moved c:, vista won't boot, WINLOAD error?

Nick:

I saw your other post. I believe that some entries in the BCD may be dropped during the edit. They don't appear to matter for single-boot systems where Vista is in the boot partition. I really don't understand the BCD very well but have read many posts where the outlined technique has been used successfully.

I read one of Mustang's posts (post 111) stating that TI11 will also alter the starting sector of a Vista partition, moving it from an offset of 2048 bytes to the older standard of 63 bytes, but it somehow modifies the BCD so that Vista will boot without repair afterwards.

 

Repairing Vista with the Vista DVD was what actually dropped some of the parameters. If you just run the bcdedit commands manually, all the other settings remain.

I'm assuming that since Vista drops them during the repair that they probably don't matter. The computer boots fine, either way.

 

Nick:

Just to clarify step #5--

When you MOVE the Vista partition to the left, do not expand it. Leave free space to the right of the partition. This is VERY IMPORTANT if my theory is correct. If you try to enlarge the partition to the right until it touches the D partition then, if I'm right, you may corrupt the start of the D partition and lose it.

Actually, if you can get up to step 6 successfully then please post back. If done right then we can move the D partition this way also. After both of these have been moved they will then be aligned on the traditional cylinder boundaries and you should have no further trouble working on them with DD10.

 

OK, so far -
step 0- did a full TI10 backup of drive
step 1 - VISTA disk managemt could not delete TOSHIBA PARTITIIN.
so, I used DD10, from within windows, to delete it.
step 2 - rebooted, c: untouched, and it booted OK.
step 3 - modified BCDEDIT on c:
step 4 rebooted, it booted ok
step 5, currently on this, doing another TI backup of the C: partition, with modified BCDEDIT

I will then do YOUR step 5, moving the c: partition, without resizing.
Drive D: is already at the lower end of drive. Once c: is in place, untouched, I will again back up
Then we can try resizing, C:, from WITHIN VISTA
BUT as noted, curently on step 5 above.

I do apprecaite your help tremendously; this is a learning lesson for all of us, INCLUDING acronis, to improve this process.

I wil also then boot with the BartPE, etc, and see if I can see my C: drive (c if I can c my c ? can we add more c's?)

anyway

nick

 

I would not recommend resizing C with Vista Disk Management after you have relocated it with DD10. Vista Disk Management may then realign the partition boundaries on multiples of 2048 sectors. You should leave them on the traditional cylinder boundaries as determined by DD10. In that way you will be able to size, move, and resize with DD10 to your heart's content.

If the move operation of C: goes OK the next step should be to resize D: with DD10. Move the left boundary to the right until D: is the desired size and leave free space between C: and D:. I think you can do this while running DD10 in Vista unless there is some process running that requires access to the D: drive. But the safest way to do this is to boot from the rescue CD and then resize D:.

The final step then is to, again from the rescue CD, resize C: to be the desired size; probably by expanding to the right and incorporating all remaining free space into the C: partition.

Sounds promising so far; keep us posted.

 

Ok, on last step of verify of backup of modified c: drive, before move.

I will follow above steps, using DD10 to
1. move c:
make sure it boots
backup
resize c:

d: is OK, as I did that before. C: just needs moved, then resized
will post results

 

next step, move c: with DD10 to begining of drive - Done
Next step, reboot, DONE, with SUCCESS !!!!!!!!!
Next step, reboot DD10, resize c:, expand into unallocated space between C: and D:, done
Next step, reboot _ DONE, with SUCCESS, and it looks like D: still exists !

I THINk it actually worked !
I am rebooting...
REBOOT worked again !
It is seeing the data on D: also

I rebooted with BartPE, however, and STILL cannot see the c: drive contents. But, normal vista is working.

I cannot thank you enough for your help. I will keep testing this, and later possibly do a restore on this, after another backup.

It is unfortunate that these companies keep changing critical spec's without adequate documentation on this. Toshiba is at fault here, with nonstandard partitino, especially on a business machine where I don't need the frills, cd-booting partition.

Anyway, I will post later as to if it is operating reliably, and perhaps we can figure out why the BartPE can't see c:.
I will try the WinPE disk also, and the vista recovery disk.

Nick

 

Great news, Nick!

Before I give you my theory of what went wrong originally, could you do the following?

Please start DD10 in Vista, click on your Disk 1 and start the Disk Editor. Choose "View as Partition Table" and get a screen shot similar to your first figure in post #15. I'd like to see how the partition boundaries are aligned now.

 

see attached

 

Nick:

No, that figure is displaying sector 64. You need to display sector 0.

 

sorry about that

 

Nick:

Well, that one kind of threw me for a loop. I was expecting normal cylinder boundaries on your partition table, but compare it with mine posted below.

Your Vista partition starts in sector 64 instead of sector 63, and the offset from the end of the C partition to the start of the D partition is 64 sectors instead of 63. It's also a little strange to see your D partition in slot 4 of the partition table instead of slot 2, but if it was put there by TrueImage then that's probably why.

Other than the oddity of 64 sectors instead of 63, which I can't explain right now, compare your current partition table to the one in post 15 when you started.

Let me see if someone else (Brian? Paul?) can come up with an explanation for what you currently have before I start on my theory of what went wrong.

 

I seewhat you mean; that table is part foreign to me, I've not workedmuch with the tables before (prior in dos, partmagic, but not recently), but I do see the differences.

Perhaps this is why the BartPE can't see the drive?
again, I'lltry the other boot utility disks later
Nick

 

If BartPE does not see the drive at all then I would suspect that you need to install the SATA driver for your disk in your PE build.

 

I'm not an expert on cylinder alignments, etc. but I would guess that the reason it is 64 instead of 63 is because Nick's partition's Begin Sector is 2 instead 1. This moves it 1 more sector out, 64 instead of 63. Perhaps this is because of the MOVE of the C: partition. I wonder what would happen if the C: partition were resized instead of moved or if it were resized smaller (from the left) and then resized back (to the start of the drive). Would it end up the same as it is now or would it end up on 1 and 63 instead of 2 and 64?

This does not surprise me. If you look back at post #1 you'll see that Nick had already processed his partitions (there were originally 3). Depending on the method he used (one step at a time or group changes) before he applied the changes, DD apparently assigned the new D: partition while the other three still existed. As a result it ended up in slot 4 of the partition table. Later he created a Entire Disk image using TI. This image contained the D: partition in slot 4 and so TI restored it back to that position. I believe that it existed in slot 4 before the TI backup was created since the picture in post #17 shows the C: partition already resized and the recovery partition already deleted (part of its space is still unallocated).

---

Mark,

I'm curious to hear your theory.

---

Nick,

I would like to see a screenshot of what Vista's disk management shows for your drive.

Creating an Entire Disk image of the working system before trying these procedures was a very smart thing to do and what I always recommend. In this case, you needed it to get back to a state where you could try again and eventually get the correct procedure figured out.

If BartPE and Vista's WinPE don't see the hard drive, then I agree with Mark. The drivers probably need to be added. Since you didn't build the computer, these drivers were probably already installed on your Vista setup.

 

here's screen shot of vista management

QUESTIONS -
I'm doing a full back up this morning, of whole drive (c:, d:, MBR).
Suppose that down he road, the computer blows up.
Should I in theory be able to restore this image to a NEW hard drive for this machine, and have it boot coorectly?

Question -
will the sector 64 versus 63, and partition 4 versus partition 2 (d: drive) cause a future problem? Upon a restore (either d: deleted first, or new drive) should d: go to partition 2?


QUESTION -
re: SATA drivers -
if that is the case, that a different driver is needed, then what good is the "vista Anytime Upgrade", if it can't see the c: drive (and how would it know what to upgrade if you used it as an upgrade)?
(I will try booting to its repair section to see if that is the case)

I willl work later on rebuilding BartPE - I did that a long time ago, don't remember how I did it; where would I get a SATA driver?

To All, again, I do thank you.
I got this machine as my first VISTA machine, and had wanted to do some testing for the good of all of us, with TI, DD10, Vista, etc, but did not anticipate that it would be within weeeks of getting the machine.....

Nick

 

Paul:

Thanks for taking a shot at this. I also wondered if, on the MOVE operation, the partition was moved as far to the left as possible or if there was a little space left over. However, I think DD has a granularity of 1 cylinder (about 7 MB) when moving, resizing, etc. so it's hard to see how you would end up only 512 bytes (1 sector) off. I too wonder what would happen if you do what you suggest with a trial resize or move. Also, I wonder what would happen if the image of this partition was restored with TI (this partition only; not the entire disk). Would TI put it in the standard location with an offset of 63 sectors?

The other curiosity is the offset on the D partition -- it is also 64 sectors. Again, if you were to back up and then use TI to restore only this partition would it relocate it with an offset of 63 sectors?

 

Nick:

I'll take a shot at a couple of these questions. Yes, a restore of the full-drive image should work on a new hard drive. In theory, restoring a single partition should also work on a new hard drive since you are not using any third-party boot managers. TI will create a standard MBR if you restore only one partition to a new hard drive, and what you have now is pretty standard.

The 64 sector offset is a good question. It appears from your last screen shot that Vista Disk Management is happy with your current layout, so perhaps not. However, I really don't know. Per my previous post it would be interesting to see if, after you create your image of the whole drive, you then restore only the C partition. Will TI put it in the standard location beginning in sector 63?

Having your second partition in the fourth slot in the partition table should not be a problem. That is allowable and considered to be "standard" from what I've read.

I would be surprised if the Vista Anytime Upgrade DVD can NOT see your current drive contents. If it can't, I would first suspect the SATA driver issue rather than the partition layout. Let us know if it doesn't see your disk. Also check to see if there is a "Compatibility Mode" setting for the disk in your BIOS. If so, set it to "IDE" or "Compatible" and then try again to see if the DVD can see the disk.

I will defer to Paul about adding the correct driver to your BartPE build; I can't seem to get the correct RAID driver for one of my PCs to work on my BartPE build so I'm not the person to help you with that.

 

Again, thanks forreply.

QUESTION -
I just did a backup, full disk.
I did this last evening BEFORE moving stuf, also.

My CURRENT backup size is 16 gig; (compressed backups of full system) Last evening, BEFORE moving stuff, was 18 gig. I did not delete anything significant. WHAT would hav chnged this size, just form moving?

The DRIVES themselves (properties) look the same on right-clicking.....
system seems to be running....

Nick

 

Nick:

Probably System Restore. On Vista, System Restore uses the Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). This service operates at the sector level of the disk and records changed sectors. The service is used for both System Restore and for the new "Previous Versions of Files" feature (Shadow Copies) in Vista.

When you moved the partition then the sector maps got changed. Vista reacts by deleting the shadow copies since they are no longer mapped correctly and creates a new restore point. This probably accounts for the smaller size of your new backup.

If you want to verify this then look in System Restore to see how many restore points are available. You'll probably only see one.

Not to get off topic, but here's an area where TI could save some room in their backup image. TI currently does not copy pagefile.sys and hiberfile.sys into the image; only placeholders. To make a Vista image smaller, TI could also choose to NOT copy the shadow copy files since, if they are restored to a different location on the disk, Vista will just delete them anyway.

 

where's your response to paul? I received email of post to this thread, bt it does not show up here.

did it get lost? try to recover, as it adds to this thread...


OK, a question related to that thread, and the above -
SINCE vista does not seem to care about 63, or 64, sector offset, then I SHOUOLD (in theory) be able to delete the whole drive, and then restore c: and d: with TI, and it SHOULD go into partition 1, and partition 2, and it MIGHT get to sector 63?

UPON such a restore, if I had DELETED c: and d:, do I have to then rstore MBR/track 0 again, or just restore c: and d:?

ALSO, just to clarify - if I have a hard drive, c: d: e:, and I select to back up WHOLE drive, and then DE-select the e: drive, MBR is still backed up?

thanks
Nick

 

Post #42 above.

Yes, except TI will put your D partition back into slot 4 since that's where it was when you backed up. This is a "feature" that is unwelcome behavior on TI's part, but they're doing it to make it easy for people to restore an image of XP to a different partition without having to edit the boot.ini file. But it makes it more difficult for people who multi-boot.

If you really want D: to end up in the second slot of the partition table, copy all of the files off the D partition and then delete the partition from the DD rescue CD. Commit the delete. Then create the partition again. Reboot into Windows and copy the files back.

Or, If you are adventurous, view the partition table in sector 0 using DD's disk editor (from the rescue CD). Copy/paste the entries from the fourth slot of the table into the second slot. Zero all of the entries in the fourth slot. Save the sector. Cross your fingers and see what comes out. This might work or it might destroy the partition so you'll be glad that you have TI if that happens.

You should NOT need to restore MBR/track 0. Restoring the MBR/Track 0 replaces everything in the first 63 sectors of the disk EXCEPT the partition table. There are only 2 reasons that I can think of for needing to restore MBR/track 0. First, if your disk does not boot at all yet contains all of its partitions (only the MBR is messed up). Then a restore of MBR/track 0 will fix it (so would a FIXMBR with a Windows CD). The second reason to restore MBR/track 0 is if you are using another boot manager like GRUB. Doing a FIXMBR or installing a Windows OS to the disk will wipe out the boot manager and replace it with Microsoft's generic MBR. Restoring MBR/track 0 from TI will restore your original boot manager.

Yes.

 

again thanks

QUESTION -
if I wipe out c: and d:, and restore, should TI put c: into partitino 1, BUT use the 63-sector offset (theoreticaly) OR, would it restore to the 64-sector offset,since that's whewre c: was?

re: drive d:
I may try altering hte partition table asyou indicated; that's for a later time, however. I am now at least back to runing with full disk capacity, which was my goal.

NOW, to expolre the othre problems that exist
1. System restore, resizing THIS to smaller
2. shadow Copy, shrinking this also.
I did a search on this, and ther are some command line ways to apparently do this.
With the TI bckups, I don't NEED much system restore space. AND, I certainly don't need shadow copy (I do not WANT every altered file to be backed up)

ALSO, DEFRAG isset to ON by default, adn has been running my disk ddrive constantly; I just found that setting

Also
windows VISTA, Graphics acceleration, Tablet PC's, INTEL drivers - a PROBLEM exists, can't enable hardware acceleration, can't play DVD's without choppy playback; I was on the phone with toshiba this morning, I am now up to level 2 support.
Google search reveals this probem, with gamers, and other graphics work.

I will keep experimenting with TI and DD also, as these two programs are my lifeblood for keeping from disasters. I wil also post other feedback.

If there are other things you want me to try, let me know, and we'll work on them. I DO want to get teh c: and d: partitions back to TI standards, since it seems they will boot OK this way. So, over the next week or so, I'll work on that.

Nick

 

ADDENDUM, I do not know if I posted this

Vista Anytime upgrade does NOT see the c: drive. So, this is NUTS - you woud not be able to recover/repair, on a tablet PC / notebook PC, that has an SATA drive, apparently. What good is the disk?

to otehrs, if you could test this, it would be beneficial, to see if my machine is the only one doin this.

Nick

 

I think that the only way you are going to find out is to try it.

On my PC it sees my RAID array of 2 SATA drives correctly. Did you look for a compatibility mode setting in your PC BIOS? If it has such a setting and can operate in IDE mode, then perhaps this will allow you to see the disk with BartPE, WinPE, and with the Vista DVD.