[jaclaz]

Eyedoctor2 said:

Should I purchase the infotool?

Well, wait a minute before spending money, I would have thought that the trial would have given enough info.
However it is not that expensive, and it's however a handy diagnostic tool.

Let's try this before, manually:
Check with Regedit that the keys are as in this articles:
http://support.micro...kb/303013/en-us
and check the version of ATAPI.SYS

Double check your hard drives and their documentation if there is a jumper related to the 137 Gb barrier or something like "Limit number of reported cylinders".

If the above is OK, the other thing that might be could be an incompatible BIOS of the motherboard and/or of the attached card, you should try looking on the respective manufacturer sites if any fix is available.

Try also these two programs:
SIW:
http://www.gtopala.com/index.html
and
SIV:
http://siv.mysite.wa...-members.co.uk/

both give lots of info on hardware and maybe you could find something from their output.

You can also try to run from DOS the intel program:
http://www.intel.com...b/cs-009302.htm
http://www.intel.com...b/cs-009301.htm

And this one (from XP):
http://www.hdtune.com/

I'll post if any other idea comes to my mind....


jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 20 November 2006 - 07:08 AM

[Eyedoctor2]

Jaclaz,

Again thanks!

First, the Atapi.sys version is current.

Second, Windows does report the drive to be 186 gb. Just as it reports that my secondary hardrive is 320gb.

The problem is with partion magic, testdisk and beeblebrox all report it to be 131+gb.

I know that this is a new problem because previously Norton Ghost and Partition Magic worked fine without any reported errors. I have at this time a backup created by Norton Ghost 77 days ago but hate to go back that far as I am always making changes. I thought that all this time Norton Ghost had been making automatically scheduled incremental backups. I didn't realize the problem until I tried to use Ghost to create another full backup.

I believe the problem started after removing the partitions in the C (200gb) drive with partition magic. I have contacted symatec support but am still waiting to hear back from them.

I am not at home so I can't try the other utilities that you suggest. I will try tonight.

Is there a software program that I can use to correct the partition size without losing the data on the hard drive?

Thanks again!

[jaclaz]

Eyedoctor2 said:

Is there a software program that I can use to correct the partition size without losing the data on the hard drive?

Well, I am afraid not, you see, the partition data in the MBR is correct, (the 390716802 you report, which is approximately the value I expected "Numsectors around 390,000,000").

To be more exact, a value of 390716802 in Numsectors would mean a CHS geometry of 24,321x255x63, i.e.
24,321x255x63x512=390,716,865x512=200,047,034,880 bytes, corresponding
in "Hd Manufacturer Gb" to:
200,047,034,880/1000/1000/1000=200 Gb
and in "real Gb" to:
200,047,034,880/1024/1024/1024=186 Gb


So the MBR is correct, there must be something somewhere else, (at this point and from what you report I am inclined to think it could be something in the Registry, if you are positive that there is nothing "suspect" in the motherboard or card BIOS) that makes these utilities "see" the drive as 132 Gb.

Can you try running a CHKDSK from a command prompt:
http://www.ss64.com/nt/chkdsk.html
WITHOUT any parameter and take note of what it says?

jaclaz

[Eyedoctor2]

I will run chkdsk when I get home.

I previously ran chkdsk /r and chkdsk /p and it reported uncorrectable errors.

Would it help at all if I opened up the box and connected the hard drive directly to the motherboard, temporarily disconnecting my dvd and dvdrw drives?

My reluctance to blame the controller card stems from the fact that when the card bios screen flashes up at the beginning it detects a 186 gb drive. Also, Norton Ghost previously ran with this controller card though I did not have the sata drive attached to the motherboard at that time.

History- I previously had the 186gb ide drive partitioned and was saving backups via Ghost on one partition. The hard drive was on the controller card and the dvd and dvdrw were on the motherboard along with a cdrw drive. I then purchased the sata drive, removed the partitions on the 186gb drive and removed the cdrw drive.

So presently sata drive is on motherboard, along with dvd and dvdrw. 186 gb ide continues to be on controller card.

I don't know if this information helps much but as an eyedoctor it never hurts to get a good medical history.

Thanks again for your willingness to help.

Edit:

RESULTS OF CHKDSK

I am going to include 3 gifs with this post.

First is screenshot of chkdsk

Second is Norton Partition Magic summary screen

Third is error message given when trying to resize using Norton Partition Magic.

Hope that helps!

Thanks again!

Attached File(s)

•  JPEG2.gif (47.42K)
  Number of downloads: 36
•  JPEG3.gif (81.75K)
  Number of downloads: 27
•  JPEG1.gif (35.77K)
  Number of downloads: 29

This post has been edited by Eyedoctor2: 21 November 2006 - 06:31 AM

[jaclaz]

I have not much ideas left:
1) Chkdsk sees the partiiton allright ÷190Gb
2) Windows Explorer ALSO sees it allright ÷190GB
3) Norton Partition Magic ALSO sees it allright ÷190GB
4) The error comes when you try to resize it

That MUST be because somehow the disk (not the partition) is seen as having 16709 Cylinders, i.e. 132 Gb, and this happens with:
a ) MBRFIX
b ) TESTDISK
c ) BEEBLEBROX
d ) NORTON PARTITION MAGIC

Results 1) to 3) are normal as to read information on the partition the MBR is read, which as said, is correct.

Results 4) and a ) to d ) are also all coherent as to read information on the drive geometry the disk driver is interrogated, which actually interrogates the hard disk.

So something must be wrong in
EITHER:
1) the information the hard disk supplies, and this can be only be attributed to:
1a ) a jumper setting on the hard disk
1b ) a jumper or setting in the card or its BIOS
1c ) a setting in the motherboard BIOS that somehow "overrides" board one, though I doubt it

OR:
2) the information the disk driver is correct, but it is badly "translated", and this can be only attributed to:
2a ) a defective driver (disk, card or bus)
2b ) a "hidden" setting or filter somewhere that "overrides" the right values

From the "history" you supplied, the only other thing I can fathom is some kind of conflict with the SATA drive, so, yes, trying the drive hooked directly to the board would be a good troubleshooting step, though cannot say how many "good" info we can get from that.
I would suggest the following:
1) just remove the SATA drive leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
2) remove DVDR leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
3) remove DVDRW leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
4) attach 186 Gb drive directly to MB leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
5) remove the card, run said apps to check if anything changed
6) re-insert card and attach to it 186 Gb drive, run said apps to check if anything changed
7) re-connect just the SATA drive, run said apps to check if anything changed
8) re-connect DVDRW leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed
9) re-connect DVDR leaving everything else as is, run said apps to check if anything changed

jaclaz

[Eyedoctor2]

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!


Thank you so much jaclaz!!

I was able to correct the error by connecting the 200 gb hard drive directly to the motherboard, whether or not the SATA drive was also connected.

Also had no problem if the 200gb drive was on the motherboard, SATA was disconnected and dvd drives were connected to the motherboard.

But when I reconnected the 200gb card to the ide controller card the problem recurred.

I looked up the drivers that the card was using and for some CRAZY reason Windows XP2 was using the older of the two available drivers. When I switched to the newer driver.......

SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can now go back to using Norton Ghost to backup my C: drive.

Thanks so much for your help!

Have a great Thanksgiving.

God bless,

wz

[jaclaz]

Happy it worked!

Have a nice thanksgiving !

jaclaz

[SpideySpirit]

jaclaz, (my 1st post in this forum) almost a year after the last post in this topic, this wonderful utility is still saving people. I used it to remove System Commander 7 from the MBR and subsequently uninstalled sc7, so that my WinXP boots normally. Now I can install Ubuntu along side WinXp
...thx chris

This post has been edited by SpideySpirit: 12 September 2007 - 06:45 AM

[jaclaz]

SpideySpirit, on Sep 12 2007, 02:41 PM, said:

jaclaz, (my 1st post in this forum) almost a year after the last post in this topic, this wonderful utility is still saving people. I used it to remove System Commander 7 from the MBR and subsequently uninstalled sc7, so that my WinXP boots normally. Now I can install Ubuntu along side WinXp
...thx chris

Well, happy it helped solvig your problem.

Of course most of the thanks should go to Kaare Smith and Dion Nicolaas

jaclaz

[Godzilla]

Is it possible just to restore the boot code from a file?

I think MbrFix can only restore the whole MBR or just fix the boot code for Win and DOS.
But I am searching for a solution to restore the first 446 Byte of the MBR (the boot code).

Maybe it is possible to give MbrFix this feature.


Thanks

Godzilla

[jaclaz]

Have a look at both these batches:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MBRBatch-0...LPHA-t3191.html
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/MakeBScmd-...EASE-t2362.html

You should get enough info to write a few lines of batch to use dsfo/dsfi to perform what you want, or you can do it manually, see here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...=3226&st=15
and just use "446" instead of "512".

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: 07 February 2008 - 02:29 PM

[Godzilla]

Great.

I will look at it.

[adamthewebman]

thanks for the zip file!

[obernhardt]

jaclaz, on Dec 2 2005, 05:05 AM, said:

Quote

it is no MBR or damage in MBR can me copy MBR from onther one ?

No, you CANNOT copy an MBR from another disk.

The MBR is made in TWO parts, first one is "STATIC" meaning that is common code to all MBR's written from a given Operating System, second one is "DYNAMIC" meaning that has data (Partition Tables and, in the case of win2k/XP/2003, a "signature") that ONLY belongs to THAT HD/System.

MBRFix replaces the STATIC data with standard one, and can change the signature.
NO changes are made to the Partition Table.

So if your Partition Table is good but the STATIC part is not, MBRFIX is the tool for you.
If your MBR is ok but the Partition Table is not, you will need a tool like TESTDISK:
http://www.cgsecurit...g/testdisk.html
or a Hex/Disk editor, a lot of patience AND some good knowledge of the inner workings of Partition Tables to correct the problem.
A handy utility to change PT easily - but you still have to KNOW what you are doing - is Beeblebrox:
http://students.cs.byu.edu/~codyb/
http://students.cs.b...bbdownload.html

jaclaz

[jaclaz]

jaclaz

[Maelstorm]

kaares, on Nov 30 2004, 03:30 PM, said:

I ended up in the same problem, but my experience is that the diskpart command doesn't insert the boot code into the MBR. That it leaves for the setup program.

I was using Win PE to create a primary partition on a disk, acitvate, assign it. Then formatted using format C: /fs:ntfs.
Lastly copying in a Windows Embeded XP installation to C:.

Would not boot, just booted to a black screen without any errors, hanging around

So it seems that diskpart does not insert the bootcode into the MBR, just defines the partitions.

I was having this exact same problem myself. After partitioning the disk and formatting it, I ran winnt32 to copy the files to it, rebooted, then nothing. Black screen with a cursor blinking at you. This program fixed the problem. Thank you.

[Jotnar]

You can use bootsect.exe (on the vista install disc and maybe the WAIK) to generate the mbr boot code. Just remember to pass it the right switch depending on which os you're booting (xp,2003 or Vista,2008).

Cheers

[Jotnar]

MBRFix.exe has been updated.

v1.3.0.0 changelog

Quote

- Fixed bug in the fixbootsector command, which always wrote to drive 0.
- Added support for Windows 7 MBR.

Get it here: http://www.sysint.no/Download/tabid/162/la...US/Default.aspx

Cheers

[jaclaz]

GOOD news.

Unrelated, but not much, fuwi has recently released a small GUI for it:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=23189

I'll notify him and see if he will update it with the Windows 7 feature.

jaclaz

[iPauly]

jaclaz, on Aug 18 2009, 04:01 PM, said:

GOOD news.

Unrelated, but not much, fuwi has recently released a small GUI for it:
http://www.911cd.net...showtopic=23189

I'll notify him and see if he will update it with the Windows 7 feature.

jaclaz

Vista's BOOTMGR boot record can also load and boot BOOTMGR of Windows 7. Also Windows 7's BOOTMGR boot record can also load and boot Vista.

Instead of bootsect.exe, you can also use BOOTICE to change your MBR or PBR. BOOTICE can be found here: http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=8986