned to the SAME volume (this as an example allows - without checking in which OS you are currently booted into - that a batch, or a setting in a program, etc, will always "land" on the SAME, INTENDED volume)
  4. STILL a number of programs (because of ignorance, stupidity or both of the people who wrote them - this time with some offence intended :realmad: ) will only work when hosted on drive letter C:\ (or write their settings or their output only on drive C:\ ) so these aspects need to be taken into account when setting up a system

 

Ultimately, assigning the drive letter can be either a mere "preference" of the user or a NEED, but in both cases, if we can have the freedom to choose, we have the right to choose, and everyone can choose (hopefully wisely):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097576/quotes?item=qt0357926

 

jaclaz

 

[1]Compare with:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/169320-dual-booting-dos-and-win7/

Edited by jaclaz
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Then the premise is that the OP wishes to have Drive Letter "W" assigned as the XP System's letter when booting into (as the Running OS) to be "W" as opposed to "C"?

 

because my old software does not operate correctly in the XP virtual machine mode

If that's the case, then, I'm entirely incorrect. :huh:

 

Win2K3 - C-drive (HDD0,0)

WinXP - C-drive (HDD1,0)

Win98 - C-drive (HDD1,1)

All others "re-Letter-Assigned" (except for Win98 "hiding") the OS to match (Multi-Partitions) *other* than non-Running OS Partition (OS swap-a-doodle).

 

Although, TBH, "forcing" a particular OS Drive Letter to have all Drive Letters *exactly* the same (no matter which OS) is intriguing. Please do carry on and ignore my interjection. :thumbup

Edited by submix8c
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Then the premise is that the OP wishes to have Drive Letter "W" assigned as the XP System's letter when booting into (as the Running OS) to be "W" as opposed to "C"?

Actually the premise is that "it doesn't matter what is the OP wishes" :w00t:, in the sense :) that he might be unaware of the strings attached to the one (or the other) drive lettering schemes and thus we tried offering him (and everyone else) choices.

 

Till now cdob's experiments :thumbup: provided two nice and easy enough methods (needing not to use a migrate.inf) to obtain in the end:

  1. the C:\ drive letter assigned to the "XP partition"
  2. a "first available", but NOT C:\, drive letter assigned to the "XP partition" BUT the C:\ drive letter assigned in XP to the "Windows 7 partition"

The mentioned guide used as reference provided instead a much less than optimal experience, as in the provided screenshot:

 

three partitions are listed:

C: Partition1 (System Rese) [NTFS] 100 MB (75 Mb Free)

D: Partition2 (Windows 7) [NTFS] 40856 MB (35747 MB Free)

E: Partition3 (Winodws XP) [NTFS] 40959 MB (40872 MB Free)

 

as though you can later change (in XP) the drive letter of the "7 partition" to C:\, since the E:\ is "fixed" (as changing a system drive letter of an installed XP, though possible, is a complex and prone to error procedure) you would remain with a "hole" represented by the "D:\" drive letter (unless you want to assign it in XP to the "boot" partition that doesn't have a drive letter in 7).

 

jaclaz

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jaclaz,

 

WOW! I seem to have opened a can of worms with what I thought to be a simple question! Lots of the preceding sounds like Greek written in English!

 

A quick point before proceeding, I have a desktop with XP installed on the H: drive. A little confusing at first but once I got used to it no problems. And XP is only OS installed on that macjhine.

 

Now, trying to pick up where we left off when last communicating.

 

I used nLite to create a new ISO file with a copy of XP Pro SP1, with SP3 and the following HP driver (ahcix86.sys) slipstreamed into the setup.

 

When setup is run and it gets to Step 5 the following screen shows:Doc1.doc Hope you can see the file showing the screen, I am at a loss how to include the picture I took in the message body.

 

oldtiger64

 

 

 

 

 

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WOW! I seem to have opened a can of worms with what I thought to be a simple question! Lots of the preceding sounds like Greek written in English!

OT, and JFYI, that is quite common, and we have an exception to confirm the rule ;):

http://reboot.pro/topic/3380-sounds-arabic-for-me/page-2#entry24277

 

And don't worry :), you didn't open (till now) any "new" can of worms, this one has been opened since a long time.

 

BUT, now that you have posted the relevant info, you indeed opened an (almost) new one :yes:.

 

I am re-attaching your image, so that other people may have a look at it without downloading the file and opening it in Word.

Textually, the situation is the following:

D: Partition1 (HP_recovery) [NTFS] 1 MB (11602 Mb free)

H: Partition2 (System) [NTFS] 1025 MB (648 Mb free)

C: Partition3 (Windows) [NTFS] 618676 MB (545528 Mb Free)

E: Partition4 (HP:Tools) [FAT32] 95702 MB (2018 Mb free)

 

And we have a problem. :w00t::ph34r:

 

The MBR partitioning scheme (which is what is commonly used up to Windows 7, with Windows 8+ trying to switch to GPT) only has 4 (four) partition entries (imagine them as 4 "slots").

This means that you can have ONLY up to:

a. 4 primary partitions

b. 3 primary partitions + 1 Extended (the extended partition can contain many volumes)

and since right now it seems like you have all 4 "slots" taken by 4 primary partitions you cannot have additional volumes.

 

This particularly can of worm, is not completely new:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/150419-solved-what-gives-after-4-primary-drives/

 but it does make things slightly more complex, and the presence of the HP_recovery and of the HP_Tools partitions may additionally mean that you are using a "peculiar" MBR code, that MUST be backed up/preserved as recreating it might be if not impossible, absurdly difficult:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/131620-hp-notebook-the-recovery-partition-could-not-be-found/

 

So, we will need to make an even more accurate "plan" than expected.

 

jaclaz

post-25215-0-19476100-1425580119_thumb.j

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I also noticed this -

D: Partition1 (HP_recovery) [NTFS] 1 MB (11602 Mb free) <-Where, oh, where is the Recovery Data? :ph34r:

I certainly hope that the Recovery DVD's were created before it got formatted (if it was), otherwise we (you) have an entirely different potential problem if your Win7 OS gets ge-pucked. (see jaclaz' *"peculiar" MBR* and *WARNING! Back up!* above)

 

Although (hmmm....) since HP may have used some goofy Partition Sector code/format on it, this probably confused XP Install? (as jaclaz readily noticed in the screenshot).

 

Edit - providing you *do* have Recovery DVD's created/ordered/at hand, then that partition is useless, as the Tools one *may* be.

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-Notebook-PC-Questions/Delete-HP-Tools-Partition/td-p/479927

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c00810279

Please note (AFAICR) having (complete *and* readable/usable) Recovery DVD's allows to completely start from scratch and have the *standard* two Primary Partitions.

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1403747.html

Edited by submix8c
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@submix8c

Yes :yes:, I also noticed the 11602 MB free on a 1 Mb partition :w00t: queerness when retyping the contents of the screenshot, first time I thought I had made a typo, but it is actually in the image, though I would not give to it too much relevance, it is entirely possible that it is a "glitch in the matrix".

No :no: MBR CODE may be "peculiar" as you wish (or be missing altogether) but the DATA (i.e. the partition table entries) should remain however "standard" (though it would be well possible that the Windows XP setup parses *something* strangely)

 

@oldtiger64

No matter what setup/solution/approach you will choose, you next step should be to make a backup copy of the MBR and post a copy of it for examination.

To make this backup, get HDhacker (don't be fooled by the name, it is a commonly used tool useful to simply backup some relevant sectors of the hard disk):

http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

 

You want to run it, then, in "Drive to operate":
Select "Physical Drive (MBR)"

Choose Physical drive "0" (since you have only one disk that will be it)

in Select sector, leave the default of "First Sector (MBR)" selcted

Click on "Read sector from disk"

Click on "Save sector to file", saving the file as (say) C:\HPoriginal.mbr

 

Then compress the C:\HPoriginal.mbr into a .zip archive and attach to your next post the .zip archive file (NOT the .mbr one).

 

jaclaz

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Here is the "odd" part -

http://superuser.com/questions/425463/hp-recovery-partition-not-accessable-after-repartitioning

I have HP Laptop that came with preinstalled Win 7. It actually had 4 primary partitions:

  • 200 MB System partition that is not visible in Windows
  • C: partition
  • HP_Recovery partition of about 15 GB
  • HP_Tools partition of about 5 GB

Notice the order, also noting this is (usually) S.O.P. for Recovery Partitions? Notice also how "resizing" boogers the whole "matrix"? Again, the "PARTITION" Sectors ar *not* what they seem, as some of the OEM's have a nasty habit of using *non-standard* code (and "extra" sectors) thta *would* cause XP Install to "see" an odd amount of "free space", that "space" not being "seen" from the perspective of the Partition Table (as seen in the MBR), but of the Partition Sectors.

 

Another example of "correct order of Partitions" -

http://www.notebookforum.at/hewlett-packard-forum/251698311-hp_recovery-f11-bootprobleme-partitionprobleme.html

A post in the thread mentioned above -

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/150419-solved-what-gives-after-4-primary-drives/#entry960025

...and subsequent posts (HP morons follow moron Dell's fiasco...)

 

Seriously, the Recover Partition should "never" be at the Beginning Of The Physical Drive! I just recently gave back an HP with a USB3 failure (remember that thread? Win7 x64) with nearly the exact layout *except* that the "Tools" weren't on a separate partition. FWIW, I saved that MBR and did a *complete* backup of each and every partition *and* Partition sectors in case the guy finally got a new MoBo. *And* pulled a "stunt" to obtain the Restore DVD's. (I despise these oddball OEM methods.) (Side note: thie backups I did may/may not help at all for the OP. Yet to be seen - see below.) Basically, I did this (and then some) -

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/150419-solved-what-gives-after-4-primary-drives/#entry960185

 

IOW, the "shrink and format" has (apparently) created a "mess", if you will ("W-Drive in Win7, but nada during Install"). Please remember (Goodells) that Dell does this same (similar) stupid stuff. ("Odd" alignments as well?) It *may* very well behoove the OP to use HDHAcker to obtain the Logical Drive starting sectors as well. :unsure:

HDHacker is a stand-alone micro-utility that saves, visualizes, and restores the MBR (from a physical drive), the BootSector (from a logical drive) or any specified sector from any disk (even removable disks).

Therein lies my point. Something (potentially) is amiss beyond First 512-byte Sector.

 

 

BTW, not disputing the *need* for a snapshot of the MBR/PartitionTable Sector. Simply pointing out that something beyond that is amiss and that under *no circumstances* should any other action be taken other than what *you* indicate (being the more experienced).

 

@oldtiger64 - TAKE NOTE - I bow to jaclaz' expertise. Do what he says, just read my posts as FYI's *only*.

Edited by submix8c
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Therein lies my point. Something (potentially) is amiss beyond First 512-byte Sector.

 

 

BTW, not disputing the *need* for a snapshot of the MBR/PartitionTable Sector. Simply pointing out that something beyond that is amiss and that under *no circumstances* should any other action be taken other than what *you* indicate (being the more experienced).

 

Yep :), it is very possible that *something else* is missing or mis-configured (accidentally or by design by the good HP guys) or already ruined by some previous user action or even botched (accidentally or by design by any function of the running OS or by the parts of the XP setup that were already run) but let's go step by step :), let's see first what is in the MBR (as opposed to what might be in it or be missing from it or in/from any of the partitions bootsectors or anywhere else) and let's make next move starting from that actual data.

 

jaclaz

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Well, folks, any possible solution to my situation has gotten too far beyond my computer expertise to pursue further.

 

I am very appreciative of the thought and time all of you have spent trying to help me do something which started out seeming to be very simple and straight forward. The simplest answer to my problem seems to be to find a old desktop or laptop with XP installed and buy it to run the program I need.

 

If my current laptop dies I will resurrect it, somehow, as a compatible Windows XP machine. I believe I saw in the bios that it will run in IDE mode, but that is another can of worms.

 

Since starting this journey, some health problems for my wife have put a higher priority on my time so at present I am ending my attempts to install XP on my laptop.

 

Thank you all very much for your time and suggestions.

 

oldtiger64

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