Partition Table Problem

[Will]

Hi,

Recently had a serious crash, and now cannot boot into XP. The XP setup sees
the disk as an unformatted partition, but a disk recovery program sees an
NTFS formatted partition, with all my data intact.
What I have been lead to believe has happened, is that the partition tables
have somehow become corrupted. Is there anyway of restoring them (possibly
by copying from another NTFS drive and editing slightly?)

Thanks

Will

[Crusty \(-: Old Bastard :-\)]

The partition table is unique to a specific drive. You can not copy one from
another drive.

"Will" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
>
> Recently had a serious crash, and now cannot boot into XP. The XP setup
sees
> the disk as an unformatted partition, but a disk recovery program sees an
> NTFS formatted partition, with all my data intact.
> What I have been lead to believe has happened, is that the partition
tables
> have somehow become corrupted. Is there anyway of restoring them (possibly
> by copying from another NTFS drive and editing slightly?)
>
> Thanks
>
> Will
>
>

[Big Daddy Jim]

Boot from the CD and run the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands from Recovery
Console.

This tutorial shows how to use recovery console when booting from the drive,
but you should be able to access the console by booting from the CD.

http://www.screenshotmovies.com/tutorials/WinXP/recovery/usage/index.htm

--
Regards,

BigDaddyJim
A+, Windows 2000 MCP

Screenshot movies for tech support on Windows 2000 / XP!
http://www.screenshotmovies.com


"Will" > wrote in message
...
> Hi,
>
> Recently had a serious crash, and now cannot boot into XP. The XP setup
sees
> the disk as an unformatted partition, but a disk recovery program sees an
> NTFS formatted partition, with all my data intact.
> What I have been lead to believe has happened, is that the partition
tables
> have somehow become corrupted. Is there anyway of restoring them (possibly
> by copying from another NTFS drive and editing slightly?)
>
> Thanks
>
> Will
>
>

[Ron Martell]

"Big Daddy Jim" > wrote:

>Boot from the CD and run the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands from Recovery
>Console.
>
>This tutorial shows how to use recovery console when booting from the drive,
>but you should be able to access the console by booting from the CD.
>
>http://www.screenshotmovies.com/tutorials/WinXP/recovery/usage/index.htm

And if that does not work then you could try MBRWORK from the free
downloads section of http://www.bootitng.com CAUTION: I am not 100%
certain that this utility will properly recognize the NTFS partitions
created by Windows XP.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

[Ron Martell]

Ron Martell > wrote:

>"Big Daddy Jim" > wrote:
>
>>Boot from the CD and run the FIXBOOT and FIXMBR commands from Recovery
>>Console.
>>
>>This tutorial shows how to use recovery console when booting from the drive,
>>but you should be able to access the console by booting from the CD.
>>
>>http://www.screenshotmovies.com/tutorials/WinXP/recovery/usage/index.htm
>
>And if that does not work then you could try MBRWORK from the free
>downloads section of http://www.bootitng.com CAUTION: I am not 100%
>certain that this utility will properly recognize the NTFS partitions
>created by Windows XP.
>

p.s. - see http://members.shaw.ca/LeesPlace/mbrwork.htm for instructions
on using MBRWORK.


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

[Alex Nichol]

Will wrote:

>Recently had a serious crash, and now cannot boot into XP. The XP setup sees
>the disk as an unformatted partition, but a disk recovery program sees an
>NTFS formatted partition, with all my data intact.
>What I have been lead to believe has happened, is that the partition tables
>have somehow become corrupted. Is there anyway of restoring them (possibly
>by copying from another NTFS drive and editing slightly?)

you certainly *cannot* copy from another drive.

What I would do is get the MBRWORK program from the free tools at
www.bootitng.com

Download and put on a DOS boot floppy, made in formatting in My
Computer.

Boot that, run MBRWORK and use options

1 to backup so you could restore with 2

3 then 4 to delete current mbr and tables

there will then be possibility of
A to search the disk for partitions (like the disk recovery program
did) and recreate partition tables
Then
5
to write new MBR code and
6
to set the appropriate partition as active, to be booted from

--
Alex Nichol MS MVP (Windows - File Systems)
Bournemouth, U.K.