Partition Problems - I think my Vista Partition is hosed

  • Thread starter Thread starter Captainkwe
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Captainkwe

Environment

AMD 64 2.8g FX Dual
ASUS M2N-E- SLI
4 GIG RAM
HD1 (SATA) Western Dig. Raptor - 140 gig.
2 other HDs on pATA

Dual Boot on the same HD1:
Vista SP1 - HD1 (rougly 95 gig)
XP SP2 - HD1 (roughly 38gig )
Unallocated (6 Gig)
Partition Master v3.02

A lot of this is from memory as I can’t see my Vista OS Partition any more.
It’s a dual boot environment; I was trying to gain space in my Vista drive
and shrink my Rarely used XP partition.

I used the ‘built in’ Vista partitioning to "shrink" my 45gig XP
installation on HD1. That was successful. I then was left with 6 gig
'unallocated' that I was not able to recover using Vista's partitioning tools
(ie enlarge Vista was greyed out). I then used EASUS Partition Master on my
Vista partition to increase Vista’s partition using the available 6 gigs of
unallocated space. Partition Master rebooted & a DOS like status screen came
up and the process began- it was slow - so I left it. Several hours later, I
came back and the computer was completely off. I booted the computer, and
literally, nothing happened (monitor was in “no signal†state). However,
after booting, the disk light was constantly on – which I found odd since the
computer had been completely off but still had no signal to the monitor. I
left it like this for a while and after another ½ hour, I rebooted. Now, when
I am offered the standard “Windows Boot Manager†and choose “MS Windows
Vista†I receive a “Windows failed to start. A recent hw or sw change might
be the cause – to fix: 1) Insert CD 2) choose Languge 3) click repair.
File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Status: 0xc0000225
Info: the selected entry could not be loaded b/c the app is missing or
corrupt.

I am able to choose and get into my XP install. When I go into XP, and
select the drive Vista was on, I get a “Disk is not formatted – do you want
to format it?â€

Meanwhile, back at the Vista DVD recovery (Windows RE) – when I choose
“Startup Repair†and run diagnostics/repair, I get a
“Root Cause Found:
The partition table does not have valid system partition.
Repair Action: Partition Table repair
Result: Completed successfully. Error Code 0x0
Time taken = 4976 ms

So it should be all good, right? NO…..same error as above:
“Windows failed to start
File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Status: 0xc0000225
Info: the selected entry could not be loaded b/c the app is missing or
corrupt.

I’ve run this on the recovery console like 5 times already and each time, it
reports a successful Partition Table repair.

Finally, I tried the following with Vista Boot DVD:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /RebuildBcd

and results are as follows:

test with bootrec /fixmbr = the command has completed successfully
test with bootrec /fixboot = element not found
tets with bootrec /RebuildBcd = scanning all disks for windows installation.
please wait, sine this may take a while...
successfult scanned windows installations.
total identified windows installations: 0

the operation completed successfully.

Same state as beginning (Status: 0xc0000225 error) and boot manager startup
screen.

While I do have a backup, it will be a painful exercise.

One final note - in Computer Mgmt - G:\ drive (where vista lives - shows
95gigs and "Healthy"

Any ideas on how I can a) restore Vista b) "browse this area to snag files
if "a" doesn't work?

MANY Thanks for any insight
 
You have done some nasty things to your Vista partition.
Been there, done that.
If the partition table had been fixed you should be able to read your vista
data when in XP, which I have been fortunate enough to do under similar
circumstances recently, however from your post I am not sure you are able to
boot into XP at this point either.
If you are able to boot into XP there are a number of data recovery programs
you can try to see if they can read anything off the Vista partition so you
can try to rescue documents, images etc. I doubt it is possible to fix and
reboot that Vista installation.
Otherwise I think it is time for a reinstall of everything, unless you have
a pristine disc image that you know will actually reinstall. I would rethink
the dual boot thing and stick to one OS. Which OS you choose is up to you.
If XP works for you, and if you have programs that will not work in Vista,
there is no compelling reason to use Vista at all. If Vista works for you
there is no reason not to use it. If you stop dual booting you will soon not
notice how much slower Vista 32 is than XP. If you want to dual boot you may
want to get a copy of Vista 64: at least on my quad core uber machine Vista
64 seems a performance match for XP whereas Vista 32 is clearly not.
 
Sorry for the delay as my response may no longer be pertinent It sounds likes
this is affecting your system - GUID partition table (GPT) volume on
Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) x64-compatible hardware

:Proposed Solution:

We cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry
at your own risk.
Restart to Windows Recovery, and then run to Command Prompt.
Type regedit, and then enter.
Locate the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\MountedDevices
Locate the DosDevices drive letter registry values. These values resemble
the following value:
\DosDevices\C:
Locate the drive letter that you want to modify.
Right-click the registry value, and then click Rename.
Change the name of the registry value to the original correct drive letter.
Do not change the value itself.
There may be an extra registry entry per drive that is corrupted that you
should delete.

Note To do this, you must know how the drive letters have been interchanged.

Restart the computer.
 
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