Windows XP Home Edition failed to boot up on a partition not started from first cylinder

  • Thread starter Thread starter Andrew Chow
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A

Andrew Chow

Hi All,

I'v got a problem during installation of Windows XP Edition, My computer is
a Sony PCG-VX88 laptop, I use System Recorvery CD provided by Sony to setup
Windows XP, Since there are some bad sectors in the beginning cylinder of
hard disk, I use linux fdisk to allocate a primary partition begin from the
16th cylinder for Windows XP, It seems everything is fine during
installation of Windows XP. But after finish installation, I found that
Windows XP can't boot at all and it didn't give me any information about
why.
To fix the problem, I boot my computer to linux (I also installed RedHat
linux 8.0 in my computer), I mount the ntfs partition where the Windows XP
installed in, It seems the System Recorvery CD had correctlly copied all
files into the Windows XP partition, the file system is ok for read (linux
only provide read-only ntfs file system driver). I didn't find any problem
in these files, the boot.ini and another files such as NTLDR are all exist,
I also dump the boot sector of the NTFS partion but didn't find any problem
in it. The hard disk is operate in LBA mode and one cylinder of my hard disk
have about 8MB size, I don't think the boot loader will fail to locate
sectors because of BIOS INT13 limit.
At first I think the problem may caused by Sony System Recorvery CD, so I
tried standard Windows XP home edition setup CD, but got the same result, so
this should be caused by Windows XP setup program.

It's most appreciate if anyone can help me on this issue.

Thanks

Andrew Chow
 
Yes, I set the partition active, I have also tried retail Windows XP CD, but
still didn't work either. But it seems the Windows 2000 setup program
doesn't have the same problem, It can boot smoothly after setup, I don't
known what's the difference of boot process between Windows 2000 and Windows
XP, I have compared the boot sector of the Windows 2000 partition and
Windows XP partition, There are all identical excepte some field in BPB and
Extended BPB field (It's reasonable). I didn't find any problem. In fact,
after I setup Windows 2000, I can access the files system of the partition
where the Windows XP installed.
 
Andrew Chow said:
Yes, I set the partition active, I have also tried retail Windows XP CD, but
still didn't work either. But it seems the Windows 2000 setup program
doesn't have the same problem, It can boot smoothly after setup, I don't
known what's the difference of boot process between Windows 2000 and Windows
XP, I have compared the boot sector of the Windows 2000 partition and
Windows XP partition, There are all identical excepte some field in BPB and
Extended BPB field (It's reasonable). I didn't find any problem. In fact,
after I setup Windows 2000, I can access the files system of the partition
where the Windows XP installed.
Click to expand...

Andrew,

first of all, I'm no longer on firm ground with this problem.
I'm only guessing.

You wrote that you left some space free in the beginning of the
disk because of errors on the disk. But these disks usually
repair themselves by relocating the defective sectors. If they
don't, they should be considered altogether defective and
replaced.

I would try to install once more and remove all partitions at
the beginning of the install procedure, then install into the
empty space. The installer will then create one big partition
and install into it.

If that doesn't work, then the disk may be genuinely broken and
may need replacing.

Hans-Georg
 
I had fixed the problem, the problem should caused by problem in Windows XP
setup problem.

I have following hard disk partitions

Partition 1 5GB Linux Ex2
Partition 2 10GB NTFS
Partition 3 10GB NTFS

I setup Windows XP in Partition 2, The Windows XP System Recorvery CD always
format the partition during setup, but it set an incorrect value of hidden
sectors field in the first sector of the NTFS partition, Windows XP will use
this value to find from where to load entire bootstrap code, Windows XP
always setup the value that point to the first sector of the first
partition, if the first partition is also NTFS partition, it may works, but
it's Linux partition, so it will read the wrong sector and jump to wrong
bootstrap code.

After I use a disk editor utility to change the field to correct value (just
4 bytes), the system can boot successfully.
 
Andrew Chow said:
I had fixed the problem, the problem should caused by problem in Windows XP
setup problem.

I have following hard disk partitions

Partition 1 5GB Linux Ex2
Partition 2 10GB NTFS
Partition 3 10GB NTFS

I setup Windows XP in Partition 2, The Windows XP System Recorvery CD always
format the partition during setup, but it set an incorrect value of hidden
sectors field in the first sector of the NTFS partition, Windows XP will use
this value to find from where to load entire bootstrap code, Windows XP
always setup the value that point to the first sector of the first
partition, if the first partition is also NTFS partition, it may works, but
it's Linux partition, so it will read the wrong sector and jump to wrong
bootstrap code.

After I use a disk editor utility to change the field to correct value (just
4 bytes), the system can boot successfully.
Click to expand...

Andrew,

thanks for the report.

Hans-Georg
 
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