OS Trouble

[Mystery Man]

hi

I merged 2 partitions using the partition magic 8. C:\ primary with no data and E:\ logical with win xp. Both are on the same hdd.

Now the trouble is that i have 2 options at start.

1. Windows default
2. Windows default

First reboots
SEcond gives io error

Is it a problem of the drive letter issue
will fixmbr do it ?
do i have to use fixboot.

Recovery console of the win xp shows that the drive c: \as access is denied !

Please reply soon !

[nihil]

OK this sort of problem is not uncommon with partition magic.

A bit more information would help:

1. Using PM, how many partitions are there on that drive?
2. In windows, how many drives can you see, what are their drive letters, and what are they physically (HDD, DVD, CD etc).
3. How many and which operating systems are you trying to boot.

To have your C:\ drive as an EMPTY primary and a logical E:\ drive with your operating system on it, is most unusual. I am not surprised that PM messed up.

Your system appears to now "see" C:\ as your boot record but can still "remember" the E:\ drive, which is no longer there, hence the error.

Please be very careful as these situations can be quite unstable, and you may be faced with a reformat and reinstall.

BACK UP ALL YOUR IMPORTANT DATA NOW

[alamuru420123]

My friend also happened to use Partition magic (tragic) to something of this sort. He had the same kind of problem. We couldn't boot into windows xp (he only had one OS), and we couldn't reinstall windows. In the install screen where we have to select the partition to install, if we selected a partition, it would give an error message saying 'cannot install to this partition blah blah blah'.

The strangest thing was, there was a 8 byte partition which manifested itself from nowhere above C drive. We had to delete each partition and then only could we remove that 8byte partition. Only then were we able to install windows.

[XTC46]

'cannot install to this partition blah blah blah'.

funny...thats how some of my clients read errors to me. usually the blah blah blah is a pretty good clue to the problem hehe.

[zencoder]

Originally posted here by XTC46
funny...thats how some of my clients read errors to me. usually the blah blah blah is a pretty good clue to the problem hehe.

Your stock reply should be "Oh, ok, that's easy to fix. We just need to reconfigure your kernel variable flags. It's easy to do...just open up the thingy, and modify it with blah, blah, blah, and you'll be all set. BUT DON'T MAKE A MISTAKE or you could RUIN EVERYTHING. Thanks for calling the service center. Good bye." *click*

(In the 'biz' we call that an FCR...)