I help out a relative who lives in another city and who has dementia. One of the main things I do for him is monitor his e-mail and administer his finances (think online banking). The relative has an old computer with XP installed and, when I am in his city helping him, I frequently need to use that computer for the above mentioned tasks.

When XP was originally EOL'd, I found out about and applied the registry hack that would allow his machine to continue getting updates by causing it to masquerade as a POS. I used it that way for a couple years but got increasingly uncomfortable about using this machine, especially given the fact that I had no control over it (whether it's on or off, what's being done on it and by whom) when I'm not present--which is most of the time. I eventually decided I wanted to put a GNU/Linux distro on it, so I squeezed the XP installation to make space for a small TC partition and installed it. I did this rather carelessly, meaning I didn't defrag the Windows partition before resizing it, which I know is a big no-no.

My rationale was that I only wanted to preserve the XP files in case I might later need to access one or other of them: I hoped I would never again need to boot into XP on this machine. And, sure enough, though I have an XP menu item I can select, when I choose that option, I get an XP welcome screen that just sits there and never eventuates in a fully-booted XP environment.

What I neglected to take under consideration prior to doing the resizing is that this machine has a very advanced printer connected to it, and that all the utilities for interfacing with and administering the printer were resident in the XP installation. And now it's time to sell off the printer, which means I need to access those utilities so as to show the buyer the printer is operational and to print off test pages. So I'm wondering now whether I can resurrect this XP install so as to regain access to those utilities in preparation for a sale.

I guess the main question I would pose at the outset is whether I can expect defragging this partition after the fact to have any sort of effect? That's the only way I can think of that might get this XP installation bootable again. From what I've read, I could run defrag from the mini XP available on Hiren's boot CD. But I don't want to try this without asking for some input on whether it's even worth the attempt. Alternatively, I understand there is a Linux defrag utility that seems to work effectively. I've also seen suggestions that involved, from a Linux installation, tarring up the contents of the XP partition and copying that to another drive, wiping and reformatting the partition, then untarring those contents back to the partition (apparently results in a defragged partition). But all of those alternatives presuppose that this sort of intervention might actually make the XP OS on that partition bootable again--which, if a faulty presupposition, would mean I'm wasting my time on those options.

So, anyone have any experience with doing the sort of thing I'm describing (i.e., with defragging a shrunken partition to restore it to bootability)? Anyone have educated opinions on whether I might expect this to work? Anyone have alternate suggestions for how to get this XP installation booting anew? Input will be appreciated.

PS Once the printer is sold I would probably just hose this XP installation once and for all.

No. The point of defragging was to move all the used blocks to the beginning of the partition before it was shrunk. Not doing that means they are now unreachable, so now they are gone forever. Anything you do at this point that touches those blocks is likely to trash your Linux distro as well.

You're out of Linux when you do that. It means your windows boot files on the windows partition have been corrupted in some way. You might try a windows forum and just tell them when you select xp it hangs at the welcome screen. You could also mount the xp partition from your Linux and take a look at the boot.ini and other xp boot files, at least to see if they exist.

How advanced could it be if it runs on software as old as xp? You might try an online search with the specific name of the printer and add the word Linux somewhere.

I think it's idle to try to boot into a broken Windows XP install.

Though I don't think shrinking the partition with GParted without prior defragging could ever have damaged it. As far as I see it the only advantage of defraaging is you shrink your windows partition smaller afterwards. But why should a partition shrinker overwrite fragmented files or any files, software doing this would be a brick, not software.

Rather set up a clean install of Windows, or borrow a machine with Windows, download the printer software and demonstrate it. Did you check if fully featured linux drivers exist for the printer?

To fix the broken isntall most I can think up is desperate stuff:
- boot pressing f8 to get in recovery mode or something
- has the hardware config changed excessively, change it back teswise
- backup bootsector, maybe with grub or whatever, and rewrite a standard windows bootsector with UBCD. Although that might not help, as it seems to be booting windows 'somehow' already.

How is the drive partitioned?

Mounting the windows partition from linux and looking whats's going on there is a good idea, as has been suggested.

Most utilities won't let you resize if data exists.

Maybe make a bartsPE disk and use utilities to access it. It may be possible to load the drivers and software on bartsPE to run.

There was a way to run a check install from xp cd.

While BartPE was important for proof-of-concept about the legality of using a Preinstall Environment, it takes far more time than I'm willing to spend on Windows related software just to fix Windows and requires a working Windows environment to build it, especially if one wants to add any worthwhile tools.

A far quicker and much more powerful means (plus a working Linux environment with good tools) is HirensBootCD. While there are "grey" versions still out there the full release like old 15.2 is fully legal and extremely powerful.... so much so you need to bring some knowledge and skill to the table or risk catastrophic damage. I consider it a must-have for any serious PC recovery/repair work.

That said, I doubt I'd waste time trying to resurrect an old XP install. It's just more effective to get in with Hirens and copy out what you need or use a newer, larger partition and install fresh.

Thanks for your input, yancek. I mounted the xp partition and did a bit of rooting around and the file structure seems intact, as do individual files. Did not look specifically for the boot files but will when I next have access to the machine.
The manufacturer provides Linux drivers for this large-format printer (it prints on 2-foot wide strips of paper). But none of the capabilities of the XP software such as showing ink levels, head-cleaning, printer maintenance, or printing test strips will be available. So it will not be very suitable for demonstrating to a potential buyer that the printer is in good shape and fully operational.

I have access to micro XP installation media. Could I expect, if I were to install that, to get the Epson software suite for this printer to install under it and to interact with the printer (via USB) from that unofficial XP installation? I suppose I should have a look around for the original XP installation media that came with this machine as well.

250 GB drive that was all one big XP partition, /dev/sda1. I squeezed that down to 190 GB and made /dev/sda2 in the 60 GB of free space, where I put TC.

Forget the whole XP thing if you intend to sell the printer. What you need to prove is that another person can install drivers to use the printer. Why can't they bring a laptop with a current OS and be capable of using the printer, or why can't you attach another computer running a current OS and prove that the printer works?

Look what jperry wrote http://www.techrepublic.com/forums/d...0-02911874f8c8

Maybe wait for half an hour with xp trying to boot.

And als be sur that your hd isn't near full, I just had this problem.

It's even possible that booting from the XP installation and using the repair console will fix the on-disk version. Worth a try and easy to do. Worst that can happen is that grub will get hosed and you'll have to reinstall it when you want to go back to Linux.

..and yes the Epson drivers may well be there, but they may also exist on a driver disk that came with the printer or online in an archive or on the Epson site.