Update: Messed Partition WinXP Boot: Suggested Next Steps?‏

[crashnburn]

Update: Messed Partition WinXP Boot: Suggested Next Steps?

ONLY PENDING ISSUE & QUESTION (related more to Partitions, Boot Records & Windows:
2) The Active WinXP Partition wont boot. But now instead of 'Error Loading Operating System', it’s a new Error which has a solution defined on MS Support site:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \system32\hal.dll"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

This looks like a promising fix...
What might you suggest I try?

PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THIS and advise.

QUESTION:
Do I go down this path of boot.ini fix as per MS Support? Or do I also try the FixBoot / FixMBR / BootCFG possibilities?

------------------------------------ Old Issue ------------------------------------
Messed Partition: Error Loading OS. Suggested Next Steps?‏
Messed Partition: Suggested Next Steps?‏

Hi.

Me:
I'll keep it brief. I'm fairly technical but havent played with multi-OSes & partitions in a while.

What I did:

- Booted off Live DVD - iPC OSX86 Final (Hackintosh) build on my Dell Inspiron 9300.
- The Live DVD installer did not detect or show my External USB HDD somehow and by mistake I did this...
- I erased the 47MB Dell Utility Partition via the Live DVD thinking it was the 48 GB Partition I had made on the External
- It was a QuickErase so the HDD / Partition was not wiped. Just its data points erased.

To Recover:

I used Active Boot Disk Partition Recovery tool to get back the lost UTILITY partition. Then HIDE the partition and ACTIVE the WinXP NTFS Partition.
Thinking it would work without flow.

Now:

I get "Error Loading Operation System".

Also did the WinXP Recovery Console (R) - REPAIR Option with FIXBOOT.

I see a lot of advise online on doing the following on commandline FIXMBR / FIXBOOT / New XP BootDisk.com with FDISK /MBR.

PLEASE ALSO REFER TO THIS LINK: This tool called DSRFix for Dell System / Utility Partitions.
http://www.notebookforums.com/thread149197.html
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/

But then I also saw the following testimonial on THIS site.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/comments.htm
unspecified), Dec '07
"Thank you for your DSRFIX tool!!! It worked like a charm on my clients Inspiron E1405 laptop. I was doing a virus removal when all of the sudden on a reboot I received "Error loading operating system." I then did a fixmbr and fixboot which which made everything worse. I created a bootable CD with the DSRFIX.iso and ran it from there. The only alert I had was that the mbr did not match. Ran the fix, checked report again and all was good. Rebooted and ctrl+F11 worked and restored the system. Thanks again for putting this tool out there saved a lot of headache!!!!!"

I would appreciate some guidance so as to get the following FIXED:

1) Get my WinXP Partition up and running again. Thats more important. (This is not my primary PC but my previous laptop so it has lots of important DATA and APPS & DATABASES that I need to slowly migrate)

2) If its not too much trouble... then attempt to get the DELL UTILITY partition working as well.

What do you suggest? Directions / Paths that I can take? Should I go the DSRFix route or run with simple FIXMBR/FIXBOOT etc?

Thanks & Regards

[RealBlackStuff]

I think you should rather post this in a Dell forum

[K0LO]

crashnburn:

The message "Error Loading Operating System" is found in sector 0 of the hard disk. If you see this message it means that the very first part of the boot process is failing. Translated, that means either that no partition is marked as Active, or else more than one partition is marked as Active in the partition table.

So fixmbr won't help (the boot code is obviously executing), nor will fixboot, which only modifies the XP partition's boot record (your boot process hasn't gotten that far yet).

You need to check again to verify that only the XP partition is active and no others are.

[crashnburn]

I've posted it to Dell forums as well. But I think right now the stuff may be more generic.

UPDATED ACTIVITY:
I ran DSRFIX 4 times.
I was able to find a funky way to finally Boot from Boot CD with DOS to avoid the HDD /80 /81 issue. Then change to the USB Flash Drive which had DSRFIX and run it from there.

CREATING & TESTING THE NEW DELL UTILITY PARTITION:
Recreating the Dell Utility Partition (http://www.goodells.net/dellutility/recreate.htm)
via the last method on this page... to Build a Utility Partition from the Dell Diagnostics Utility.

OUTCOME:
1) DELL UTILITY partition is WORKING GREAT!!! Thanks to the tutorial and guidance.

ONLY PENDING ISSUE & QUESTION (related more to Partitions, Boot Records & Windows:
2) The Active WinXP Partition wont boot. But now instead of 'Error Loading Operating System', it’s a new Error which has a solution defined on MS Support site:

"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \system32\hal.dll"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/330184
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314477

This looks like a promising fix...
What might you suggest I try?

PLEASE TAKE A LOOK AT THIS and advise.

QUESTION:
Do I go down this path of boot.ini fix as per MS Support? Or do I also try the FixBoot / FixMBR / BootCFG possibilities?

[RealBlackStuff]

It might work faster if you take the HD out, and attach it via a USB adapter to your PC.
Then check x:\boot.ini where x: is the laptop-drive.

[crashnburn]

It might work faster if you take the HD out, and attach it via a USB adapter to your PC.
Then check x:\boot.ini where x: is the laptop-drive.

I think I've got Bootable CDs / DVDs & Special Utilities that would allow me to go take a look at the existing Boot.ini in the Dell machine without having to remove the HDD. I'll check on that and post again.

Is there something else that you might be pointing towards.

[K0LO]

Again, fixmbr won't do a darn thing to help out because your laptop is indeed starting the boot process correctly.

Your problem is almost certainly an incorrect entry in boot.ini. Just edit the file manually as suggested.

[crashnburn]

2 files on the C:\

Backed them onto a USB Flash Drive.

Their dates / last modified dates were:

BOOT.INI.000 - 3/3/2010 (definitely before I messed with it)
BOOT.INI - 3/29/2010

Contents:

BOOT.INI.000

Code: Select all

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /maxmem=2000

BOOT.INI

Code: Select all

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /maxmem=2000

Thoughts & ideas? What happened and what needs to be done now?

[K0LO]

Change partition(3) in two places in your current boot.ini file to partition(n), where n is the partition's number. You mentioned previously that you had a partition recovery tool on a boot disk. Use this to view your current partition layout and figure out whether XP is in the first, second, or third partition. Insert this number in the boot.ini file.

You could also just try it; for example try 2. If that doesn't work try 1.

[crashnburn]

Did that already. Worked! Simple as that.. Thanks.

I used to be so comfy with all this partition table, mbr stuff. Its been ages since I played with that.