HELP!!! L 99 99 99 99 99........

[ssj2kite]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.



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

Do a google on "Dell Utility" ...

Have a look at ...

http://search.dell.com/results.aspx?...=&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]

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]

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]

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