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

[ssj2kite]

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]

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]

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]

>>
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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Um, some help getting Smart Boot Manager to work? It confuses the life out of me ;-;