DiskDrake killed Windows
 

Hi there,

I used Diskdrake to resize my Windows ME partition smaller and add a secondary FAT partition to possibly install DOS 6.22 on. But now I can't get Windows ME to boot. When I first tried to boot it, Windows ME just stalled on booting. The second time, it refused to try booting at all. It said that C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\IFSHLP.SYS and C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\VMM32.VXD were missing or corrupt. Yet I did not change anything on the Windows partition between my first and second boots. Unless these files somehow corrupted themselves 20 minutes after DiskDrake resized the partition...

I then proceeded to modify my grub.conf file by adding hide (hd0, 4) (my new secondary empty FAT partition) to the commands loading Windows ME. But it still refused to boot. I also switched "root (hd0,0) with "rootnoverify (hd0,0)" but to no avail.

But when I return to Linux, everything seems okay. I can still mount my Windows ME partition and all the files are there. I can load my library of images on the Windows partition without experiencing any errors.

What I'm asking is, is it some error in configuration that causes the Windows bootloader to not be able to find the drive C, or did DiskDrake f*ck up my partition? I backed up my important stuff, but it would be a pain to reinstall everything again. And I'm afraid re-installing Windows will kill Mandrake. Aaah! It's a vicious cycle!

have you checked that your boot.ini file is still ok? the way my computer boots up is:

first goes to grub, options are dos and fedora core 1, defauts to dos in 10 seconds, then if dos is chosen, it goes to the windows boot screen where i can select the different boot options for the windows booting.. hopefully that isnt too confusing

You said it stalled but did it finally boot up ok the first time?

Did you defrag the windows partition before resizing? It doesn't seem likely but those two files could of been fragmented and when you resized they were cut off.

You could try replaceing the files. It might work or lead you to more corrupt files.

I doubt its a boot loader configuration error.

So DiskDrake is not smart enough to move data around in order to prevent fragmented files from being killed? parted says it can do this, and I thought DiskDrake was based on parted.

I'm using Windows ME which is not based on Windows NT so I don't use boot.ini.

Where can I find those files? They're not on my Windows ME CD-ROM.

If I do have to re-install Windows, how will I be able to use Linux again?

I don't kow if diskdrake is smart enough or not. It was just a guess. Could of been caused by any one of a number of things.

Does ME use cab files like 98? Its probably hidden somewhere in one.

Since the MBR will be rewritten by ME you can fix it by booting linux using the boot floppy and then rerun lilo or grub. Did you create one during the install?

You can also boot using the 1st CD of MDK into rescue mode. You can then use the restore bootloader function.

it looks to me like the winme partition isn't set active?
that's the sort of error you'll get if the partition isn't active, or another
partition created changes the number ofthe windows partition.
delete the partition you created and put things back like they were, and
see if it works. then we'll figure out a better way foryou to repartition.

I restored the Windows partition to its original size and the missing/corrupt files error disappeared. But now I have a different error: "Registry data not found", and then Windows shuts itself down before loading.

I popped in the Windows ME CD-ROM. When it ran ScanDisk for me, it told me that the "FAT media byte is missing" and needs to be corrected before Setup is run. It said that this could be easily fixed, but should not be done if there are other filesystems on the hard disk. I am afraid that reinstalling Windows will break my perfectly-fine Linux installation!

Now I shrank the Windows partition again. The new error disappears but the old error comes back :S

the media descriptor is a byte used by windows mostly, and ignored
by linux. type 06 means fat 16, and the fat 32 partitions are e, and b,
and c, and i can't remember which are for which reasons.
that could easily be by linux can read your windows partition, and
windows cannot.
is the fat 16 partition you made after the fat32 one? anyway, the media
byte can keep windows from working, and not linux. using windows
scandisk and fdisk are the most likely ways to screw things up in
that situation.
anyway fdisk -l will list the table info in linux.

I made a new 1GB FAT16 partition as hda5. My FAT32 partition continues to be hda1. So is it safe to use Scandisk to fix my media descriptor? Scandisk itself warns that it shouldn't be done if other filesystems are installed, which I do since I'm running Linux. Also, you said that Scandisk is likely to screw things up...

Do you know why I got a different error when I restored the partition to its regular size?

the media descriptor byte is what linux calls the partition type, sort of
1 FAT12 1e Hidden W95 FAT1 75 PC/IX be Solaris boot
2 XENIX root 24 NEC DOS 80 Old Minix c1 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
3 XENIX usr 39 Plan 9 81 Minix / old Lin c4 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
4 FAT16 <32M 3c PartitionMagic 82 Linux swap c6 DRDOS/sec (FAT-
5 Extended 40 Venix 80286 83 Linux c7 Syrinx
6 FAT16 41 PPC PReP Boot 84 OS/2 hidden C: da Non-FS data
7 HPFS/NTFS 42 SFS 85 Linux extended db CP/M / CTOS / .
8 AIX 4d QNX4.x 86 NTFS volume set de Dell Utility
9 AIX bootable 4e QNX4.x 2nd part 87 NTFS volume set df BootIt
a OS/2 Boot Manag 4f QNX4.x 3rd part 8e Linux LVM e1 DOS access
b W95 FAT32 50 OnTrack DM 93 Amoeba e3 DOS R/O
c W95 FAT32 (LBA) 51 OnTrack DM6 Aux 94 Amoeba BBT e4 SpeedStor
e W95 FAT16 (LBA) 52 CP/M 9f BSD/OS eb BeOS fs
f W95 Ext'd (LBA) 53 OnTrack DM6 Aux a0 IBM Thinkpad hi ee EFI GPT
10 OPUS 54 OnTrackDM6 a5 FreeBSD ef EFI (FAT-12/16/
11 Hidden FAT12 55 EZ-Drive a6 OpenBSD f0 Linux/PA-RISC b
12 Compaq diagnost 56 Golden Bow a7 NeXTSTEP f1 SpeedStor
14 Hidden FAT16 <3 5c Priam Edisk a8 Darwin UFS f4 SpeedStor
16 Hidden FAT16 61 SpeedStor a9 NetBSD f2 DOS secondary
17 Hidden HPFS/NTF 63 GNU HURD or Sys ab Darwin boot fd Linux raid auto
18 AST SmartSleep 64 Novell Netware b7 BSDI fs fe LANstep
1b Hidden W95 FAT3 65 Novell Netware b8 BSDI swap ff BBT



these aree the ones that fdisk will list. you can freely change the types in
linux. notice the few different types of fat32. you may be crossing a size
barrier that windows requires you to have as c or b instead.
you can't boot dos from a logical drive (hda5) unless you are using
some weird boot manager. if you are, that may be the cause of your
problems.

a partition can start to boot, and then fail immediately because windows
jumps to a different partition. that can happen if a partition is hidden, or
if you are trying to boot dos or win95,98,me from a non-active partition.

the cannot find registry error can occur from a messed up filesystem, or
an invalid descriptor byte, where windows is reading the drive in the
wrong way. linux would continue to read it correctly though, because it
would ignore that byte. you can experiment and change the byte
yourself in linux, and try to boot windows. just between c and b
probably. or you can give scandisk a shot.

I restored the media byte and that ended up damaging the Windows partition. Before, I could access everything from Linux. Now because of Scandisk, I can't access my Windows partition from anywhere! I guess I will have to delete Windows. There goes my Lexmark X5150...*throws it out the window and crashes 8 stories below*

too bad. i had that feeling about scandisk. i've seen it many times.