Need to make the primary complex of an ntfs raid1 array bootable again.

oskar · 07-26-2010, 05:54 PM

If I had an XP recovery cd I guess I would just do a fixmbr and that should do it, but I cant find the damn thing.

I had XP on two drives in software raid 1 (mirror). I split it up in diskmgmt and installed win7 on the former secondary complex. I can mount the old XP partition from linux but win7 is confused.

I need it bootable again tho because it turns out just copy and pasting a 10gig postrgresql database is a no go, I need to do a full backup and for that reason I need to boot into XP again.

I can guess the answer but I'm chicken.

fdisk -l:

Code:

Disk /dev/sdb: 1000.2 GB, 1000204886016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 121601 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x53e34bfa

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sdb1   *           1      121600   976751968+  42  SFS
/dev/sdb2          121601      121601        8032+  42  SFS

It is positively formated as ntfs. sfs (secure file system) just means that it is (was) part of a raid array.
Not much that can go much wrong if I just change the label tho, right.

oskar · 07-26-2010, 06:27 PM

I changed the label to ntfs, and now win7 can mount it.
It still doesn't boot though. It boots into some bootmanager that gives me the choice between booting from the primary or secondary disk, but doesn't boot.

jefro · 07-26-2010, 08:12 PM

I'd try to boot to W7 and see if repair works maybe.

oskar · 07-26-2010, 10:02 PM

Thats weird... I just checked diskmgmt again in win7 and it still says it's a dynamic drive and status: invalid. Doesn't show a partition, even tho it's mounted and I can access it. If I right-click I get the choices of "revert into normal drive" - crudly translated... opposite of dynamic. It's in german unfortunately.
Or "reactivate drive".
I fear that either of those options might overwrite the FAT and render the drive unusable.