Recovering after failure with partitioning software?

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#31 Post by **GomJabbar** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:09 pm

Vypr wrote:Does the Recovery repair diskette program work with a USB flash drive?

Probably only one way to find out.

Maybe you'll get lucky and someone that has tried that will post.

Vypr · #32 Post by **Vypr** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 1:16 pm

I haven't bought a USB flash drive yet,

croooowe · #33 Post by **croooowe** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 7:50 pm

Vypr, your first question about the mucking with the MBR. I have partitioned a few Thinkpads and although several worked without incident but I would NOT recommned doing so without a way to fix it handy since the general failure rate is pretty high. Best two ways to fix it are the app previously mentioned or upgrading your RnR. Be sure to only resize the PRELOAD partition. As for the USB key made bootable, the app that is referenced previously will ask the user if they wish to change the drive letter so that gives hope, but as to whether it would be successful or not, I don't know yet.

Vypr · #34 Post by **Vypr** » Sat Mar 04, 2006 8:36 pm

croooowe wrote:Vypr, your first question about the mucking with the MBR. I have partitioned a few Thinkpads and although several worked without incident but I would NOT recommned doing so without a way to fix it handy since the general failure rate is pretty high. Best two ways to fix it are the app previously mentioned or upgrading your RnR. Be sure to only resize the PRELOAD partition. As for the USB key made bootable, the app that is referenced previously will ask the user if they wish to change the drive letter so that gives hope, but as to whether it would be successful or not, I don't know yet.

Ok, thanks.
Also if I set the Predesktop area to secure in the bios, will changinge the partition for the PRELOAD partition cause changes to the MBR?

yossarian · #35 Post by **yossarian** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 4:47 am

Remember not to use windows's drive manager to do any partitioning next time

I made this same mistake you did one time, but I had already made rescue discs and just rescue restored for the hell of it.

It might pay you to make a backup of your mbr next time and store that somewhere (and maybe the 'backup mbr and superblock of the windows drive) so that if it gets nuked somehow you can pop in a live cd and 'dd' it back.

mamamia · #36 Post by **mamamia** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 4:35 am

Vypr wrote:Is it possible to change the size of a partition without messing with the MBR? I'm also thinking about partitioning my hard drive, but still want to keep the functionality of the IBM service partition.

so, first thing-if you have the recovery cd's, don't worry about mbr. it's worthless/useless whatever. the cd's will restore it.

about partitioning: i used a two-step process.
get partition logic. you can download it from majorgeeks. it's bootable, so you can mess around. i first installed windows using the restore thing (cause i wanted the hidden partition ibm puts there), then used partition logic to split up the disk into two. it failed if you use the command partition and format, but just use the command partition (it's graphical, so "command" isn't really the right word).
then, you boot into windows. you will discover you cannot touch that partition (KB555056 if you look it up. microsoft says it was designed that way). oh well. just use diskpart, an utility they provide (at least for win xp, i think for win2k also).
you'll have to figure out how to use it, but it's command-line and really powerful.
some commands:
list disk -meaning obvious. lists the disks you have
list partition
select [disk/partition] X -X is the number. when you run list partition, it lists the different partitions, with a number in front of them. so to select, and make active, partition 1, for example, type "select partition 1"
then, you have to delete the partition.
delete partition override -be sure to use the override command. this gets you over the hump. now, you can either create a new partition using diskpart still, or just go to window's computer management, which will now be cooperative and let you mess with that partition

Vypr · #37 Post by **Vypr** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:00 am

mamamia wrote:so, first thing-if you have the recovery cd's, don't worry about mbr. it's worthless/useless whatever. the cd's will restore it.

I don't see the option to restore mbr when using the recovery cds. Is it automaticly done?

croooowe · #38 Post by **croooowe** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:34 pm

Recovery discs will wipe your system and rebuild everything including the MBR. What I think mamaia was saying is that as long as you have your Recovery discs you at least have a safety net, a way to start over and try again.

Vypr · #39 Post by **Vypr** » Mon Mar 06, 2006 5:39 pm

croooowe wrote:Recovery discs will wipe your system and rebuild everything including the MBR. What I think mamaia was saying is that as long as you have your Recovery discs you at least have a safety net, a way to start over and try again.

Ah ok. I'll just wait till I can find a way to boot the repair disk before I follow mamamia's method.

croooowe · #40 Post by **croooowe** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 12:22 am

I use Partition Magic 8 and as I said it's hit or miss as to whether the MBR will be in tact at the end. The best success I've had is to resize the drive and then exit and then open it again and set partitions. Baby steps seem to work. Regardless, whenever you're done partitioning and formatting, if you have RnR 2.0 or older installed you can install the latest version, 3.0 from the web, and that will fix your MBR as well.

Vypr · #41 Post by **Vypr** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 1:04 pm

croooowe wrote:I use Partition Magic 8 and as I said it's hit or miss as to whether the MBR will be in tact at the end. The best success I've had is to resize the drive and then exit and then open it again and set partitions. Baby steps seem to work. Regardless, whenever you're done partitioning and formatting, if you have RnR 2.0 or older installed you can install the latest version, 3.0 from the web, and that will fix your MBR as well.

I assume reinstalling RnR 3.0, which i have right now, will also fix the MBR as well?

croooowe · #42 Post by **croooowe** » Tue Mar 07, 2006 9:16 pm

Actually it doesn't. Not sure what it detects from the previous installation but even though that would seem to make sense, I haven't seen this work.

Vypr · #43 Post by **Vypr** » Fri Mar 10, 2006 10:07 pm

I tried booting the MBR repair disk off of a USB flash drive and it did not load, so I guess only way to use it is with a USB floppy drive.

Vypr · #44 Post by **Vypr** » Sun Mar 12, 2006 2:15 pm

Does anyone know if there is a way to view and edit the MBR? I don't want to buy a USB floppy drive, since I do not have a use for one.

Recovering after failure with partitioning software?

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