Resized clusters. Can't boot Vista

If you make the change with DD and then reboot right back to the DD CD and start DD, has it already changed the Active partition back or is the change still intact at this point.

If the change is being blocked at this level, I think it must be the BIOS since the hard drive isn't even booting and running any code.

 

I know, it's certainly strange! I don't have either of those programs though, nor any other disk imaging software for that matter.

you think it could be a SP1 issue? that's the only thing that's different from when I did it last time.

I'm certainly at a loss on this one! how in the world could the system just be ignoring command-prompt commands?!

 

Sorry MudCrab, I missed your post. Yes, making the change with DD and rebooting right back to DD yields the same results

 

Then I concur. This has to be a BIOS setting. Look for "Virus Protection" or other related items in the BIOS menus.

 

The BIOS setting may also be called Boot Sector Protection or something like that. [Edit: Actually, my MB manual says the Boot Sector Protection option is to protect the BIOS data from accidental corruption by unauthorized users or computer viruses. So this setting probably won't affect the hard drive.]

There doesn't really seem to be a standard name for the feature. Some also have a Hard Disk Write Protect option that blocks BIOS level access to the drive.

 

So im' doing this on a pavilion tx2000 with PhoenixBIOS.

i searched the BIOS but i didn't find anything relevant. There's a security tab, but the only options are Administrator Password and Power-on password neither of which are being used.

 

Would it be possible to post a screenshot of what DD (in Manual Mode) shows for your drive?

Does it make a difference if you check the Boot checkbox for the partition using the Disk Editor (when viewing the drive's partition table)?

 

I can do that but i'll have to get into the OS. is there any specific dialog box that would provide the information you're looking for or do you just need the default screen listing the partitions?

i'm not too sure how to do that. is that something i should do from the DD disc or can i do it from the OS?

 

Did your PC come with a recovery partition? If so, look in the BIOS for settings related to the recovery partition.

On my Lenovo laptop there is a BIOS setting to protect the recovery partition from being deleted or changed. I believe that, if protected, the BIOS prevents changes to its entry in the partition table. I'm not sure how this is done, but I can speculate.

The recovery partition occupied the 4th slot in the partition table so one method could be to block changes to that entry in the table. The BIOS settings were something like "Normal", "Protected", and "Visible and reclaimable". The "Normal" setting hid the partition from Windows but allowed changes via partitioning software. "Protected" blocked any changes. "Visible and reclaimable" unhid the partition and did not block any changes. I had to choose the latter in order to be able to delete the recovery partition and use its slot in the partition table.

 

(Regarding a screenshot...)

Actually, I was thinking of using a digital camera. I was just wondering if seeing the screenshot would help something odd stand out.

(Regarding the Disk Editor...)

When you're in DD, select the Manual Mode, right-click on the "Disk #" entry on the right part of the display. Select Advanced >> Edit. Then select the View menu and the As Partition Table option.

The partitions will be shown along with a "boot" checkbox column. If you check the box for the Vista partition and then save the changes, does the change stick?

A sample of using the Disk Editor can be found here. (Of course, don't zero-out the MBR...)

 

K0lo,

I don't have anything like that in my bios unfortauntely. I have:

Main - Stuff like the system date, system ID, Processor type, Serial Number etc.

Security - Admin Password and Power-on Password (neither are set)

System Config - Language, Batery Setting, Dedicated Video memory, Virtualization Technology and Boot configuration (boot config options are: F10 and F12 delay, CD-Rom boot, Floppy Boot and Internal Network Adapter Boot, Boot order)

Diagnostics - Hard drive Self Test, Memory Test, System test (runs the two sequentially)

That's all i've got unfortauntely

I'm curious about the recovery partition. It seems to be very easily damaged. On my desktop, Diskeeper pretty much trashed it. It's completely nonfunctional now. I just tried to boot from the recovery partition (F11 - System Recovery) and i just got a blank screen and the system rebooted. don't know what's up with that. this computer is brand new. Diskeeper is loaded, but i'm not letting it touch the recovery partition. Is there any aprticular reason you wanted to delete the entire partition?

MudCrab,

I tried what you suggested. It didn't work. same deal. I went into the command prompt to reset VistaBoot to active. I then rebooted to the Acronis CD and viewed the partition table. Vistaboot was set to active and the "boot" box was checked. my Vista partition was not set to active and the "boot" box was not checked. I then continued onto the OS but the same thing happened - BOOTMGR is missing.

I'll send you some screen shots a bit later.

 

ok something is really screwy here. I recently did a clean install of Vista on my desktop. I tried following the directions in post 52 so i could convert back to a 16k cluster size and i'm getting the same error. This worked before so i'm guessing it has to be a post SP1 issue. I'm now on the command prompt booted from the Vista CD RE and i'm looking at diskpart. I selected the appropriate HDD, I hit "list partition" and i get 3 partitions listed: Partition 1 (Vista partition) Partition 2 (Recovery) and partition 3 (vistaboot). None are set to active, even though i set partition 3 active as per the instructions in post 52. So i select partition 3 with the intent of setting it active AGAIN but by accident i typed "list partition" again. This time i get the list of 3 with Partition 3 (vistaboot) set as active! I exited diskpart and repeated. Entered diskpart, selected the appropriate disk, listed partitions and none were set to active. I merely selected partition 3 then listed the partitions again and 3 was set to active. I'm on a different computer entirely with a fresh-install of Vista (updates installed) and no BIOS security enabled whatsoever. I haven't even installed a virus scanner yet!

really strange!

 

I've worked with DISKPART further and the information on the display for the Active partiton in Post #52 is incorrect. The asterisk ( * ) doesn't show the Active partition when you use the list partition command. It shows the selected partition.

To see if the partition is Active, use the detail partition command after you select the partition. For example:

Code:

DISKPART> select disk 1 <ENTER>

DISKPART> select partition 2 <ENTER>

DISKPART> list partition <ENTER>
  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary            462 GB  1024 KB
* Partition 2    Primary           4000 MB   462 GB

DISKPART> detail partition <ENTER>

Partition 2
Type  : 0C
Hidden: No
[B][COLOR="Red"]Active: Yes[/COLOR][/B]

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 3     K   BKBOOT       FAT32  Partition   4000 MB  Healthy

 

ha... oh... yeah that makes alot more Sense. I checked the details after I set VistaBoot active and it confirms the active status. I also confirmed the inactive status of the other partitions. Still doesn't Stick though. Maybe if I convert the cluster size of the Vista partition it will have no other choice but to look at the only remaining 4k-cluster partition left. What do you think? I'm running out of ideas.

Also, do you guys know the affect a cluster-resize may have on integrity of the data on the recovery partition?

 

Here are Some screenshots. I hope I posted them correctly.

 

The only thing I can think is that the BIOS might be resetting the Active partition. Do you think that's possible? It's not anything on the hard drive and it's not anything in Windows.

As for the recovery partition, if it's standard, it would most likely restore the partition back to its original state (4KB clusters).

 

just a sec - i'll post some screen shots of my BIOS

 

Desktop BIOS. I'm fairly sure it can't be the BIOS because the process worked before on this computer. The boot diagnostic thing looked interesting. I made Vista Boot active to see if I could catch anything interesting but there was no discernible difference between the error-producing Settings and the regular ones. Also, the screen clears too fast to catch any useful information or take a screenshot.

 

Note that if you change your system partition to 16, and hide your active boot partition, Windows Vista Ultimate will throw an error when you try to run the backup and restore center's image backup utility:

"Windows could not find backup devices on your computer. The

following information might explain why the problem occured:

The file or directory is not a reparse point. (0×80071126)

Please close the backup application and try again."

Response here: http://www.microsoft-tech.com/index.aspx?content=22

Since I run Acronis True Image for my backup's its no great loss. Just an FYI for those who wonder what the issue might be.

 

TechieFan:

I ran Vista with the active (booting) partition hidden for several months before deciding to unhide it. Besides the error message quoted, I saw several other errors logged in the Windows Event Log, all related to not being able to see the partition where the boot files were located. Eventually I decided to unhide the Vista boot partition and all of the error event messages stopped.

Hiding the boot partition temporarily is a good idea if you are trying to force Windows to reassign drive letters in a desired sequence. After having done that I would recommend unhiding the boot partition.

 

ah perhaps that's why i got similar errors in my event viewer regarding system restore.

i'll take note of these things if i can ever get any of my systems to recognize my partition scheme appropriately. did the screen shots help? any ideas?

 

Your BIOS looks normal.

Does the Active setting "stick" before you reboot the computer?

As a test...

Boot to the Vista DVD and enter the Repair Mode.
Start the Command Prompt.
Start Diskpart.
Which partition is Active? (I assume not VistaBoot.)
Set the VistaBoot partition Active.
Exit Diskpart.
Exit the Command Prompt.
Restart the Command Prompt and run Diskpart.
Which partition is Active? Is VistaBoot still Active or has it already lost it?

 

JazzMac251:

The first picture in post #93 shows that you have your two hard disks identified by the BIOS as Disks 2 and 3, whereas Disk 1 is set to "None". Any particular reason for setting it up this way? What happens if you make your primary booting disk drive Disk #1?

 

Hello again K0lo, MudCrab.

Sorry for the sudden drop off in this thread. I got busy with work so i needed both computers functioning properly and i've been putting off tackling this problem forever. I'd like to thank you again for your help in previous posts.


First, a bit of an update. The missing bootmgr error i had is now gone. I decided to first change the cluster size of the data partition and let the boot errors come instead of trying to create the boot partition preemptively. This seemed to do the trick. Now i'm just getting the standard "disk read error" message.
I thought this all had to do with my computer's seeming inablity to accept another partition as active. however, I just used Paragon Partition Magic and through several reboots vistaboot has remained active. The interesting thing is that the drives will not stay mounted. I could see how this could be an issue. The OS isn't finding the proper boot files where BCDEDIT says they should be (i.e. bootmgr on E: [vistaboot], but there is no drive E mounted). It's possible that this isn't the case because, as Mark pointed out in post #55 "This tells me that when BCDEDIT was unable to translate to a drive letter because the partition was hidden, then it displays as a device location (the terminology looks strangely similar to Linux terminology; i.e. /dev/sda1 for example)." My circumstances are a little different (unknown cause for missing drive letters instead of the cause being a hidden partition) but the results should be the same. They aren't. My BCDEDIT still points to my VistaBoot partition, E: So maybe that's a red herring?

It really does sound like a BIOS sort of thing, but as we discussed before my BIOS aren't nearly that sophisticated.

It could also have something to with the HP_Recovery partition's presence as well. I think by the time i had tried to do this procedure the first time i had thoroughly trashed the recovery partition by accidentally letting diskeeper defrag it (oops). The RP on my laptop is intact. I'm not sure how that could make a difference - it's just a bunch of drivers right?

So MudCrab,
Yes, the active setting sticks until i get to the part of the boot where the OS tries to start up. At that point i get the disk read error and all is lost.

Mark,

You asked me about my reasoning for having my HDDs in their current configuration on my desktop - on which i'm also trying to perform this procedure. I brought in an older HDD from a former computer of mine. I don't think i forgot to change the jumper in the back.....but for some reason my main has always defaulted to the slave and the secondary has defaulted to master. I haven't run into any problems with it so far so i just left it.

To make things easier, you can disregard that and just focus on the laptop. It's only got one HDD and it is the computer i've been referring to in previous posts anyway.

cheers fellas!

 

I spend a week trying to fix this and now i find out... (on my 200th google search byrephrasing my query i find this page) that Vista Ultimate cannot be installed to a 64k cluster size hdd...

THATS BS... honistly though why cripple Vista more then it already is... i miss XP days post SP when u could install to 64k partitions... anyway I have a WD 34GB Raptor that I want to be my OS drive... I also have another raptor but for setup im not even plugging it in...

Can someone rephrase the steps I need to take from a TOTALLY BLANK HDD... do i have to reinstall vista on 4k cluster before i can do anything... or can it be setup before the install?

Thanks...