I need help with unformatted drive

[Meyer]

I have a 25 GB drive with 3 partitions.
All partitions are FAT 32.
It is a dual boot 98se/2kPro system.

In DOS:
C: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
D: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
E: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
F: = CD-ROM drive

In Win 98se:
C: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
D: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
E: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
F: = 19.4 GB and seems to be a copy of the D: drive
G: = CD-ROM drive

In Win 2kPro
Will no longer boot. Error: Can't find ntoskrnl.exe I tried all the boot.ini
fixes.

The system worked correctly for 2 years, then for no known reason it
wouldn't boot in 2000. It will boot in 98 or DOS with the above results.
I can scan disk all drives from DOS and 98. Even the "extra" 2000 drive that
doesn't exist. In 98 I can access the phantom drive and use the data on it.
I installed the drive as a secondary master on another 98se PC and had the
following results:
C: = 98se on Primary Master
D: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
E: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
F: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
G: = 19.4 GB (the phantom drive)
H: = CD-ROM drive
D,E F& G are all on the Secondary Master. While there I copied all my data
to the C: drive.

I tried a repair from 98 and it could not find the win2k installed files.
Same problem from DOS.
I tried a reinstall from 98 and got the message that drive D: was
unformatted.
I tried looking from the DOS version of Partition Magic, and it shows the
D: drive as unformatted.
I can still use the D: drive from DOS or 98 and still get the phantom drive
in 98.

I would like to be able to repair and boot to 2000 without losing my data
and settings? Is this possible?
Or do I bite the bullet and re-format the drive and start from scratch?

Thanks.
Meyer

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

See below, marked ***.

I have a 25 GB drive with 3 partitions.
All partitions are FAT 32.
It is a dual boot 98se/2kPro system.

In DOS:
C: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
D: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
E: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
F: = CD-ROM drive

In Win 98se:
C: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
D: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
E: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
F: = 19.4 GB and seems to be a copy of the D: drive
G: = CD-ROM drive

In Win 2kPro
Will no longer boot. Error: Can't find ntoskrnl.exe I tried all the boot.ini
fixes.

The system worked correctly for 2 years, then for no known reason it
wouldn't boot in 2000. It will boot in 98 or DOS with the above results.
I can scan disk all drives from DOS and 98. Even the "extra" 2000 drive that
doesn't exist. In 98 I can access the phantom drive and use the data on it.
I installed the drive as a secondary master on another 98se PC and had the
following results:
C: = 98se on Primary Master
D: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
E: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive

*** Can you see any files/folders?

F: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
G: = 19.4 GB (the phantom drive)
H: = CD-ROM drive
D,E F& G are all on the Secondary Master. While there I copied all my data
to the C: drive.

I tried a repair from 98 and it could not find the win2k installed files.
Same problem from DOS.
I tried a reinstall from 98 and got the message that drive D: was
unformatted.

*** What partition type does ptedit.exe show? (You can download ptedit.exe
from the PowerQuest site. It's free.)

I tried looking from the DOS version of Partition Magic, and it shows the
D: drive as unformatted.
I can still use the D: drive from DOS or 98 and still get the phantom drive
in 98.

I would like to be able to repair and boot to 2000 without losing my data
and settings? Is this possible?

*** I thought you copied all your data while the problem disk was installed
as a
secondary master?

 

[Meyer]

Thanks for the interest. I will snip most of the original message.

*** Can you see any files/folders?

I can see and use ALL Folders & Files from both 98 and DOS. Data files only
because I don't have the .exe's loaded. This includes files from the phantom
drive in both 98 PCs.

*** I thought you copied all your data while the problem disk was installed
as a
secondary master?

I did (see the above Q & A). But I can't even be sure what all is on this
PC. It is used by my wife only and she just loads what she wants at the
time. If I go from scratch it could be weeks before it works the way she
wants. And guess who will get the cries of, "My (insert file type here)
won't work." :-{

<snipped and moved>

*** What partition type does ptedit.exe show? (You can download ptedit.exe
from the PowerQuest site. It's free.)

I ran ptedit from a DOS bootdisk ver Win 98 4.10.1998. I also ran fdisk &
fdisk /status. It looked OK when I sent it so I hope you can read it. The
results are below:

PT Edit results

1 drive
Drive 1 - 26121 MB; 3330 cyl; 255 Heads; 63 sectors

Drive Specs:
Partitiion Type Boot StartCyl Head Sector EndCyl
Head Sector SecBefore Sectors
1 0B 80 0 1
1 140 254 63 63
2265102
2 0F 00 140 0 1
1023 254 63 2265165 51231285


Partition 1 is FAT 32; Bootable; 1106MB
Partition 2 is Extended X; 25015MB
Partition 3 is freespace
Partition 4 is freespace

Fixed Disk Drive Status
Disk Drv Mbytes Free Usage
1 26121 100%
C: 1106
D: 20050
E: 4965

(1 MByte = 1048576 bytes)


Fdisk Statistics
Partition Status Type MB System Usage
C: 1 A Pri DOS 1106 FAT 32 4%
2 Ext DOS 25015 96%

Logical DOS
Drive MB System Usage
D: 20050 FAT 32 80%
E: 4965 FAT 32 20%

Hope this helps.
Thanks again.
Meyer

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a 25 GB drive with 3 partitions.
All partitions are FAT 32.
It is a dual boot 98se/2kPro system.

In DOS:
C: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
D: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
E: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
F: = CD-ROM drive

In Win 98se:
C: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
D: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
E: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
F: = 19.4 GB and seems to be a copy of the D: drive
G: = CD-ROM drive

In Win 2kPro
Will no longer boot. Error: Can't find ntoskrnl.exe I tried all the boot.ini
fixes.

The system worked correctly for 2 years, then for no known reason it
wouldn't boot in 2000. It will boot in 98 or DOS with the above results.
I can scan disk all drives from DOS and 98. Even the "extra" 2000 drive that
doesn't exist. In 98 I can access the phantom drive and use the data on it.
I installed the drive as a secondary master on another 98se PC and had the
following results:
C: = 98se on Primary Master
D: = 1.1 GB and is the 98se drive
E: = 19.4 GB and is the 2kPro drive
F: = 4.5 GB and is a data only drive
G: = 19.4 GB (the phantom drive)
H: = CD-ROM drive
D,E F& G are all on the Secondary Master. While there I copied all my data
to the C: drive.

I tried a repair from 98 and it could not find the win2k installed files.
Same problem from DOS.
I tried a reinstall from 98 and got the message that drive D: was
unformatted.
I tried looking from the DOS version of Partition Magic, and it shows the
D: drive as unformatted.
I can still use the D: drive from DOS or 98 and still get the phantom drive
in 98.

I would like to be able to repair and boot to 2000 without losing my data
and settings? Is this possible?
Or do I bite the bullet and re-format the drive and start from scratch?

Thanks.
Meyer

The information you copied from ptedit tells me this:
- On disk 1, you have a FAT32 and an extended partition.
- The extended partition is around 26 MBytes

It tells me nothing about the drives in the extended partition.
I suspect this is where the problem hides. To get the details
of the drives in the extended partitions, you must do this:
- Launch ptedit
- Place the cursor on the partition type field that says "0F"
(0F is an extended partition)
- Click "Goto EPBR" (see attached text file ptedit.txt)
- What do you see there?
- When you click "Boot Record", what do you see?

I recommend that you look at the various drives in the extended
partition and compare table entries with each other. Set up
a spreadsheet, with a row for each boot record field!

While in ptedit, you can start experimenting: If you suspect
that some field is incorrect, do this:
- Make a note of the field that you're about to change so that
you can locate it again later on.
- Make a note of its contents.
- Change it and save it.
- Can you boot into Win2000?
- If no, return the field to its original value.

As long as you remember what you did and where you did it,
your changes are all reversible.

About the attached file: You should use notepad.exe to view it,
and set it to full size with a font of "Courier New / 8 pitch".

If all this gets too much then you could launch Win98 and
copy your existing Win2000 installation to some temporary
drive or disk, recreate the Win2000 partition, then copy things
back again. I can give you further details if you want to follow
this path. This would give you the opportunity to compare the
flawed partition table entries with the fixed entries!

 

[Meyer]

I'll give it a try. Thanks for everything.
Meyer

It seems the boot manager you use is the one that
comes as part of Win2000.

I cannot tell you what is wrong with your Win2000 partition.
However, I can tell you what one of my own disks looks
like. When I launch ptedit.exe then I get the first
partition record. It has three lines where "Type" is not 0:

78 - This is my boot manager. DOS or Windows will
never recognise it (because it's 78!)
0B - This is a FAT32 partition. Windows 98 resides there.
0F - This is an extended X partition. To look into it, I must
click "Goto EPBR" (Extended Partition Boot Record)

When I do this, I get a new table:
16 - This is a hidden FAT16 partition
05 - This is an extended partition
etc.

Where did I get the descriptions from? I simply clicked the
button "Set Type".

Seeing that Win98 recognises your Win2000 partition,
I suspect that its type number is set incorrectly. Win98
does not mind but Win2000 and PQMagic can't cope.
I would now examine every type number, check if it is
reasonable, and modify it if it is not reasonable. If I did
something bad then I would simply launch ptedit and
put the type number back to what it was before.

That's all!