Need to repair multi-boot MBR

[leejosepho]

Greetings.

I have already posted my problem on another forum, but then I saw a comment there about this forum being more active ... so, I came on over here also.

I have Win98se, 2k, XP, 7 and Linux Mint all on two drives in one machine. I began with two new drives, but I only connected the first one until after the Windows systems had all been installed. I began by using MS FDISK to make the first partition FAT32 for Win98se, then I used 2k's installation options to make a partition for 2k ... and I think that is where my trouble began when 2k could not see all of the 160 GB drive and somehow possibly "marked" the end of the drive as being closer than it actually was. I later patched 2k to see the entire drive, of course, but that has nothing to do with anything here at the moment.

After 98se and 2k were in, I used XP's installation options to make a partition for XP and all was well up to that point. But then when I tried to let Win7 make its own partition, the remainder of the drive showed as two pieces, with the first ending at the point I think 2k had earlier and erroneously marked as the end of the drive.

At that point, neither 2k nor XP nor the Win7 installation options could make the last 53+ GBs of the drive into one partition, but Easus' "Partition Manager" had no trouble deleting the two pieces and making them into just one for Win7 ... and I then had the Win7 installation options format that last partition just before my Win7 installation ... but now I have this:

How can I fix that?!

And to be sure I have made this clear: It was that 53.05 GB partition that had been in two pieces prior to my Win7 installation. The now-present "shadow" or whatever of that 53.05 is something that showed up later on (but I do not now recall what I had done at that time to cause it to appear).

Edited March 21, 2010 by leejosepho

[jaclaz]

How can I fix that?!

And to be sure I have made this clear: It was that 53.05 GB partition that had been in two pieces prior to my Win7 installation. The now-present "shadow" or whatever of that 53.05 is something that showed up later on (but I do not now recall what I had done at that time to cause it to appear).

It's NOT clear at all, at least for me.

What the scrrenshot shows is a Disk Management view of a hard disk (Disk 0) that has been partitioned as follows:

1. First Active Primary partition 20 Gb FAT32 Label "Sys98" assigned Letter C:
   
2. Extended Partition containing:
   
   • Logical Volume 32 Gb NTFS Label "Sys2K" assigned Letter F:
     
   • Logical Volume 44 Gb NTFS Label "SysXP" assigned Letter G:
     
   • Logical Volume 53,05 Gb NTFS Label "SysW7" assigned Letter H:
     

[*]Unallocated space 53,05 Gb

There is nothing "strange" or "wrong" in it that I can see.

Which is the problem?

If you want to create a primary partition in the unallocated space, just right click on it and choose to do so.

If you want to create a Logical Volume in it you will need first to extend the Extended Partition to enclose the unallocated space.

This is not possible from XP (without using third party tools) but should be possible under Vista or 7.

The other disk (Disk 1) is partitioned as follows:

1. First Primary partition 6 Gb FAT32 Label "SysSwap" assigned Letter M:
   
2. Primary partition (Active)10 Gb NTFS Label "MintSys" assigned Letter N:
   
3. Extended Partition containing:
   
   • Logical Volume 2 Gb NTFS Label "MintSwap" assigned Letter F:
     
   • Logical Volume 34 Gb NTFS Label "MintData" assigned Letter P:
     

[*]Primary partition 97.05 Gb NTFS Label "AllStors" assigned Letter Q:

Hint :

Dark Blue is Primary

Light Blue is Logical Volume

Green surrounding is Extended Partition

Black is Unallocated

jaclaz

[leejosepho]

There is nothing "strange" or "wrong" in it that I can see.

Which is the problem?

The problem is that the "53.05 GB unallocated space" is not really there. It is actually just a "shadow" of the actual Win7 partition. Here is another shot from DiskMan in Win7:

[jaclaz]

Maybe I see.

The first screenshot shows that the disk is detected as being 202.09 Gb in size.

The second screenshot shows that the disk is detected as being 149.05 Gb in size.

I presume you are saying that your disk is actually 149.05 Gb, right?

Under which OS is the drive detected as being 202.09?

Just Win2K or also other ones?

Under which OS is the drive detected as being 145.05?

Just Win7 or also other ones?

Can you run beeblebrox:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080423005903/http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/

And post screenshots of:

• the MBR data
  
• the data in each EPBR's
  

(just to make sure that the "base" data is correct, in which case the problem is somewhere in the Registry of the OS('s) that show the "false" disk size)

jaclaz

[leejosepho]

Maybe I see.

The first screenshot shows that the disk is detected as being 202.09 Gb in size.

The second screenshot shows that the disk is detected as being 149.05 Gb in size.

I presume you are saying that your disk is actually 149.05 Gb, right?

Yes. Both of my drives are 160 GB WDs, and I believe that "149.05" is what should be shown.

Under which OS is the drive detected as being 202.09?

Just Win2K or also other ones?

Under which OS is the drive detected as being 145.05?

Just Win7 or also other ones?

Win7 shows correctly, but 2k and XP each "show the shadow" and add it to the total. Then, Easeus' "Partition Master" shows everything correctly, but Easeus' "Table Doctor" shows my Win7 partition as "Free" (with nothing in it) and it does that same with my "AllStors" partition at the end of my second drive.

Can you run beeblebrox ...

I will try to do that a little later this evening and post back, and I thank you!

Edited March 22, 2010 by leejosepho

[jaclaz]

It is possible that you are falling/have fallen in this problem:

http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=9897&hl=

or anyway something closely related to it.

jaclaz