fix unbootable drive
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From: Jonno on 9 Mar 2010 02:26 I am trying to fix an image of an XP pro SP3 drive which has been damaged by overfilling. It is a 20GB image now residing on a 250GB drive. I have used Win7 to check the contents of the drive, run chkdsk and defrag, but when I put the drive into the original computer I get "error loading operating system". I'd like to run fixboot from the recovery console, but when I boot to an XP setup CD it says Drive C is unformatted, damaged bla bla bla. I've mentioned that the drive was readable as a slave on a Win7 box, so why can't the XP setup system read it? Does anyone have any ideas on how to make the drive bootable, without doing a clean install?
From: Shenan Stanley on 9 Mar 2010 08:05 Jonno wrote: > I am trying to fix an image of an XP pro SP3 drive which has been > damaged by overfilling. It is a 20GB image now residing on a 250GB > drive. I have used Win7 to check the contents of the drive, run > chkdsk and defrag, but when I put the drive into the original > computer I get "error loading operating system". > > I'd like to run fixboot from the recovery console, but when I boot > to an XP setup CD it says Drive C is unformatted, damaged bla bla > bla. > > I've mentioned that the drive was readable as a slave on a Win7 > box, so why can't the XP setup system read it? > > Does anyone have any ideas on how to make the drive bootable, > without doing a clean install? Just because the hardware passes a CHKDSK doesn't mean (1) it's good and (2) all the files on it are original/not corrupted. You may need to perform a repair installation (in-place upgrade) in order to replace any corrupt files. in-place upgrades should not affect the data - although backups are *always* a wise idea. BTW - AFAIK - there is no such thing as 'damage by overfilling' - since you cannot 'overfill' a hard drive. You can use every bit of space available - it may slow your system (as it could affect the page file, etc) - but it is *not* going to physically damage the hard drive. -- Shenan Stanley MS-MVP -- How To Ask Questions The Smart Way http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
From: Jonno on 9 Mar 2010 08:53 I'd love to run a repaor installation, but as I mentioned in my original post the setup utility reports the drive as unreadable and offers only the reformat and clean install option. "Shenan Stanley" wrote: > You may need to perform a repair installation (in-place upgrade) in order to > replace any corrupt files. in-place upgrades should not affect the data - > although backups are *always* a wise idea. > Jonno wrote: > > I'd like to run fixboot from the recovery console, but when I boot > > to an XP setup CD it says Drive C is unformatted, damaged bla bla > > bla.
From: Jonno on 9 Mar 2010 10:42 Here's what happened. A 20GB drive was showing as having 600MB free, so I decided to install a light facility to clone it to a larger drive. I installed Norton Ghost 2003 and scheduled it to clone to a 250GB slave drive on restart. When I rebooted I got the message "missing operating system". So I booted to the Norton CD and cloned to the larger drive, so that I could fiddle around trying to repair the OS while avoiding doing ant further damage to the original drive. Neither original nor clone will boot, and XP setup refuses the repair option. "Shenan Stanley" wrote: > BTW - AFAIK - there is no such thing as 'damage by overfilling' - since you > cannot 'overfill' a hard drive. You can use every bit of space available - > it may slow your system (as it could affect the page file, etc) - but it is > *not* going to physically damage the hard drive.
From: smlunatick on 10 Mar 2010 17:27
On Mar 9, 3:42 pm, Jonno <Jo...(a)discussions.microsoft.com> wrote: > Here's what happened. A 20GB drive was showing as having 600MB free, so I > decided to install a light facility to clone it to a larger drive. I > installed Norton Ghost 2003 and scheduled it to clone to a 250GB slave drive > on restart. > > When I rebooted I got the message "missing operating system". > > So I booted to the Norton CD and cloned to the larger drive, so that I could > fiddle around trying to repair the OS while avoiding doing ant further damage > to the original drive. > > Neither original nor clone will boot, and XP setup refuses the repair option. > > "Shenan Stanley" wrote: > > BTW - AFAIK - there is no such thing as 'damage by overfilling' - since you > > cannot 'overfill' a hard drive. You can use every bit of space available - > > it may slow your system (as it could affect the page file, etc) - but it is > > *not* going to physically damage the hard drive. Look for TestDisk |