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Xwrapper3
03-12-2005, 01:17 AM
OK. I decided to give knoppix it own system so I can run windows xp and linux at the same time. After getting the hdd install up and running on the new system, I decided to reclaim my drive space on the windows xp system. So, I went into disk management and deleted the partition that my knoppix install resided. To shorten a long story, I now receive the error, as stated in the subject line of this posting, whenever I try to boot windows xp. I try to use the recovery console to fixmbr and I get a BSOD every time. I read, after searching to forum, that there's a way to do it from dos. I can't find any way to get a dos prompt from outside of windows. Any help with the perplexing problem would be especially appreciated. Upside is now I am exclusively using linux. Downside, everything else. :cry:

OErjan
03-12-2005, 09:38 AM
you should have done it the right way, uninstalled lino first THEN deleted everything.

/sbin/lilo -u
but as you did not, fixmbr and fixboot should work fron a XP recovery console. no idea wat is wrong.
have you tried to restart xp with the CD?
hmm, where did you place the Knoppix install? in the beginning or end of disk?

tom p
03-12-2005, 02:43 PM
The LILO man pages says: 99 invalid second stage index sector (LILO) - to me it seams LILO isn't installed correctly. Please post your disk layout and your /etc/lilo.conf file.

Thomas

OErjan
03-12-2005, 03:14 PM
yes but if you have read his post you know he just REMOVED that part of lilo. he left the part on mbr.

ssj2kite
04-07-2005, 04:13 AM
Sorry to bump this old thread, but I have the same error. I didn't even know that I was supposed to remove lilo first, and now I have this error. But I don't have my Windows install disk. Anything I can do to fix it? (running 3.8 live cd right now)

jjmac
04-07-2005, 12:08 PM
Look for a program called,

/sbin/install-mbr

It belongs to debs "mbr" package. It might be on your Knoppix cd and iv'e got no idea if it works !!!

Just on an initial test install to a blank fist sector, it seems to have a different type of bootstrap to what iv'e seen so far. Certainly different to the one OSR2 implements.

The __man__ page would be worth a read as well !

The FreeBSD installer has a facility to write out a mbr, a dummy install of that may help. That is, just do the motions untill you write a BSD bootstrap, then Ctr-C out of it.

You havn't said __what__ kind of windows you have... that may/may not be an issue. But it shouldn't be.

Have you a windows start-up disk, even an old one with fdisk on it.

fdisk /mbr

Allowing for no friggen windows funny business with magic fields and the like ..

any generic bootstrap should do the trick, someone elses, another box, etc

... knowing the kind of stuff that company gets upto though ... well, it's worth a try.

You haven't given much info really.

If you just deleted the partition, that is, removed its table entry before a reboot ... then ...

can you remember where it started and its size.

If it was a logical-extended, then it will likely start straight after the prior on. If it's any primary or primary-extended it also should just start straight after the previous.

Try just recreating the partition from within a Knoppix cd boot. Using cfdisk.

The data should still be there, it's just the table entry thats been wiped. A few experiments there wont hurt. As long as you don't try to reformate the area, or recreation.

If successfull ... look for a file called boot.0300 in the /boot directory. That will be a copy of your mbr before Lilo was installed there.

]# dd if=boot.0300 of=/dev/hda bs=512 count=1

will copy it back !.

Make a copy of your table as it is now, before hand though. Just in case. Write the rsult down on paper

]# cfdisk -Pt /dev/hda


Along with the output from just cfdisk, anf fdisk, for backup/comparision.


Possibly "qparted" may help, i havent used that either, but iv'e noticed people say it has helped them find deleted table entries for them, allowing for a recreation.



I'm not sure if the following is a crazy idea or not :), it probably is ... but ... if you can use a "hexeditor", the the following might help.

It's just my own OSR2 implemented bootstrap in hex.



-------------------------------------------------------

00000000 33 C0 8E D0 BC 00 7C FB 50 07 50 1F 3.....|.P.P.
0000000C FC BE 1B 7C BF 1B 06 50 57 B9 E5 01 ...|...PW...
00000018 F3 A4 CB BE BE 07 B1 04 38 2C 7C 09 ........8,|.
00000024 75 15 83 C6 10 E2 F5 CD 18 8B 14 8B u...........
00000030 EE 83 C6 10 49 74 16 38 2C 74 F6 BE ....It.8,t..
0000003C 10 07 4E AC 3C 00 74 FA BB 07 00 B4 ..N.<.t.....
00000048 0E CD 10 EB F2 89 46 25 96 8A 46 04 ......F%..F.
00000054 B4 06 3C 0E 74 11 B4 0B 3C 0C 74 05 ..<.t...<.t.
00000060 3A C4 75 2B 40 C6 46 25 06 75 24 BB :.u+@.F%.u$.
0000006C AA 55 50 B4 41 CD 13 58 72 16 81 FB .UP.A..Xr...
00000078 55 AA 75 10 F6 C1 01 74 0B 8A E0 88 U.u....t....
00000084 56 24 C7 06 A1 06 EB 1E 88 66 04 BF V$.......f..
00000090 0A 00 B8 01 02 8B DC 33 C9 83 FF 05 .......3....
0000009C 7F 03 8B 4E 25 03 4E 02 CD 13 72 29 ...N%.N...r)
000000A8 BE 46 07 81 3E FE 7D 55 AA 74 5A 83 .F..>.}U.tZ.
000000B4 EF 05 7F DA 85 F6 75 83 BE 27 07 EB ......u..'..
000000C0 8A 98 91 52 99 03 46 08 13 56 0A E8 ...R..F..V..
000000CC 12 00 5A EB D5 4F 74 E4 33 C0 CD 13 ..Z..Ot.3...
000000D8 EB B8 00 00 80 36 19 09 56 33 F6 56 .....6..V3.V
000000E4 56 52 50 06 53 51 BE 10 00 56 8B F4 VRP.SQ...V..
000000F0 50 52 B8 00 42 8A 56 24 CD 13 5A 58 PR..B.V$..ZX
000000FC 8D 64 10 72 0A 40 75 01 42 80 C7 02 .d.r.@u.B...
00000108 E2 F7 F8 5E C3 EB 74 49 6E 76 61 6C ...^..tInval
00000114 69 64 20 70 61 72 74 69 74 69 6F 6E id partition
00000120 20 74 61 62 6C 65 00 45 72 72 6F 72 table.Error
0000012C 20 6C 6F 61 64 69 6E 67 20 6F 70 65 loading ope
00000138 72 61 74 69 6E 67 20 73 79 73 74 65 rating syste
0000015C 65 6D 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 em..........
00000168 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
00000174 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
00000180 00 00 00 8B FC 1E 57 8B F5 CB 00 00 ......W.....
0000018C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
00000198 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
000001A4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
000001B0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 02 2B 5A 1D .........+Z.
000001BC CF C9

---------------------------------
This is my partition table starting at "0x1BE", don't use this bit.
----------------------------------
000001BE 00 01 01 00 0B FE 3F F6 3F 00 ........?.?.
000001C8 00 00 F8 8B 3C 00 80 00 01 F7 05 FE ....<.......
000001D4 7F EA 37 8C 3C 00 F4 CF 3B 00 00 00 ..7.<...;...
000001E0 41 EB A5 FE FF FE 2B 5C 78 00 18 64 A.....+\x..d
000001EC 83 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
----------------------------------
end of my table entries.
----------------------------------

000001F8 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA ......U.



That might seem a bit wierd, but hey, you never know ... as a last resought. You will need a hexeditor like "hexedit". And yes, it is a frig around. Any carriage returns or new-lines that sneak into the edit will much it up.


Then just do ...

dd if=<the-above> of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1

You should only need to copy the first "446" bytes in, not the whole 512. In fact, i would strongly recommend not to try more than 446 bytes.

One way to do the above ... copy out your first sector,

]# dd if=/dev/hda of=repair.img bs=446 count=1

Then bring it up in "hexedit", then edit the file with the above, save, then copy back.




jm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



sometimes,
damned if you do,
damned if you don't

Kater Karlo
04-07-2005, 01:51 PM
I had the sam problem with RED HAT9. I solved this Problem installing GRUB instead of LILO.

ssj2kite
04-08-2005, 02:55 AM
Well I tried install-mbr, and that didn't help. And I have no windows CD use, so I want to try GRUB.

So I go to root and type in grub-install, and it gives me a help menu, and says grub-install [options] install_device
I read what it said install_device is supposed to be, but I can't figure it out? Any help?

jjmac
04-08-2005, 12:57 PM
Kater Karlo,

>>
I had the sam problem with RED HAT9. I solved this Problem installing GRUB instead of LILO.
>>

Can't see how you could have, if the problem was the same.

ssj2kite needs a bootstrapper, not a loader (similar things, but also very different).

If the partition was deleted, making the secondary files and mbr backup unavailable. Just installing Grub instead wouldn't have replaced a working bootstrap. Reinstalling Linux and reinstalling Lilo or Grub would get things working. But on removal ... with out an original or otherwise bootstrap copy ...


ssj2kite,

Going by your original post i took it that you had both XP and Linux installed on the one hdd. With lilo installed to the mbr. Then you deleted the Linux partition with the intension of using all the drive for XP. Due to getting another "System", that you intended to run Linux on.

If thats correct ... then you have Lilo still on your mbr, but it wont boot because you wiped out the partition that held it's secondary files. The same would happen with any loader that was dependent on secondary files to boot. That includes both Grub and Lilo.

If you were to install a tmp Linux on the XP system, with the intent of reinstalling Lilo, or installing Grub to the mbr, so it would have a seconstage set to boot with. Well, that would likely work. But as you wiped the mbr backup that Lilo made with the original install, when you went to uninstall the loader, and thus the temp Linux install, you wouldn't have a viable bootstrap to replace on the mbr. Any backup made would be the existing Lilo first stage .... result ... back were you started.

Pity the "install-mbr" didn't work. And it sounds like you don't have a startup disk to rewite a bootstrap with.

I'd suggest a mention of this in the Windows section of these forums. As there might be someone there who knows of where you could get a working bootstrapper (mbr) from. And they may not have seen this thread. A vist to the "pcplus" forums might help too, for the same reason.

>>
Well I tried install-mbr, and that didn't help. And I have no windows CD use, so I want to try GRUB.
>>

As per the above, Grub wont help you here, as you need a bootstrap mbr (446 bytes).

Try this ...

]# dd if=/dev/zero of=edit_mbr.img bs=446 count=1

]# hexedit edit_mbr.img

type F1 for help ...

Use the text dump of my existing bootstrap above, and type it in verbatum. Only the first 446 bytes.

In hexedit, you will get an error everytime you accidently type anthing out of the 0 to 9 and a to f range. Type Ctr-S to save ..

A message comes up,

"Save changes (Yes/No/Cancel) ?"

As soon as i type yes i get ...

"Hexa string to search: ()",

So i just key enter and it saves.

The only thing that could happen is that it will be missing some special magic string that XP looks for, otherwise it wont boot. But, if you had XP booting with Lilo on your mbr that probably wont be the case.

After thats done, and checked against the above dump, just do ...


]# dd if=edit_mbr.img of=/dev/hda bs=446 count=1



As it is a working mbr bootstrap, and a typo is about the only real problem involved, it's probably worth the shot :)


jm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

jjmac
04-09-2005, 07:56 AM
Just two more ideas on this that i just remembered. And probably much simpler ...

#1: Put "Smart Boot Manager" on a floppy, boot with that, select your XP partition. Then restore the bootstrap from there.

#2: As the bootstrap is just going to load a first stage loader anyway, and XPs' will be on the first sector of the C:/ drive partition. Just replace the following with what ever partition the C:/ drive is on. In my case the first primary hda1.

. NB: As this is going to use a full 512 byte loader file, only copy it to a floppy, then boot via that. If you try copying it to hda, it will overwrite your table, which is not a good idea.

. Put a blank floppy in the floppy drive.

. Boot into Knopix cd/or hdd install Linux

]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 count=1

]# dd if=/dev/hda1 of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

Re-boot, go to bios and set sequence to look for a floppy drive boot first. Continue boot with floppy in drive.

Then use XPs' recovery facilities.



jm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

lotech
04-09-2005, 04:41 PM
I have the same problem when boot from a 3.8.1 HD install, I follow the same procedure as I did with 3.7, and I install to a standalone HD not shared with Win.

tr
04-09-2005, 04:42 PM
Well, I got once that L99 99 99 message with Baltix-Knoppix (Morphix). The reason was very simple: there was no /etc/lilo.conf at all!

-tapsa-

lotech
04-09-2005, 05:54 PM
I did a 2nd time install and it works, strange enough !

ssj2kite
04-10-2005, 03:28 AM
Well, I got rid of the L 99... error. I did what jimac said with rewriting the first 446 bytes, and now I get "Invalid Partition Table" whenever I try windows.
Help?

Harry Kuhman
04-10-2005, 04:08 AM
.... now I get "Invalid Partition Table" whenever I try windows....
The partition table is (was) in the remaining bytes of sector zero. You might try gpart and see if it can recreate your partition table for you.

ssj2kite
04-10-2005, 05:24 PM
gpart confuses me @_@ How am I supposed to recreate my partition table?

jjmac
04-11-2005, 01:11 AM
ssj2kite, Hi ...

Could you dump the output of,

]# cfdisk -Pt /dev/hda

And place the output between "code" tags please. That will show the current arrangement of how it actually looks, but in a humanised form.

>>
I did what jimac said with rewriting the first 446 bytes, and now I get "Invalid Partition Table" whenever I try windows.
>>

I guess you mean that you actually edited a "hexedit" file directly with my bootstrap dump ?

As long as you __only__ copied in the __first__ 446 bytes, it should be OK. If you copyed more than that, you will likely corrupt you existing table as result.

The output of the above cfdisk command will reveal that though.

The copying of Windows first stage loader to a floppy should work too.
To a floppy though, not the hdd, as a full 512 bytes will be being used.

The best way to have done that edit, would have been to "dd" copy the first sector out to a file, then do the edit, then "dd" copy it back. At least that way you will avoid any hidden newline characters that may arise if you tried to create an ordinary file, then edit it with hexedit.

And just a 446 byte copy would have been safer than a full 512 byte one. The only other thing would be a possible typo somewhere, possibly the 'active' bit for a table record has been unset some how. And the bios can't find a partition to go to ...

As well as the cfdisk out put, dump a full 512 byte copy of the first sector. I would be interested to get a direct look at it. Just to see exactly what may be going on.

To recreate your table, it will involve deleting, then recreating them directly using one of the fdisk tools. So having the correct numbers handy are obviously important in that respect. And it's important to __not__ reformate the associated filesystem(s). As that would kapputen everything.

I'm suspecting it is just something niggling, rather than major, so those dumps will reveal that.




jm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ssj2kite
04-11-2005, 02:23 AM
---Starting--- ----Ending---- Start Number of
# Flags Head Sect Cyl ID Head Sect Cyl Sector Sectors
-- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----------- -----------
1 0x80 1 1 0 0xDE 254 63 3 63 64197
2 0x80 0 1 4 0x07 254 63 1023 64260 156183930
3 0x00 0 0 0 0x00 0 0 0 0 0
4 0x00 0 0 0 0x00 0 0 0 0 0

jjmac
04-11-2005, 11:18 AM
Thanks for the dump,

My fdisk says that your first partition is typed as a "Del Utility" "0xDE".


What does a "Del Utility" do !!!!


I'm not sure how to interpret that, but its' got my __antenna__ up.

I would be very reluctant to delete/move it, with out knowing just what it __does___. Your vendor should be able to inform on that.

Your second partition is typed for a "ntfs" system "0x07".

The table looks fine to me, except for the "Del" thing ???, and having both partitions set "active".

The start/stop cylinders look ok ...

You have both partitions set "active" though,

>>
1 0x80
2 0x80
>>

You should only require one. Use fdisk or cfdisk to turn hda1 off, and leave hda2 as is.

In cfdisk, jut use the edit keys to highlight the first partition, then highlight the "[Bootable]" option at the bottom of your screen. Key <enter> to toggle that flag. Then save the changes.


If that fails, just reverse it. Set the first active, and toggle the second off. But that would seem a bit strange to me.


As you had a Linux on that disk, you probably have some unused free space now. cfdisk should show that as well.


jm

ssj2kite
04-11-2005, 08:45 PM
Well I already tried setting just 1 active, but that was before I redid the MBR section with the hexeditor.
And I don't have any free space, because I deleted hb2 (my former knoppix partition) and resized my hda2 (Windows XP partition) back to full size at the same time with Acronis Partition Expert.

But now I'll try setting only 1 active again.

ssj2kite
04-11-2005, 10:54 PM
Well I tried it, but when either of them were just primary by themselves, it just didn't load anything. Instead of where the error was supposed to be, nothing appeared.

jjmac
04-12-2005, 10:32 AM
Howdy ssj2kite,

Your certainly hanging in there with this.

>>
Well I tried it, but when either of them were just primary by themselves, it just didn't load anything. Instead of where the error was supposed to be, nothing appeared
>>

I'm not quite sure what your saying there.


There __both__ primary partitions, evey thing in the main boot sector is. They will just fulfill different purposes as per their "id" field. And thats just there so that any sw that deals with the table will know for what purpose that partition is to be used.

Normally, the main bootstrap will just sequence through the 4 possible records, looking for one that has its' first bytes top bit set. Which makes it show up as 0x80. When it finds that record, it will go to the first sector of that partition and load whatever it finds there into low ram, and give execution/control to it. Thats where the first stage loading basically starts.

So you should really only have one of those partitions "active". And, normally i would have thought it would need to be the "second" one.

After all, that is your Windows C:\ drive ???, is it not ?

So one would expect thats where the first stage loader would be found.

Assuming there is no __error__ in the edit you made using my dump. As you haven't revealed a lot about what you actually did, i can't be fully sure. That file certainly wont be liking any "carriage returns" or "new line" characters imbedded in it. Which could well be the case if it started as a text file. It really wants to start out as a copied image first, in order to avoid that possibility. And we are only talking of the first 446 bytes. And the two byte field at the end of that whole sector "55AA" also __must__ exist.

But then, i am saying "normally" ...

The "Del Utility" typing on that first partition, and the fact that both had active flags set worries me.

WHAT IS THE DEL UTILITY doing !!!!!!!

That needs to be found out. I have a very strong instinct that something is happening there that relates to all of this.

Untill that is discovered. Copy out the first sector, the full 512 bytes, of that second partition to a zeroed floppy. And try booting with that.

The idea being, that, that is normally the eventual purpose of the bootstrap process anyway. So, for convenience , as that stage is proving to be a problem, bypass it and go straight to the main loader. It works on my system !. But then, i don't have a "Del Utility" partition lurking mysteriously at the front of my drive !

Don't copy the full 512 bytes to your disk, of course, you'll wipe ouy your table.


>>
And I don't have any free space, because I deleted hb2 (my former knoppix partition) and resized my hda2 (Windows XP partition) back to full size at the same time with Acronis Partition Expert
>>

I will assume by "hb2" you actually mean "hda3". Otherwise were talking two different disks :).

Acronis Partition Expert -->

I don't trust those gizmos very much at all. As long as they are the very latest versions. Which they will need to be to be fully aware of "ntfs" systems. ntfs is designed to be difficult to manipulate without MS's licencencing.

>>
it just didn't load anything. Instead of where the error was supposed to be, nothing appeared.
>>

Could you elaborate a little. I find it very vague.

No error/message output at all ?
Just blank ?

Try the floppy boot, and get some handle on that Del Utility thing. It really dosen't make sense ... (it should be working)

Don't use any more tools like "Acronis Partition Expert" untill it's soughted as to just whats going on too. They can't be totally ruled out of the picture to easily.


jm

ssj2kite
04-12-2005, 10:45 PM
So you're saying make a floppy with the first 512 bytes of my Hard drive?
Well if I can find some spare floppies, I still don't know how to do that <_<

And by my other post, I meant that if only the Del Utility partition is primary, I got no error at all, just nothing. Same with when the other one was just primary.

ssj2kite
04-13-2005, 04:26 AM
I will assume by "hb2" you actually mean "hda3". Otherwise were talking two different disks Smile.
Uh, qtparted says that I have hda, hdb, and hdc. hdb2 is where it says an ext2 partition was, so I'm not sure if that means it's on 2 disks or not.

jjmac
04-13-2005, 12:44 PM
No, i'm __not__ saying to copy your first hard disk drive sector to floppy.!!!!!!!!

No where in the post above do i say that.

And going by those drive letters, you installed Linux on your second drive, while you had XP on your first drive.

And you __resized__ your XP ... which would have been completely unneccessary.

In fact, having Linux on its' own second drive, as it appears was the case, would have been the smart thing to do.

That way you wouldn't have needed to touch XP.

If so, why did you resize your XP ???

I suspect that your bootstrapper may have been specialised. I suspect that it may have actually worked with that first partition, the one marked as a Del Utility.


To zero a floppy from a LiveCD

]# <----- root command prompt.

]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 count=1440

Done for neatness and to get rid of cruff.


Have a look at both those partitions ...

copy the ist sector of that ist partition out and have a look at it in a hexeditor.

Has it got any strings that have anything to do with XP or NTFS, they will likely be at the beginning of the drive.

To copy do the same as the below, but change hda2 to hda1

Try ...

]# dd if=/dev/hda2 of=test.img bs=512 count=1

Look for signs of an XP or NTFS system. Short strings at the beginning of the file.

If found copy the test.img to a zeroed floppy, __only___

Try the floppy.

Be very carefull with "dd". It is a right bugger when it's used haphazardly. It will wipeout whatever it's pointed at, so don't get thost "if=" and "of=" switches back to front.


I'll have to copy these pages and have a good look at them tomorrow. Iv'e had heaps to do today. And as there seems to be some contradictions in this i will have a better look at these posts and get back to you.

I really do think something funny is going on with this Del Utility thing.

And i can't even guess as to why you would want to resize your XP when the Linux install __apparently__ is going on another disk.

Get on to the pcplus site, there is sure to be someone knowing of Del issues there. It maybe the quickest/easiest thing to do.


>>
if i can find a floppy...
>>

You choice.

When you say "i tryed that" could you describe it more fully. And the "same" error, could you come up with the exact ___verbatum___ output/occurance. And "blank" what !

You are only providing me with incomplete information, such as the hda hdb thing thats just come into it.




jm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~

ssj2kite
04-13-2005, 09:54 PM
Well my XP partition said it was like 74 gigs big, so I needed room for knoppix, so I resized it and made a new partition to have room. Then when I deleted the knoppix partition I also resized my windows one, so it's like 74 gigs.

Also, I think I found the root of my problems. After the first 446 bytes, it's all blank. When I did the dd thing for hda2, everything is just blank after 446.

And when I say no error at all, I mean that insttead of "L" where "L 99 99 99".. would start, I just get nothing.

jjmac
04-14-2005, 12:55 AM
Hullow ssj2kite,


Lets get a few things very clear ...


On Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 7:45 pm you said ...

>>
and I don't have any free space, because I deleted hb2 (my former knoppix partition) and resized my hda2 (Windows XP partition) back to full size at the same time with Acronis Partition Expert.
>>

To which i queried the apparent "hb2" typo. And you responded by saying ...

Posted: Wed Apr 13, 2005 3:26 am
>>
Uh, qtparted says that I have hda, hdb, and hdc. hdb2 is where it says an ext2 partition was, so I'm not sure if that means it's on 2 disks or not.
>>

To which i said ...

>>
And going by those drive letters, you installed Linux on your second drive, while you had XP on your first drive.
>>

And now you say
>>
Well my XP partition said it was like 74 gigs big, so I needed room for knoppix, so I resized it and made a new partition to have room. Then when I deleted the knoppix partition I also resized my windows one, so it's like 74 gigs
>>

qtparted is saying "hdb2 is where it says an ext2 partition was, "

hdb2 is the SECOND drive, not the FIRST.

It is saying that you apparently installed Linux on your second disk. Which suggests that there must be a second disk there. And on the second partition of that disk



hda <---------1st ide drive
hdb <---------- 2nd ide drive
hdc <--------- 3rd ide drive
etc
etc


Lift the lid and have a look.

>>
Also, I think I found the root of my problems. After the first 446 bytes, it's all blank. When I did the dd thing for hda2, everything is just blank after 446.
>>

WHAT !

Get this very straight. You did not "do the dd thing for hda2" as i suggested at all. This isn't a game m8 !

dd is one of the most singular usefull, and at the same time dangerous unix programs a person can use. It is quite capable of wiping out your whole disk !!!.

My suggestion was to copy the loader from hda2 to a FLOPPY DISK not to your HARD DRIVE which it would seem you have. !!!!

The loader on hda2 is a 512 byte file. Didn't that ring a bell at all. What do you think the references to 446 bytes previously was all about.

Of course you wouldn't have a friggin table. And your statement is AGAIN contradictory.

>>
After the first 446 bytes, it's all blank. When I did the dd thing for hda2,
>>

As the "hda2 thing" as you put it, involves a 512 byte file, NOT a 446 file, copyed to FLOPPY, not to the HARD DRIVE ... how could you have a blank area.

Can you see that !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is apparent that you have a very lazy attitude to your own problem. You haven't read the above information very well, you introduce elements that would have been helpful earlier, much later, for some strange reason. And you describe what your doingin a contradictory way

If everything is "blank" after 446 bytes on your mbr now, then it must have been done after you dumpt the table with ...

cfdisk -Pt /dev/hda

And luckily its posted here, because i would bet a dollar that you didn't put it on paper.

Guess what, no "table", no drive honey !!!

I'm only going to suggest this .....

Boot into Knoppix. Login as root. Invoke "cfdisk", stay in console mode.

cfdisk /dev/hda

Are there any partitions there. ??? no

Recreate them using your dump, in sector mode ...




#1 type 0xDE Size in sectors 64197
#2 type 0x07 size in sectors 156183930

Save that. !

Check it, or if you prefer, use "fdisk". Use fdisk to check any way. Make sure the cylinder start/stop points match, and the same sector start/size points match.

DO NOT REFORMAT THE DRIVE, you will wipe out your ntfs filesystem.


>>
When I did the dd thing for hda2,
>>

You do mean based on my most recent post above, and you do mean you copyed it to your drive and not as suggested to a floppy.

:roll:

I 'm not going to get into this guessing game any more.

Were not talking face to face, if you can't see why there is a need for elaborate communication in things like this, and why it's neccessary to read the posts carefully, and not to do things with out actually __thinking__ first. What can i do :roll:

Do a google on "Dell Utility" ...

Have a look at ...

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?cat=all&s=gen&c=us&l=en&cs=&k=0XDE+Dell+
Utility+Partition&x=0&y=0

Sub heading on page: utilities partition.
The following snip from the email ...

>>
Michael and I were just talking about this again. There are a few more
things you can/should do.
1) There's a Dell-custom set of loader code in the MBR (sector 0) of the
disk that does the UP/not-UP toggle. I'm not sure if it goes beyond the
first sector or not.
>>

Notice how it suggests that the Dell mbr bootstrap is possibly specialised.

When you restore that "table", you will then have to gothrough the whole bootstrap replacement process again.

Get the table back, do the hda2 thing again. This time to a floppy disk !. Take the lid off and resolve qtparted's hda hdb stuff.

Post to pcplus etc ...

Very Good Luck m8, no offence ment if i sounded harsh.


jm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~

ssj2kite
04-14-2005, 02:52 AM
Well since I undertsnad almost none of what you've said before, <_<, I guess I just have to study this a lot. But I think I found a backup of my MBR on my hdb5 partition. So I'll try restoring it and see if that works.

ssj2kite
04-14-2005, 03:13 AM
Ok, now I'm posting this before studying what you posted, jimac.

So I replaced the first 512 bytes of /dev/hda with a backup I found of it. Now I just get this when starting windows

MBR 123FA:

When I press anything on my keyboard other than "a" or "f", nothing happens. But when I press "a", it changes to

MBR 1234F:

And when I press "f" or press "f" after I've pressed "a" I just get an invalid system error (I can't remember what the exact error said) And it says right after the error to press any key. But before I have the chance to press anything, another error comes up telling me that it could not find "NTLDR".

So now I'm going to study your posts, jimac, and google around for this MBR 123FA: thing.

jjmac
04-14-2005, 12:02 PM
Hi ssj2kite,

No offence meant there, above. I was feeling somewhat frustrated by what i was reading back though.

>>
Well since I undertsnad almost none of what you've said before, <_<, I guess I just have to study this a lot.
>>

ok, the direct comunication point is really tricky. It can be touch and go sometimes trying to figure where the other person is coming from. But if the communication is elaborate, then it is easier to know what kind/level of response to approach with.

Some people will get qite smifed if the response is to simpified. So ... it ain't easy :).

Most howto's on question asking will point out the need to be explicit, and to include all information, including relevant output dumps.

>>
another error comes up telling me that it could not find "NTLDR".
>>

That might be saying that the first stage loading is occuring, at least to a degree. iirc, i've seen that file mentioned before in similar situations as to yours.

I think it may be part of your XPs' second stage loader set, for a ntfs. That is, the 1st stage can't find that file for some crazy reason that only makes sense in MS land. Which, in a way, could be thought of as progress. In that at least the 1st stage maybe successfully being referenced. It's only job is to "get" a second stage set to drag in and give control to.

Out of curiosity, dump that so called back-up file in total here. I for one would be curious to see what it looks like. And an associated cfdisk -Pt dump as well. Also, take the lid off your box and have a look to see how many hard drives you have. That qtparted output you mention is saying you have at least two !

The implicaton of which has already been mentioned, (grin)


>>
So now I'm going to study your posts, jimac, and google around for this MBR 123FA: thing.
>>

Yes .. google on all this. And contact your vendor for advice, or Dell directly. Even to walk into a computer shop right off the street. Admittedly they don't like that, but what the heck. If they are helpfull, they might have just encouraged some future custom. It has worked for me at times.

Also do a google, inquire on this

"Dell Utility"

partition/facility you have.

That may well be the key.

Do enquire on www.pcplus.co.au as well, go to their forums. They have a lot of people there well experianced in Windows/2000/XP etc issues, including "disk overlays" etc.

Don't keep writing things to your boot sector though. The potential for turning poached eggs into scrambled eggs just increases each time :). Work/boot from a floppy instead!!!

My experiance with secret Dell partitions, overlays and ntfs is very limited m8, and i can't really add much to what already has been said.

Post back though on progress, abd dump those outputs :)

Good Luck.


jm

ssj2kite
04-14-2005, 08:33 PM
Ok, well at the moment I don't have any floppies, and since my rather limiting situation, I can't get any till Monday.


root@1[knoppix]# cfdisk -Pt
Partitionstabelle von /dev/hda

---Starting--- ----Ending---- Start Number of
# Flags Head Sect Cyl ID Head Sect Cyl Sector Sectors
-- ----- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----------- -----------
1 0x00 1 1 0 0xDE 254 63 3 63 64197
2 0x80 0 1 4 0x07 254 63 1023 64260 156167865
3 0x00 0 0 0 0x00 0 0 0 0 0
4 0x00 0 0 0 0x00 0 0 0 0 0


There's the cfdisk dump, and here comes the mbr backup file I found:


00000000 33 C0 8E D0 BC 00 7C FB 50 07 50 1F 3.....|.P.P.
0000000C FC BE 1B 7C BF 1B 06 50 57 B9 E5 01 ...|...PW...
00000018 F3 A4 CB BD BE 07 B1 04 38 6E 00 7C ........8n.|
00000024 09 75 13 83 C5 10 E2 F4 CD 18 8B F5 .u..........
00000030 83 C6 10 49 74 19 38 2C 74 F6 A0 B5 ...It.8,t...
0000003C 07 B4 07 8B F0 AC 3C 00 74 FC BB 07 ......<.t...
00000048 00 B4 0E CD 10 EB F2 88 4E 10 E8 46 ........N..F
00000054 00 73 2A FE 46 10 80 7E 04 0B 74 0B .s*.F..~..t.
00000060 80 7E 04 0C 74 05 A0 B6 07 75 D2 80 .~..t....u..
0000006C 46 02 06 83 46 08 06 83 56 0A 00 E8 F...F...V...
00000078 21 00 73 05 A0 B6 07 EB BC 81 3E FE !.s.......>.
00000084 7D 55 AA 74 0B 80 7E 10 00 74 C8 A0 }U.t..~..t..
00000090 B7 07 EB A9 8B FC 1E 57 8B F5 CB BF .......W....
0000009C 05 00 8A 56 00 B4 08 CD 13 72 23 8A ...V.....r#.
000000A8 C1 24 3F 98 8A DE 8A FC 43 F7 E3 8B .$?.....C...
000000B4 D1 86 D6 B1 06 D2 EE 42 F7 E2 39 56 .......B..9V
000000C0 0A 77 23 72 05 39 46 08 73 1C B8 01 .w#r.9F.s...
000000CC 02 BB 00 7C 8B 4E 02 8B 56 00 CD 13 ...|.N..V...
000000D8 73 51 4F 74 4E 32 E4 8A 56 00 CD 13 sQOtN2..V...
000000E4 EB E4 8A 56 00 60 BB AA 55 B4 41 CD ...V.`..U.A.
000000F0 13 72 36 81 FB 55 AA 75 30 F6 C1 01 .r6..U.u0...
000000FC 74 2B 61 60 6A 00 6A 00 FF 76 0A FF t+a`j.j..v..
00000108 76 08 6A 00 68 00 7C 6A 01 6A 10 B4 v.j.h.|j.j..
00000114 42 8B F4 CD 13 61 61 73 0E 4F 74 0B B....aas.Ot.
00000120 32 E4 8A 56 00 CD 13 EB D6 61 F9 C3 2..V.....a..
0000012C 49 6E 76 61 6C 69 64 20 70 61 72 74 Invalid part
00000138 69 74 69 6F 6E 20 74 61 62 6C 65 00 ition table.
00000144 45 72 72 6F 72 20 6C 6F 61 64 69 6E Error loadin
00000150 67 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 69 6E 67 20 g operating
0000015C 73 79 73 74 65 6D 00 4D 69 73 73 69 system.Missi
00000168 6E 67 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 69 6E 67 ng operating
00000174 20 73 79 73 74 65 6D 00 00 00 00 00 system.....
00000180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
0000018C 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
00000198 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
000001A4 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
000001B0 00 00 00 00 00 2C 44 63 9E 6E C9 9D .....,Dc.n..
000001BC 00 00 00 01 01 00 DE FE 3F 03 3F 00 ........?.?.
000001C8 00 00 C5 FA 00 00 80 00 01 04 07 FE ............
000001D4 FF FF 04 FB 00 00 B9 EE 4E 09 00 00 ........N...
000001E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
000001EC 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ............
000001F8 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA ......U.


Now I have googled my error, and I didn't find much. I got 4 results googling MBR 123FA:, and lots of results googling Can't find NTLDR, but all of them say with XP to boot up with the XP CD, which I don't have.

And right now I would look under the hood of my machine, but I really think I might just mess something up and have a dead computer. I've just never done it before.

jjmac
04-15-2005, 11:42 PM
Howdy ssj2kite

Thanks for the dumps, the basic table layout looks fine. There is no problem with those two record. You have the ntfs partition set active. In all normal cases that should work. dson't change/ater that table., make sure the wjole sector is backed up to a floppy. A must do !!!.

The table records inthe mbr dump, agree with the cfdisk humanised output. You have the required "hex 55AA" field as the last two bytes, also required.

The actual bootstrapper looks simlar to my own, but it's also significantly different. Where did you find it ???

If thats still not booting, .... if the message is along the lines of it cant find that ntdir file, i didn't look back to make sure i spelled that correct, but you know what i mean ... i would suspect that it is probably successfully referencing the 1st stage loader on the XP partition, but it can't find it's secondary file(s). Which dosen't make a lot of sense. If it is finding its' 1st stahe, then the table geometry is OK. If it can't find its' secondary file(s), then they must have been corrupted some how. But how would that have happened.

What i think, i think it is all to do with that 1st "Dell Utility" partition, which i know very little of.

You will have to find out about that partition, and what its' role is. As, hat else could it be, why is it there anyway.

Experiment with this, but work of floppies, don't go overighting your mbr untill you find the right mix on a floppy first. There is no way out of the floppy issue, there a __must__ have.

www.pcplus.co.uk

Lots of very experienced Windows people there, who have assisted me with my OSR2 when i screwed it a while a go.

On the rescue/installation cdroms ...

That is __your__ property, not the vendors. They require a keycode to use, that you should get with you OEM purchase.

Why hasn't the vendor given you those disks. They belong to you and will fix your problem.

What is the vendor doing with payed for, in your nam, installation disks, plus their unlocking code ... ummm, i wonder !!!!

The vendor is doing something "illegale" to hold them back. It is not a favour on their part to provide them, as they are yours in the first place.

jm

ssj2kite
04-16-2005, 12:59 AM
About the installation CD roms, I just don't know where they are. So they people who I got the compuer from don't have them either.

And when you say "If it can't find its' secondary file(s), then they must have been corrupted some how.", I think I might know how that happened. After I deleted my knoppix partition, and found out Windows wouldn't load, I did try to remake the partition by just resizing my hda2 (windows) one in cfdisk, although it didn't work, and I have yet to try it again, but it made it si Knoppix couldn't mount/read my windows partition. It says (translated from german or w/e language it is, because I'm on the CeBIT edition), That it couldn't figure out what file system type it was. So I'm not sure if that means I killed NTLDR or what.

And I found the MBR backup thing in an hdb5 partition, it had a folder called "bootwiz", then a file "bootwiz.sys", then in the bootwiz folder, it had around a dozen files with the word "boot" in the name, and an MBR backup called "mbrbacks.dat". Strangley enough, there is a file called fdisk.exe on the partition, but whenever I try to run it, WINE starts and resizes my screen to 640x480 and turns it all black, then I have to log out and relogin to knoppix.

jjmac
04-16-2005, 01:06 PM
>>
And when you say "If it can't find its' secondary file(s), then they must have been corrupted some how.", I think I might know how that happened. After I deleted my knoppix partition, and found out Windows wouldn't load, I did try to remake the partition by just resizing my hda2 (windows) one in cfdisk, although it didn't work,
>>

ntfs is by design, a very touchy fs. Mainly due to the way it uses meta-data. MS wont tell any one just how it works.

___Never____

just resize a partition using one of the fdisk tools. You may get away with an expansion with a fat fs, but even then ...

___Never___

resize down. You must use a tool designed for that action as the fs needs to be adjusted for the new partition size.



===========================================

>>
And I found the MBR backup thing in an hdb5 partition,
>>

Can you see that hdb is a second disk !, and hda is your first disk !

Two seperate drives. You didn't need to resize, in the first place. If you do only have the one hdd, then something very strange is going on.

===========================================


At least you have those files you found.

Have you got a m8 that has Linux on their hdd. Could you take out your disk and put it in their machine for scrutiny. You did mention that you were getting another system ...

You will likely have to run those dos files from a floppy, which means you need a win startup floppy you can copy them from. If you describe your problem to one of the tech starff at the place were you purchased your Dell, they mighy be able to put together a boot disk for you. As long as you have your reciepts, OEM code etc.

Much progress on the "Dell Utilities" front ?


jm

jjmac
04-17-2005, 09:08 AM
Something on the "how many disks" issue ...

Have a look in,

/proc/ide

You should find a number of sub-directories describing the current disk state.

ide0 ... 1st ide controller
ide0 ... 2ndide controller

If there not ide then they will be named accordingly.

There should also be some symlinks pointing to the directories which relate to what ever disks are there.

A cdrom may also show up there as well.


jm

ssj2kite
04-18-2005, 05:37 AM
Well I have an ide0 and an ide1, but ide0 has hda and hdb in it, and ide1 has hdc (cd drive) in it. So that means it's 1 disk, or it's 2 being used as 1.

ssj2kite
04-19-2005, 12:04 AM
Heya, I just got 2 floppies!!!!

So, you said before you I should copy my first 512 bytes (mbr) to a floppy, and boot from that. So could you maybe give me instructions on exactly how to do it, otherwise I would probably mess up.

jjmac
04-21-2005, 02:00 AM
Heya, I just got 2 floppies!!!!

So, you said before you I should copy my first 512 bytes (mbr) to a floppy, and boot from that. So could you maybe give me instructions on exactly how to do it, otherwise I would probably mess up.



Howdy ssj2kite,

2 floppys (grin),

Well, i suggest you read over the previous posts really well.


>>
Well I have an ide0 and an ide1, but ide0 has hda and hdb in it, and ide1 has hdc (cd drive) in it. So that means it's 1 disk, or it's 2 being used as 1.
>>


Yes, i know it has hda and hdb in it ... what are in those !!!! not enough info m8. It's always incomplete !!!.

What does,

/proc/ide/ide0/hda/model say
/proc/ide/ide0/hdb/model say


On face of it. it seems you have two hard drives and 1 cdrom !,

In other words the resizing of XP wasn't neccessary. You must have __some__ documentation from your OEM that lists what you actually bought!


It's been a hectic week, this week :)


>>
So, you said before you I should copy my first 512 bytes (mbr) to a floppy, and boot from that.
>>


What i'm basically saying is that you are better off working from a "floppy" as then you wont be mucking up your primary boot sector as a result experimental fix attempts. Which just makes things worse.

And to work everything out before hand, before actually doing anything specific. Even on paper if possible. Double check what your doing and make __back ups__

It's the safest way to go about this.

As you already know, the mbr is a somewhat sensitive area.

It's already been stated but ...

As root,

Put floppy in drive, and zero it...

]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/fd0 bs=1024 count=1440

Copy mbr to a floppy ...

]# dd if=/dev/hda of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

The whole first sector is now on the floppy. Both bootstrap and table. To get only the bootstrap use ...

bs=446 count=1

Somewhat better though, copy the mbr (bootstrap + table) or (just bootstrap) to a disk image. Which allows you to open it in a hexeditor to make edits. A hexeditor __only__. Though it means working with hex, and it is prone to error. So double check any of that first. If the image that your working with on the floppy has problems, then __don't__ copy it to your mbr. It must work off the floppy first.

]# dd if=/dev/mbr of=mbr-test.img bs=512 count=1

To get the image on the floppy do ...

]# dd if=mbr-test.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=512 count=1

The same variation apply to the bs= and count= switches.

If you think the floppy might have cruft on it that may get in the way, zero it.

You are going to need more than two floppys i think ssj2kite :)

Be very carefull with "dd". It is a very powerful and obiediant utility, and you will be using it as either "root" or as "su root" (super-use), i would suggest the later.

If you point "dd" at a file/device and get the switches back to front etc ... you can easily trash your whole system, so, caution !

How did it go on the "Dell Utilities" issue. Have you looked into that. As i think that may the crucial thing that is preventing you from recovering your system, as normally, what already has been tryed should have worked.

Was pcplus forums helpfull, they will have much better experiance with things concerning secret OEM partitions on windows system than i would. And you are probably just doing yourself a diservice by not cheking into that enquirery as a result.

www.pcplus.c.uk/forums


jm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~



Ever notice that this planet is the only one in the solar system,
That's named after dirt ?!

ssj2kite
04-21-2005, 04:29 AM
Ok, well I basically just killed 2 floppies ._. So, tomorrow I'm going to get 4 maybe and try that Smart Disk Manager thing and the rest of what's in your other post. I'm going to post for help on PCplus if the Smart Boot manager thing doesn't work.

ssj2kite
04-22-2005, 12:10 AM
Um, some help getting Smart Boot Manager to work? It confuses the life out of me ;-;

Harry Kuhman
04-22-2005, 12:20 AM
Um, some help getting Smart Boot Manager to work? It confuses the life out of me ;-;
Strange, it's so easy i'm not sure what you might want explained. I'll give it a shot, but you might want to try asking a question.

For making a boot floppy: Start a "DOS box", do not run it directly from windows. Run it once. look at the options it prints out. You should see options that let you select a language and that let you install it to floppy. Insert a blank floppy in the drive, type the installer name with the options that tell it to write to floppy, In a few seconds you have a SBM floppy that you can use to boot a CD on a computer where the BIOS does no support that.

For installing it on the hard drive MBR: do the same steps as above, but use the command line option to install to the first hard drive.

In either case you reboot and run SBM from a floppy or hard drive MBR. A simple text menu is displayed. Select the first CD drive to boot the CD. Select the first hard drive partition to boot the OS installed there (don't select the hard drive itself if you instaled to hard drive, that just reloads SBM).

That's really all there is to it.

ssj2kite
04-22-2005, 08:23 AM
That would work, but all I can run right now is LiveCD Knoppix 3.8, if I could access windows to run DOS I wouldn't have the problem I currently have right now.
Or maybe if I knew exactly what you meant by ""DOS box", do not run it directly from windows", because I don't think I can run DOS outside of windows @_@ *is still a newb*

Harry Kuhman
04-22-2005, 04:10 PM
That would work, but all I can run right now is LiveCD Knoppix 3.8, if I could access windows to run DOS I wouldn't have the problem I currently have right now.
Or maybe if I knew exactly what you meant by ""DOS box", do not run it directly from windows", because I don't think I can run DOS outside of windows @_@ *is still a newb*
I had assumed that you had access to DOS and/or Windows because you were trying to get SBM installed to a floppy and that's sometimes something people need to do on an older machine before they can get a CD to boot. I'm still a little puzzled by how you're running Knoppix, but I'm not too concerned about it.

By "DOS box" I meant running DOS as a "shell" under windows, complete with the prompt. Under Win98 it's done by the Start menu -> Programs -> MS DOS prompt. Under Xp and other flavors of Windows the wording may be a little different but it's still there. If windows will not run at all, yes, you can still run just DOS. Versions of DOS even before Windows will boot from a floppy just fine. The Win 95 and 98 "recovery flopiess" that Windows wants to make when installed are bootable DOS floppiess with a lot of extra tools on them. If you just have XP then this gets a bit harder, but there are still options like The Free DOS project (http://www.freedos.org/) that can be used to make a legal free bootable copy of DOS that will run the SBM installer. This may be a bit harder to do if you don't currently have a working MS OS, so it's always a good idea to be sure that you make some kind of bootable DOS floppy before Windows dies, but I expect there is some way to make the floppy from inside Linux (maybe with Wine?).

If you go back to the SBM download page there are actually a lot of different installers available, the "hardest" part for some people might be selecting the proper installer for their system. I was assuming that you were trying to work with the installer intended for MS DOS and Windows. But if I recall right there was one or more installers that would run from Linux too. I haven't used them and so can't give you directions on use, but given the straight forward nature of the MS installer I expect that the installer for Linux should be just as easy to use.

ssj2kite
04-23-2005, 03:33 AM
Well, I got FreeDOS onto a floppy, and found the Smart Boot Manager thing, but I saw no options to fix my mbr or anything. except for one Restore Repvious MBR option, which didn't do anything, and I saw the "Install Smart Boot Manager" option, but it did nothing.

Then I ran it in DOS mode, and I tried fdisk /fixmbr, and other fdisk help things, but it didn't work.

So, you know the command to fix a master boot record in FreeDOS?

Harry Kuhman
04-23-2005, 04:15 AM
..... I got FreeDOS onto a floppy, and found the Smart Boot Manager thing, but I saw no options to fix my mbr or anything.....
When the sbm installer is run with the option to install it to floppy (-d 0), it installs SBM to the MBR. It's not going to "fix" your MBR, whatever that means, except in the sense that it will install a pretty hand boot laoder there, overwriting whatever else was there. There are other options (as you already know if you followed the above instructions), and one of them allows the user to make a copy of the current MBR that could be rewritten later. But if you don't already have such a backup copy of the MBR, nothing's going to "fix" it, except by installing something there. I'm sure there are other tools in FreeDOS that will write to the MBR, but I see no point in confusing the issue by pointing them out, they are not easier to use than this simple installer. If you really want to find them a Google search will uncover them quickly.

ssj2kite
04-23-2005, 07:19 AM
"and I saw the "Install Smart Boot Manager" option, but it did nothing."

That wouldn't work. It just did nothing.

Harry Kuhman
04-23-2005, 03:53 PM
That wouldn't work. It just did nothing.
Many other people recently seem to be having sucess with it, for example http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18436 and http://www.knoppix.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=18476

And, of, course, I've done it myself both to a floppy and to a hard disk MBR. It does work. It is simple. My guess is that you are making some assumption about what some step is rather than reading the instructions. I could be wrong on that, but I have no real idea what I can do further to talk you through this.

ssj2kite
04-25-2005, 07:30 AM
Well, I tried installing SBM to all of my partitions, and none of them worked. I would make a new one, but QTparted won't let me, parted is in german or something, and tools that work on knoppix have a hard time resizing NTFS file systems to make a new partition

Harry Kuhman
04-25-2005, 07:46 AM
Well, I tried installing SBM to all of my partitions, and none of them worked. I would make a new one, but ....
You absolutely do not install SBM to a partition. You either make a boot floppy with it or you install it to the MBR of the first hard disk. But you do not install it to a partition. Where did you find any instructions telling you to install it to a partition?

jjmac
04-26-2005, 12:03 AM
Howdy All :)


Harry Kuhman wrote

>>

ssj2kite wrote
>>>>
Well, I tried installing SBM to all of my partitions, and none of them worked. I would make a new one, but ....
>>>>
>>
You absolutely do not install SBM to a partition. You either make a boot floppy with it or you install it to the MBR of the first hard disk. But you do not install it to a partition. Where did you find any instructions telling you to install it to a partition?
>>

There's an element of dejavue there :).

Something funny is going on with ssj2kite, he seems to have some difficultly in interpreting quite straight forward communications. And seems reluctant to describe exactly what steps he has actually taken. The response will always be either, very brief, or none.

And just going by his responses. his system, by now, must be a real mess.

Have you read the bit where he has XP on hda, installed Linux on hdb, and also resized XP to accomodate !!! (ummmm)

He really needs his original installation disks and to do a complete reinstall of XP from scratch. But says he can't get them. The data loss ... well, it is pain ... but ithink it will only get worse, not better. It may have to be one of those times when the old "rather a finger than the whole hand" sayings comes into its' own.

The more he intervens in his system, i think the more harm he is just going to do to himself.

The main reason i posted was because ... i know little about "Del Utility" partitions. But i have seen posts where they have caused problems in restoration attempts, lost bootstraps and such. I was wondering what you might think on that as the OP has such a partition as his first primary on hda ?!

jm




If your free, and you know it,
clank those chains !

marhleet
05-03-2005, 10:09 AM
I just remembered the why of me having a 99 99 99 error
it was the 80 pin cable on a semi ata66 hdd.
some hdd's, post ata33 and not really done proerly up to ata100 drives, don't report their stats correctly to BIOS when the 80 pin cable is used.
also, an ata33 with an ata66 drive ont he same cable can show weird results.

putting the newer drive on an older system back onto a 40 pin cable fixed the 99 99 99 error.
and it was "d'oh, wish I'd thought of that 5 hours ago!" time

jjmac
05-04-2005, 11:12 AM
Howdy marhleet

I guess you must mean, that the 66 hdd was backward compat with the 33, but the 33 wasn't forward compat with the 66 ... thus, having to use the 40 cable for both ...

Handy, i have to copy a whole lot of stuff over from an ATA33 drive to a new WD ATA100 drive this week. I was going to stick the 33 on the 100's cable.

I think you may have just saved me a lot of friggin around there marhleet, :) , thanks :)


jm

marhleet
05-04-2005, 11:20 AM
i think it's a bug in the older motherboard bios actually.
i've used 33 and 66 drives together, and even ata66 and cd-roms together.
but I've seen probs, at times, with the seagate 10gb drives (off ebay) (ex-xbox?) these drives behave weirdly.
possibly short changed internally by seagate as they were 'supposed' to be for a specific use and not generally for sale.
so the problem shouldn't have arrived.
but modders are a strange lot.

jjmac
05-05-2005, 12:03 PM
Hi marhleet

Ok, seems bargains arn't always so. Yes, iv'e got mixed drives at the moment with out any problems, but i tend to frett over anything new, for a whileat least anyway (grin).

Related, but a little off thread ... Something to watch out for ... I had a ata33 with a ata66, flashed back to ata33, just to stop windows from going into compatability mode, on a ata33 board. Linux would set them at udma2 at boot, but i also had a some script in /etc/init.d/local that was run at the end of boot which used hdparm to set dma settings. At the time i though it was a good idea, but it's not really neccessary. The kernel does it fine. But ... then i got a new maxtor ata133. The kernel matched it to the boards controller at boot with a udma2 setting, but then hdparm, via the script, reset it to it's highest value, 4 or 5 i think. It would be ok for a period, but once i started to do transfers ... bang, Total scramble. I had to reset to recover. The eventual result was a stuffed up disk (grin).

Always best to watch out for that with new drives i think :)

>>
don't report their stats correctly to BIOS when the 80 pin cable is used.
>>

I guess you mean, going by your later post, that, thats really to do with your buggy bios and funny disks at the time, rather than as a policy.

I believe the 80pin cable just provides for better earthing, and so, less emf/harmonic line interference in the cable during transferes.

It's a curious thing, isn't it :), even though the "99 99 99 99" Lilo message is saying it can't find it's secondary boot file(s), in a way it was quite correct !. Just that the most common reason wasn't.

What bios were you using at the time.


jm




-: -:- If the system is the answer, then the question
must have been really stupid -: -:-

marhleet
05-06-2005, 09:46 AM
mine was in an existing smoothwall hdd, (p120) moved it to a new computer (pii) and hoped it would work fine with no action.
leaving the BIOS at defaults, on boot it had the 99 99 99 during boot phase.
then re-building from scratch didn't work either.
wasn't til later with either clocking it back in bios or using the 40 pin cable that it fixed itself and the lightbulbs over the head started going off :lol: 8)

jjmac
05-11-2005, 01:55 AM
Howdy,

Sounds like the bios was probably old, but probably not the culpret. Just the cables :)