LInux = Windows System HDD

Discussion in 'Linux / Unix Discussion' started by Mr.Cheeks, Apr 17, 2006.

  1. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    Hi all,

    Dont know whether the title is correct or is in the right place, here it goes...

    STarting installing mce and my system rebooted for no apparent reason, tried it again, same thing happened. unplugged all the devices and it starts to install and then stopped.

    i reboot my comp and is says no operating system found, strange i thought, i decide to format it using win98boot dsk, when i boot up from that flopp it stores all the drivers onto c:, when i fdisk it, the second screen (one before the main menu that pops up), goes on about i have got NTFS partitions (both my drives are FAT32)... i check the drive details, and only one drive pops up as if there is no partition on the drive...

    so i decide to do a repair with XP, did the ASR and then said something which i cant now remember(that was 4 in the morning).

    New day: today, loads up comp - says no valid FAT, FAT32 partition or something..

    I am using Linux KNoppix LIve @ this moment, just to get by, is there any way to make my c: come back to live, its even picked up in the bleedy bios and all i wanted to do is to knock on Media Centre instead of!

    :x :x
     
  2. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    when i go into command prompt and type:
    fdisk -l , it says
     
  3. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Hm - all sorts of questions come to mind here...

    Are there two physical disks in this machine?
    What sizes are they?
    Is there anything valuable on the drives that you need to recover, or are you happy to clear them?
    What were you trying to install MCE on top of?
    What actions did you take when it told you about partitions that were present?

    Note that using Win98 tools on large drives can cause severe panic to XP. :ohmy

    Harry.
     
    Certifications: ECDL A+ Network+ i-Net+
    WIP: Server+
  4. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    1- Yes
    2 - physical dri ves - 120gb ea x 2 (FAT32)
    3 - Nothing on my C: now, i moved all my data before attempting to install mce - i always prepare for the worse case sceneario.
    4 - MCE over XP SP2 - why? Cuz i just felt like doing it...
    5 - Partitions - in FDISK part i just clicked OK, was not a prompt to alter anything, just a box informing about something or another you have NTFS drive.
     
  5. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    How did you do this? FDISK issued with Win9x will not correctly make such partitions. If you insist on staying with FAT32 (why?) this will need to be redone.
    All hail the master! I hope people are taking notes! :biggrin So few do this!
    OK. To get this drive back I think the best way is to clear the MBR and start again. I personaly use slate - (look for slate10.zip on that page), but this is another tool that can do this according to the site.

    Although slate is very old I find it still works on modern drives.

    Harry.
     
    Certifications: ECDL A+ Network+ i-Net+
    WIP: Server+
  6. Mr.Cheeks

    Mr.Cheeks 1st ever Gold Member! Gold Member

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    Sorted it now Harry...

    I restarted again step by step,

    deleted the partition using the win installation xp disk, and started all over, and here i am typing away! :biggrin

    Thank you Harry for your time...

    EDIT
    When you totally kill your os almost every week, if i was lucky once a fothnight, only then will you relise the importance of data backup... ...luckily them days, i had very little important files, probably like 6 ot 7 floppies..., whereas now it is like split on my other drive, automatically backed each friday@8pm backed over 2 hdd on my network.
     
  7. hbroomhall

    hbroomhall Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    No problem - glad you got it sorted.

    IMHO too few people realize that the XP disk can be used as a combo of FDISK and Format (but a bit slower to get to!)

    Harry.
     
    Certifications: ECDL A+ Network+ i-Net+
    WIP: Server+

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