Adding boot.ini entry corrupts partition tables!?

[firefan]

[EDIT: Apparently, dual booting this way won't work unless I manually create a BOOTSECT.DOS file in C:\ to point to D:. However, why would the failed attempt corrupt the hard disk? Thanks.]

Hello,

I just received my new T42p (2373KTU) yesterday and I am trying to add a 2nd partition (FAT32) and make it MS-DOS 7.1 bootable. Using Partition Magic, I resized the factory XP partition to make it smaller and added a 2nd primary FAT32 partition at the end of it:

C: IBM_PRELOAD (NTFS) ~54GB
D: STUFF (FAT32) ~1GB
- IBM_SERVICE ~4GB

Booted to a DOS 7.1 (Win98 startup disk) floppy and did a SYS C: to make the FAT32 partition bootable (NTFS partitions are not accessible in DOS so DOS sees STUFF as C:). Went back to XP, edited my C:\BOOT.INI and added the following line under [operating systems]:

C:\ = "MS-DOS 7 (C)"
D:\ = "MS-DOS 7 (D)"

(Not sure if I should use C:\ or D:\, so I entered both to try). Shutdown and restarted my machine and selected MS-DOS (C) at the boot menu. Screen blanked and nothing happened, so I hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE to reboot. Upon reboot, I got a "Missing operation system" error message.

It appeared that all my partitions were corrupted somehow. I was no longer able to boot to XP or even to the IBM Rescue partition via the blue Access IBM key! FDISK (using DOS floppy) showed no partitions defined and disk had 55GB free.

I thought maybe I screwed up somewhere, so I restored the entire hard drive to the factory settings via the Restore CDs I made earlier. This time, *WITHOUT DOING ANYTHING ELSE*, I added C:\ = "TESTING" to C:\BOOT.INI, rebooted, and selected "TESTING" at the boot menu. The same thing happened!

So, apparently, merely adding an entry in C:\BOOT.INI (in this case, an invalid entry) and attempting to boot to it would somehow corrupt all partitions on a factory T42p. Does anyone know what is going on here?

Thanks!

[Bob Collins]

I'll venture a small guess here. Knowing a bit about NT, 2000, and XP, I think it is safe to say, when you sys-ed the C:\, you blew out the ntfs tables, which of course makes XP non-bootable.

I think too that you cannot make the D:\ a FAT32 that dos 7 will see, because I *THINK* there is a limit to where you can put a fat32 drive on a large disk.

I am sure your drive/partitions were not corrupted, they were just off the map, as it were, due to the sys activity. Most likely you could have booted to the XP install and repaired the install on the disk.

Offhand I cannot offer too much more, but I am sure Microsoft has many pages of info on Fat32, NTFS, and the like.

[Peter_S]

..rather than attempting to edit manually the boot.ini, let Partition Magic do the work for you, firefan!

When creating the partition for MS-DOS 7.1, and assuming you want this new partition to be bootable, you need to make that partition a primary partition. Also, be sure to mark the newly created partition as the active partition (only one primary partition may be active at one time), thereby ensuring the PC reboots to the newly created partition (your other primary partition, the one containing Windows XP, will be hidden by default). Once rebooted, you can easily install MS-DOS 7.1.

Lastly, use Partition Magic's Boot Manager tool to designate which operating system to boot from. Upon booting, the Boot Manager utility will display your two operating systems (and corresponding primary partitions) from a menu, and prompt you for your choice. Upon selection, the boot process will continue. Bear in mind, the menu of operating systems to boot from will be displayed upon every boot. If you only occasionally want to change operating systems, try using the PQBoot . This tool allows you to designate which primary partition is active (and therefore, which one to boot from). Once the active partition designation is changed, the PC will automatically shut down and reboot to the new primary partition.

p.s. firefan, I suggest you read Powerquest/Symantec's documentation on dual boot system setup. Their documentation is quite good and detailed.

[pdudas]

I think the Dos will not boot at all (in this way).

If I'm right you have a 60Gb Hdd.
There is a problem with the dos based systems, they cannot boot over the 1024 cylinder. I'm sure that your 54gb partiton os over the 1024cyl, and the partiton after this will not be bootable.

There is one solution: you have to lay all the necessary files on the XP partiton. If the partition type is NTFS, then you have to use a boot manager. You have to resize your XP partiton and lay the dos partiton before the Xp. Your dos will be below 1024 cyl, and the XP too.
Both of them will be bootable, and when you installed the dos you only have to make fixboot and fixmbr from the recovery console of your XP install CD (which is not in your hand if you have IBM thinkpad newer modell). Then you can edit the boot.ini as you wish.

There are some boot manager which play with the hidden/active primary partiton (you can install 127 primary partiton, but only one will active, others will be hidden).

[firefan]

Thanks for the help!

I am a bit concerned by the fact that just adding C:\ = "[anything]" in C:\BOOT.INI and attempting to boot to it corrupts my partition table. This is on the factory default hard disk (haven't modified any settings or added any partitions yet). I can recreate this problem everytime.

The only reason I can think of is that I know the IBM service partition is a FAT32 partition, and maybe IBM rewrites/modifies the partition table everytime it boots up (because of the Access IBM key/service partition feature etc.) and that attempting to boot to C:\ will somehow mess up the process and corrupt the partition table.