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sonic reducer
Starting Member
USA
25 Posts |
 Posted - 03/03/2008 : 22:21:59
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OK, I did something bone-headed. Pardon the long post, but it takes a bit of explanation.
Wanting to try to dual-boot on my new/old P1120 and see if Win2K would give me more speed over the installed WinXP, I used Partition Magic to put in a small Boot Magic (bootloader) partition and an empty partition awaiting Win2K. (Fujitsu still has Win2K drivers posted for all the hardware.)
And then, like a fool, I made the (empty) Win2K partition active.
Now, on startup, the P1120 boots to that empty but active partition and shows a WinXP splash screen, going nowhere. Of course it can't find WinXP, which is on the other partition.
The standard way to fix this is to run BootMagic's Rescue disk from the floppy drive. Ha ha, what floppy drive?
I have rescue floppies from BootMagic (made on my old Toshiba floppy drive through another computer) and WinXP and Win2k installation discs. However, in its current condition the P1120 will not recognize the Toshiba floppy (PCMCIA connection) or either an old Addonics (PCMCIA) or new LG CD-ROM drive (USB). The floppy, which connects and is easily recognized by my other laptop, buzzes briefly but doesn't get power (green light on) as it does from the other laptop.
I tried resetting the boot order in the BIOS on the devices--both floppy drive and CD drive first--but I suspect neither of them is being picked up through the PCMCIA slot or the USB.
I have also tried letting Boot Magic load what it thinks is XP in Safe Mode, Safe Mode with Command Prompt (ah, what I could do with a DOS prompt, but none appears onscreen) and Safe Mode with Networking. A long list of Windows components loads--lots of .dlls--and Networking seems to wake up the Addonics CD-ROM, but not enough to read the Windows install discs.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to access the hard drive enough to change the active partition? Otherwise I guess the next step is to take out the hard drive, connect it to another via USB enclosure, and
try to change the active partition that way. Failing that, format and reinstall the OS and drivers, which I understand is not easy.
So if anyone has a software fix for this software induced problem, I would be delighted to try it.
Also, opinions: Would getting the OEM Fujitsu floppy drive or CD-ROM drive somewhere make a difference?
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NuovoTech
Senior Member Member
USA
1312 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2008 : 00:51:42
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quote:
Would getting the OEM Fujitsu floppy drive...somewhere make a difference?
Yep, you could boot to a DOS prompt via the USB port with one of those & a boot disk. Worked well on my P2040, P2120 & P1610.  |
Edited by - NuovoTech on 03/04/2008 00:53:23 |
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sonic reducer
Starting Member
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2008 : 03:25:04
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I'm not so sure. I have a USB CD-ROM and a XP boot disk, but even with the BIOS set to try USB-CDROM first, BootMagic comes up, and BootMagic wants XP on the hard drive. Seems BootMagic inserts itself as the first priority in the boot sequence.
I'm thinking it might be easier to pull out the hard drive and use a IDE-to-USB adapter with another computer.
But here's one more thought. I don't see a command prompt on booting to Safe Mode with Command Prompt, but maybe it's just a display problem. Assuming there's a command prompt I can't see on the screen, what should I type in? XP doesn't seem to have good old FDisk. |
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NuovoTech
Senior Member Member
USA
1312 Posts |
Posted - 03/04/2008 : 05:30:58
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| To get a true MSDOS command prompt(not a mock one under XP) try a W98 startup disk in a USB floppy. You could also make a bootable CD with this image on a desktop. Once you get a command prompt, put in the Boot Magic disk... |
Edited by - NuovoTech on 03/04/2008 05:41:34 |
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sonic reducer
Starting Member
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 00:04:03
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Thanks for the encouragement, Nuovo. You're right, a USB floppy was recognized and I could boot to the A:> prompt and the Win98 diagnostics. The Partition Magic rescue disks are also bootable on their own from that USB floppy, with a rescue console.
Unfortunately, PM left me with its bootloader (80 MB partition called drive C:) and with my old WinXP intallation in an NTFS drive with no drive letter. Since there's no drive letter, I can't access it or Chkdsk it to fix an error detected (and probably created) by Partition Magic. Symantec graciously informed me that I should have backed up C: before using Partition Magic--which I guess is their concept of technical support. Apparently no one there knows how their program actually works, or how to fix things when it mislabels a partition. |
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NuovoTech
Senior Member Member
USA
1312 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 01:38:08
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| Why not install W2K(or any other OS) on that other partition, boot that & then fix your XP problems? You could also install the front end of Part'n Magic & fix your partition problems on the fly... |
Edited by - NuovoTech on 03/05/2008 01:39:06 |
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tmt
Advanced Member
2744 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 07:51:11
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quote:
Originally posted by sonic reducer
Unfortunately, PM left me with its bootloader (80 MB partition called drive C:) and with my old WinXP intallation in an NTFS drive with no drive letter.
Sounds like the NTFS partition has been "hidden" by PM. Try running it again and then
select "unhide", it should allow the partition to be seen by Windows again.
PM was bought by Symantec a bunch of years ago, along with all the other PowerQuest
products. Nobody there cares about them, support for the products basically vanished
shortly afterwards, in fact. They want to sell you Ghost.
Tom. |
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sonic reducer
Starting Member
USA
25 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 11:45:25
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Thanks, Tom. It's working again. There was no un-hide available in PM.
On another forum, there was a suggestion to use FDISK /mbr to fix the master boot record after BootMagic's bad magic. Tried it, what the heck. Then, when I looked at the disk info with FDISK again, the NTFS partition read as hidden, I un-hid it with FDISK, and voila.
Symantec could have suggested this if they gave a flying, uh, squirrel.
I appreciate everybody's help. |
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tmt
Advanced Member
2744 Posts |
Posted - 03/05/2008 : 13:29:47
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The unhide option (IIRC) is in the commandline utility. The PM GUI is rather
confusing but I'm pretty sure it's in there, too - somewhere.
Anyway, good news that fdisk saved the day.
Tom. |
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torbenm
New Member
Denmark
63 Posts |
Posted - 03/12/2008 : 10:03:09
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I once did something similar, and rescued the computer by moving the HD to an USB disk case and hooking this up to another computer, where I used Partition Magic to re-partioned it back to working form.
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Undoing Partition Magic and Boot Magic w/o floppy?
