April 29th 04, 12:04 PM
I've done a bit more research, and think that I have
answered my own question, but created another. I was able
to boot my system by installing another XP bootable drive
and pointing it's boot.ini file at the drive with which I'm
having trouble. Everything is just as I left it, which is
a huge relief. I'd leave it just like it is if I could,
but I need that other drive for another machine.
Anyway, getting the OS booted allowed me to do some
digging. In particular, I ran the analysis portion of the
defrag utility on my problem drive, not really expecting to
find anything useful. What I found, however, was a report
that actually told me the size, percent usage, and number
of fragments of my MFT. It didn't tell me definitively
that NTLDR is in the second fragment. But it did tell me
that the MFT is fragmented, and that it is 92% in use,
which at least hints at the strong likelihood that NTLDR
(falling where it does in the alphabet) is on the second
fragment.
So I am now more convinced than ever that I need Bcupdate2
(and I'm going to try to get MS to give it to me). But I
was also wondering whether I might be able to accomplish
anything by defragging my C drive. I assume that if I
defrag, my MFT fragments will be combined into a single
contiguous fragment large enough to hold the entire thing.
I just don't know if this would help. Plus, I view it as
only a temporary measure anyway, since at 92%, the MFT is
likely to grow beyond it's current size and get fragmented
again anyway.
Anyone have any advice? Thanks.
Tony
answered my own question, but created another. I was able
to boot my system by installing another XP bootable drive
and pointing it's boot.ini file at the drive with which I'm
having trouble. Everything is just as I left it, which is
a huge relief. I'd leave it just like it is if I could,
but I need that other drive for another machine.
Anyway, getting the OS booted allowed me to do some
digging. In particular, I ran the analysis portion of the
defrag utility on my problem drive, not really expecting to
find anything useful. What I found, however, was a report
that actually told me the size, percent usage, and number
of fragments of my MFT. It didn't tell me definitively
that NTLDR is in the second fragment. But it did tell me
that the MFT is fragmented, and that it is 92% in use,
which at least hints at the strong likelihood that NTLDR
(falling where it does in the alphabet) is on the second
fragment.
So I am now more convinced than ever that I need Bcupdate2
(and I'm going to try to get MS to give it to me). But I
was also wondering whether I might be able to accomplish
anything by defragging my C drive. I assume that if I
defrag, my MFT fragments will be combined into a single
contiguous fragment large enough to hold the entire thing.
I just don't know if this would help. Plus, I view it as
only a temporary measure anyway, since at 92%, the MFT is
likely to grow beyond it's current size and get fragmented
again anyway.
Anyone have any advice? Thanks.
Tony