I partitioned my hard drive using Partiton Magic in hopes to dual boot Windows XP and Red Hat Linux 9. I did this as follows:

(shown using linux fdisk)
Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4864 cylinders

Device ___Boot__Start_End___Blocks____ID__System
/dev/hda1 _*____65__3104__24418768+ 17_Hidden HPFS/NTFS
/dev/hda2 _____3105 4864__14137200 83__Linux
/dev/hda3 ______1____64___514048+__82__Linux Swap

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Red Hat Linux works great. It installed GRUB for me.
The one problem is that during Windows XP Home boot, it loads fine for about 30 seconds, then says:
[start]
xmnt2000 program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK
autochk program not found - skipping AUTOCHECK
[end]
for about a second, then restarts the computer.

GRUB commands for Windows XP:
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

I added makeactive in the middle of that, as recommended by many other messageboards, and I changed (hd0,0) to (hd0,1) and (hd0,2) but nothing helped anything.

So I try booting off the Windows XP Home setup disk.
Under the Microsoft Windows XP Recovery Console, it's asking for the Administrator password. I've tried the passwords I would have entered, and Toshiba Tech support doesn't know what it is either so I don't think the Recovery way is going to cut it.

If I start a new setup:

The following list shows the existing partitions and unpartitioned space on this computer.
. . .
38155 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR] (I don't know what that means)
F: Partition3 [Unknown] 502 MB
C: Partition1 (Inactive OS/2 Boot Man 23846 MB
E: Partition2 [Unknown] 13806 MB

Ok, so F is the first one on my drive, the swap file, Linux is on C:, and Windows is on E:. Could the problem be that Windows is no longer on the C:? This is probably to simple to be true.

The following information was requested of someone else in another messageboard. I don't know if it will help.

fdisk -l /dev/hda1
Device_____Boot__Start__End___Blocks_____ID_System
/dev/hda1p1__?__13578 119522 850995205_72 Unknown
/dev/hda1p2_____45382 79243 271987362__74 Unknown
/dev/hda1p3_____10499 10499____0______65 Novell Netware 386
/dev/hda1p4_____167628 167631 25817+___0_Empty
Partition 1, 2, 3, and 4 does not end on cylinder boundary.
Partition table entries are not in disk order.

I don't know what else to do. I've tried everthing I can find in other messageboards. I called Toshiba and they told me to call Microsoft. I called Microsoft and they told me I should be calling Toshiba. I called Toshiba back, and they told me, no, I really should be talking to Microsoft.
If you want me to post anything else on here which might help, just tell me. Please note: I am very experienced with Windows and DOS, but I know virtually nothing about Linux. I just yesterday figured out how to use the terminal to run Linux fdisk.

Sorry about the charts not being lined up. I didn't think it would condence spaces to 1 space.

Jon660, I feel your pain. im having the same problem, so you're not alone =). there's been a lot of replies to the thread I posted, so you might want to check it out.

I had the same "problem" with the recovery console, until i just hit enter when prompted for a password. i felt stupid for not trying that sooner, but im glad it worked. you might want to try that. i dont know how to fix it from there, but if you figure it out, let me know.

I found this reply from: http://www.tek-tips.com/gviewthread....616/qid/439106
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MeggieYang (Programmer) Mar 7, 2003
U can go to linux and fdisk , change the windows partions from hidden NTFS to NTFS type(17). Restart pc and everything will be ok.
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Is this user suggesting that those who have this problem format their HDs?

Since I cannot understand this advise, please see if it works.

Thanks

Windows XP must!!! be installed in the C: drive. Notice that all your other drives are wrapped within the 'Extended' Partition. But C: is designated as the default boot drive. PartitionMagic is a gift from the benign gods of the computer, and ought not to be the source of any ansgt. It oughta be, as you put it, 'that simple'. Good Luck.

Thanks everyone for your input.

I was able to solve this problem by:

Running the rescue disks (2 floppy disks) created during the installation of Partition Magic. (In case other users having this problem did not choose to create the rescue disks, they may reinstall Partition Magic on another computer and create the disks easily.)

Using these rescue disks, I was able to boot from floppy and run a DOS version of Partition Magic off the floppy disks.

But before I reached this stage, for some reason, there was some problem with the rescue disk #2 and the PC kept saying the disk was corrupt and giving me the choice of Abort,Retry,Ignore.

After reading some other postings on the web, I was forewarned to this problem (error reading floppy # 2) which many users were having and I kept pressing Retry until suddenly Partition Magic started and automatically offered to fix the floppy !

Afterwards fixing disk 2, Partition magic started and I saw the partition information of the hard disk. Next to the partition of XP, it was labelled Hidden, which was the source of the whole problem. It seems somehow Partition Magic had designated the XP partition and Hidden.

As suggested by other users on various boards, I right-clicked on the partition holding Windows XP and chose UNHIDE from the menu. I also set it to ACTIVE there in the menu. After confirming a few times, the process was complete and I proceeded to restart windows.

After restarting, Windows went into the error blue screen again... but this time instead of saying XMNT2002 and AUTOCHK not found, it said it has finished repairing some files and was restarting.

I just allowed it to restart and this time everything was fine and I was able to enter my login password and use windows as before.

Now I have both XP and RH linux working fine.

After reading about this problem on various boards, I came to realise that this is a very common problem that happens when users use Partition Magic to resize partitions.

I hope this post will help other who have the same problem avoid many sleepless nights.

thanks for your post, a3306338. it sounds so simple. however, i downloaded partition magic from kazaa, so i dont have a cd or anything i can install from on another computer. can i download these recovery disks from anywhere?

and why the hell does partition magic cause the c: partition to be hidden anyway?

use the partition magic disk to set the windows partition active
it worked for me

for those who have xp and dont have dos, use a win98 or winme or other dos bootdisk, go to dosprompt, then insert the partition magic 1st disk, and type: AUTOEXEC.BAT to load it

then insert the 2nd disk and unhide the partition!

I think there's no need for Partition Magic (which btw is not free software): I successfully used part.exe, a 100Kb small free (beer) program that allows messing with partition table and runs from a single dos floppy. You can find it here:

http://geocities.yahoo.com.br/downlo.../info/part.htm

However, I think you should be able to do it directly from GRUB prompt, by pressing c (for console) and then "unhide (hd0,0)" or whatever. Refer to grub documentation
http://www.gnu.org/manual/grub-0.92/grub.html