Partitioning and cfdisk how-to and how to ungoof your MBR

[Facteur]

Hi,

Defragmenting is not mentioned here, and it is pretty important. Many of these tools won't work without defragmenting your Windows thoroughly.

I used ntfsresize and cfdisk to resize XP Pro on my 450MHzP3 with 6G HD, and create new partitions for Linux.

I didn't use qtparted because, I thought it was poor, although nice to look at.
Fdisk gave me wild info about my HD, saying that it already had four partitions (hda1p1, hda1p2, hda1p3 and hda1p4). Cfdisk appeared the most serious of the tools.

I followed all the available instructions and everything was went fairly smoothly, except when I tried to boot back in XPPro under the newly partitioned HD. The splash screen holds for about a second and then I get a blue screen of death with error type "unmountable_boot_volume". After that, I feared the worst. But I was able to see my original NTFS volume with Knoppix OK and even read some of the files.

I have W98 bootable diskette, and I managed to perform a "fdisk /mbr" as indicated above. I followed it with a SYS C: (again, as advised above) but DOS refused to recognise it. Could be a simple FAT-NTFS problem, I thought ... so I tried to log into XP again (under the various options allowed) and the same error always "unmountable_boot_volume".

In many ways, I wasn't surprised. Windows is a many headed monster which doesn't even know itself, so any changes, no matter how meticulously undertaken are sure to mess it up (after all, it is a mess already).

Can anybody offer any light on this situation? How can I get XP to mount its partition (c: drive) again? The overall head title for this thread really promises more than it gives: it's ungoofing advice seems really rushed. There have got to be more experience and more suggestions ... I can't be the only one for whom it didn't work first time ...

[Irgu]

I used ntfsresize and cfdisk to resize XP Pro on my 450MHzP3 with 6G HD, and create new partitions for Linux.

I didn't use qtparted because, I thought it was poor, although nice to look at.
Fdisk gave me wild info about my HD, saying that it already had four partitions (hda1p1, hda1p2, hda1p3 and hda1p4). Cfdisk appeared the most serious of the tools.

I followed all the available instructions and everything was went fairly smoothly, except when I tried to boot back in XPPro under the newly partitioned HD. The splash screen holds for about a second and then I get a blue screen of death with error type "unmountable_boot_volume". After that, I feared the worst. But I was able to see my original NTFS volume with Knoppix OK and even read some of the files.

Unfortunately cfdisk is the worst choise. Apparently it rounds down to cylinder boundary opposed to fdisk and QTParted thus you made the end of your partition in the middle of your NTFS filesystem. You can confirm this if you run 'ntfsresize -fi partition', ntfsresize will complain (I managed to do this once before). I just recreated the partition to be bigger and everything worked fine.

Other possibilities are you did't set the partition type to 7 or missed the set the partition's bootable.

Also if your partition wasn't /dev/hda1 then it might be renumbered and NTLDR can't find the right partition because BOOT.INI has the old value. This is also fixable.

QTParted takes care about these annoying details thus why I prefer using it

[dirty30ex]

i cant get to the recovery console (i have XP) to fisk the "mbr"... i cant even figure out how to get dos to boot up so i can attempt a fix... im tryin to get rid of lilo so i can just boot windows normally and use knoppix for my linux... the mandrake i had wasnt cuttin it so i deleted the partition... can i use knoppix to make the changes so lilo wont be in the way? thanks in advance..

[Coolnat2004]

You'll need to boot from your windows XP installation disk, after it loads the drivers press R. You'll be asked to choose your windows installation and type in your admin password. That will take you to your recovery console/DOS prompt.

[andymadigan]

Just a bit of clarification for restoring Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP/2003

If you are using Windows 95/98/ME (or DOS):
1. Boot from the CD that came with Windows OR get a Windows 98 bootdisk www.bootdisk.com
2. Select "Start Computer with CD Support" (you can select anything except Starting Setup and this will work)
3. If you're not in the partition where Windows is installed navigate to it. Type C: will take to the C: drive, ect.
4. Type fdisk /mbr to fix the Master Boot Record. (NOTE: You will no longer be able to boot Linux).
5. This step shouldn't be neccessary, and you should only do it if your using a boot disk/cd from your version of Windows, but if you think you need to, navigate to your CD/floppy (type A: or D:) and type sys C: (or whatever drive Windows is on).

If you are using Windows 2000/XP/2003
1. Insert the CD that came with Windows. (If the CD won't boot, you can get a bootable floppy (which may or may not require the CD anyway) from www.bootdisk.com , or there should be an image on the CD itself)
2. When prompted whether to install Windows or Repair Windows, select repair. (R)
3. Select Repair Console (C).
4. If Windows is still readable by the CD, it will prompt you for a password (if you're not prompted, Windows may need to be reinstalled).
5. If you're not in the partition where Windows is installed navigate to it. Typing C: will take you to the C: drive, etc.
6. Type fixmbr (Note: you will no longer be able to run Linux).
7. Linux generally won't touch the Boot Sector (it only changes the MBR), but just to be on the safe side, you should type fixboot.

After the above steps, your system should run Windows. If you have any problems with these instructions, post a reply or email me at: geekandy(nospam)-news@yahoo.com (be sure to include the dash)

[oldgeezer]

Sometimes it is difficult to thoroughly clean out the mbr area, especially on older h/ds and lower capacity discs given as gifts by folk condemned to following the bloatware rat-race! Sometimes, even filling all the entries with zeros or FF fails to clean out the boot area. Mark Minasi published a debug script back in 1999 (happy to forward a copy) which has proved 100% successful. Is there a similar Linux script? How to use it?
OG.

[Cuddles]

OK, after reading this thread, and assuming that the information I was looking for would be in here, it is not... So...

I have installed Knoppix 3.3 on my 41gig HDD, I created a 39gig Linux partition for Linux as a ext3 format, and the remaining 2.0gig was partitioned as a Linux Swap... I know, I learned after getting Knoppix all the way installed and configured, that 2.0gig is WAY TOO much for a swap.

I want to decrease the Linux Swap down to the recommended 500meg, and then increase the MAIN BOOT Linux ext3 partition to take the available free space taken away from the Swap.

I am a little scared at the whole "live" partition changing thing, and, as anyone else would be, a little affraid of the issue of "mucking up" the whole drive and the OS. Knoppix is the ONLY OS on the complete system, so dual-boot issues are not important. My biggest concern is that I need to "shift" partitions, i.e. Swap, which is at the last partition, needs to decrease size at the end of the drive, and then the MAIN partition needs to increase before the Swap the availed 1.5gig free space.

Can this be done with QTParted, and safely, without having to do what I think I have to do, reinstall from scratch again, but this time set the partitions from the begining the "right" way this time.

Confused, and scared,
Cuddles

[windos_no_thanks]

I know, I learned after getting Knoppix all the way installed and configured, that 2.0gig is WAY TOO much for a swap.

It is only too much if you need the space for something else.

[rickenbacherus]

You need to convert ext3 partitions to ext2 then qtparted will work.

man tune2fs

It is relatively simple but I think it best if you read up a bit.

[joe_bfstplk]

Hi all--
I'm a little bit of a noobie at this, although I've been working with RH off & on since 2002 (v 7.2, v 8.0, v9).

I've been less satisfied with RH with each newer incarnation (they seem to be migrating in a M$FT-like direction), and would like to replace the existing installation with a Knoppix HDD install, as the Knoppix CD boots my computer perfectly, finds all the hardware perfectly (including the USB HDD and memory stick I use), where RH does not.

Here's the scenario:

I have three HDDs:
one (27G, 7200RPM) for W2k (the first)

one for data storage (60G, 7200RPM) and swap files (four partitions--W2k swap, data 1, data 2, Linux swap),

one for Linux (10G, 5400RPM--the original HDD from the computer that preceded this one...) with '/boot' (generously allocated 100MB ), '/', and '/home' partitions formatted ext3, and a 750k vfat partition specifically for compiling files while preparing CDs for burning

I'm hoping I can keep the Linux partitions as they are, empty them (I've backed up the /home to the W2k "G:" (data 2) partition), and install Knoppix in them.

I've read the how-tos and FAQs and none of them address this scenario specifically, i.e., loading into pre-existing dual-boot in place of a different Linux distribution. Most of the "I have windows and want to add Knoppix as my second OS" and "I have Knoppix and want to add windows as my second OS" scenarios are well documented, but none answer my big question, which is: Does the Knoppix install routine 'knx-hdinstall' offer GRUB as an option (the McNab article suggests using it, which I'm happy to do, as I'm used to it, but fails to mention if it's part of the normal knx-hdinstall setup or something I'd have to kludge on later), and will it freak out over the fact that the MBR on the first HDD (I installed Windows first and Linux second, so GRUB is on the first HDD) is already GRUB-ed and working quite well as dual-boot?

Has anyone else tried the same thing?

Thanks in advance for any ideas or advice you can give. I'm diving into this this w/e.... If it is successful, I'll post a description of the resulting process, in case anyone else is in a similar boat....


Thanks!

C ya,
Dutch

PS:to richenbacherus--
you play guitar? hang out at ampage.org or the yahoo strat, rigtips, or tubefex groups? your handle sounds familiar....