Ntldr missing after splitting primary partion...

[pcormier]

Well, I guess I should have read the documentation, but I just finished splitting the primary partition on my notebook computer. Now I have a C: and a D: drive. Trouble is, D: has the OS, C: is the empty partition1. I don't mind deleting C: since it is empty, can i then somehow assign C to the remaining partition?

Does anyone have any suggestions about how I should proceed?

[Brian K]

pcormier,

I assume from the thread title that the OS doesn't boot. Correct? Where are you seeing the drive letters?

[pcormier]

C: drive is partition 0, D: drive is partition 1. D: has the stuff (OS) that was the single partition before splitting.

I have DD running from CD now, and am in the process of hiding the new empty C, and making D active with hopes that on reboot, the second partition will be mapped to c:.

BTW, thanks for the help at this late hour.

PC

[Brian K]

You haven't really answered my questions.

Does your OS boot?

Where are you seeing the drive letters? In DD?

[pcormier]

Sorry. No, it doesn't boot... NTLDR missing.

Yes seeing drive letters in DD, and at first from Windows Recovery Console with Map command.

[pcormier]

Hiding the first partition worked. DD says partition 1 is now C: and active, but does not boot. Time to repair stuff with Recovery console?

[Brian K]

I don't use DD. Splitting a partition is one process to be avoided with any partitioning software.

Drive letters seen outside of Windows may not be the same as those in Windows. I suggest waiting for someone familiar with DD to respond as you could make things worse.

It's not late here in Australia.

[pcormier]

Brian,

I understand, thanks for the attention. I saw your assertion about split and merge on other posts... after I did it. I assure you I won't use it again. I'll quit fooling around and wait for help from Acronis.

Good day,

Paul

[MudCrab]

I would think that the Windows partition should boot after doing a boot repair on the partition. Make sure it's Active, boot to the XP Recovery Console and run the following commands (<ENTER> means to press the ENTER key):
fixmbr <ENTER>
fixboot <ENTER>
If this works, you can either go ahead and use the new partition (the non-Windows partition) in it's current position or use DD to delete that partition and then move the Windows partition to the beginning of the drive (the fastest part). Note that you may also need to edit the boot.ini to point to the correct partition(#). It may now need to be partition(2) instead of partition(1), for example. It depends on what DD did to the partition table when it did the split.

Normally, what should have been done would have been to resize the existing Windows partition smaller from the right side and then you could have created the new partition in the unallocated space.

I hope you have a current backup of your Windows partition.

[pcormier]

Mudcrab,

When I attempt the FIXMBR from Recovery Console, I get scary message:

** CAUTION **
This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record.

FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed...

are you sure?

--------------

Oh, and no, no backup in entirety, but it is fairly disposable, other than all the reinstall time. Data is backed up.

Thanks for the attention.

Paul

[Brian K]

-{ Quote: "

** CAUTION **
This computer appears to have a non-standard or invalid master boot record.

FIXMBR may damage your partition tables if you proceed...

are you sure?

" }-
That's a standard message. Ignore it. You will even see it after fixmbr has completed and you try again.

[MudCrab]

You can create an image backup before you proceed further if you have the software for it. It's up to you.

You could also go ahead and delete the non-Windows partition and move the Windows partition back to the start of the drive before you try to do the repair.

I suspect that fixmbr is just detecting something non-standard and it most likely won't cause a problem. However, if you want to make note of the current partition table's values so you can compare them, you can do so with DD. Start DD, select Manual Mode, right-click on the "Disk #" text and select Advanced >> Edit from the pop-up menu. The Disk Editor will start. Select the View menu and the As partition table option. Make note (or take a picture) of the values in the partition table so you can compare them to what they are after you run the repair. That way, you'll know if anything changed.

Here is an example showing the partition table (your numbers will be different):
209003

[pcormier]

Thanks guys. Things went rapidly downhill with fixmbr/fixboot. All files were lost from partition. I'll be reinstalling windows tomorrow, and all other apps. Glad I had backup of data. -- PC

[Brian K]

PC,

That's bad news. fixmbr and fixboot are frequently used commands in this forum. They either fix the problem or do nothing. I haven't seen them create a problem. What happened?

[MudCrab]

I'm curious what happened too. I wonder if pcormier compared the contents of the partition table before and after. If it did get messed up, it I think it should have been able to have been corrected by entering the correct values.

If that didn't work, DD should have been able to find the "lost" partition since it should have still existed.

[pcormier]

I could still see the partition, but the contents were gone somehow. I'm sure it was something I did. I was following another post on the forum... I did this stuff:

FIXMBR C:
FIXBOOT C:
COPY CDDrive:\I386\NTLDR C:\
COPY CDDrive:\I386|NTDETECT.COM C:\
BOOTCFG /rebuild

Either way, I've got everything all reinstalled so, I'm happy now, other than with DD and it's wonderful Split function.

I really appreciate you guy's attention.

Paul

[enonod]

I think the system is looking in the wrong place. It is not likely that the file is actually missing.
You need to edit the Boot.ini file to show the correct partitions. If it has the wrong partition number in () then it will not find ntldr.
I don't know if you can edit the file from DD when 'viewing' the content of the partition you are trying to boot.

Since you are obviously able to use the internet, try googling missing ntldr and you will find many descriptions of how to replace the file if it is missing and also how to edit Boot.ini