FIXMBR

Michael, following what I consider both safe and logical, I am
getting further toward a solution. Unanswered questions are still why
I should try Win 98 boot floppies on an XP system, when I have the XP
6-floppy set, and also why you want me to use Drive Image 2002 when
that is contraindicated for XP, and I have DI 7.0 which is indicated
to be for XP.

I ran the XP 6-floppy boot set, and it leads me to an option to
call Recover Console. But when I insert the XP CD, it starts up
fine but halts, not finding certain files it needs to load. And
I tried it with a second borrowed XP CD with the same results. Maybe
this tells you something. I think I can borrow a 3rd XP CD to try,
but after that, I think it's just live with it. Not the way I,
as a scientist, was trained.

An interesting sidelight is that I am due to do another Drive
Image, for backup. When I do, it will be interesting to se whether
(a) the problem fixes itself, or (b) D.I. may not be happy to run,
since the MBR is obviously in need of repair, or (c) if it does
run, I will probably be making an image of the system which is in
need of repair.
--
William B. Lurie

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
Windows 98 boot floppies will not get you to the Recovery Console. I
can't
say about the XP floppies as I've never tried with them and that was
not
their purpose. The purpose of the XP boot floppies was to allow
systems
that cannot be set to boot from the CD-ROM drive to have a bootable
start up
option from which to begin XP setup.

If you try with the XP floppies, the worst that can happen is you
still
cannot reach the recovery console. You're problem is not one of
being able
to boot from the CD so I'm not sure how use of the XP floppies would
help
unless the Recovery Console was included on those floppies and as far
as I
know, it isn't. Hence, this is just another bootable option that
still
passes you to the XP CD in order to try to execute the Recovery
Console and
that's something, thus far, you've been unable to do either from the
CD or
from the downloaded version of the RC.

The Recovery Console is included on the six floppy disk set and is accessed
by pressing R. No XP CD necessary.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#RC
In his instance, I am not sure it would make a difference either. Just
wanted to clarify about the RC and floppy disk set.
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

Michael Stevens wrote:
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

Windows 98 boot floppies will not get you to the Recovery Console. I
can't
say about the XP floppies as I've never tried with them and that was
not
their purpose. The purpose of the XP boot floppies was to allow
systems
that cannot be set to boot from the CD-ROM drive to have a bootable
start up
option from which to begin XP setup.

If you try with the XP floppies, the worst that can happen is you
still
cannot reach the recovery console. You're problem is not one of
being able
to boot from the CD so I'm not sure how use of the XP floppies would
help
unless the Recovery Console was included on those floppies and as far
as I
know, it isn't. Hence, this is just another bootable option that
still
passes you to the XP CD in order to try to execute the Recovery
Console and
that's something, thus far, you've been unable to do either from the
CD or
from the downloaded version of the RC.


The Recovery Console is included on the six floppy disk set and is accessed
by pressing R. No XP CD necessary.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#RC
In his instance, I am not sure it would make a difference either. Just
wanted to clarify about the RC and floppy disk set.
BRAVO and BANZAI!, Michael Stevens. Another intelligent contribution to
possible solution of my problm. I enjoy being a test bed for helping you
find solutions. I booted with 6-floppy Sp1A XP Pro boot set.....at end,
it asked me to insert a CD. This correlates with Michael Solomon's
judgement that the RC is 50 MB and won't fit on 6 floppies....... So I
inserted a CD (happened to be a different borrowed XP CD) and it went
to RC (!!!) and asked me if I wanted C: or D: ..... (The hard drive has
both). Then I chickened out and started up normally so that I could file
this progress report. I plan on repeating all this and then telling it
C: and praying a lot.

--
William B. Lurie

William B. Lurie wrote:
Michael Stevens wrote:
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

Windows 98 boot floppies will not get you to the Recovery Console.
I can't
say about the XP floppies as I've never tried with them and that was
not
their purpose. The purpose of the XP boot floppies was to allow
systems
that cannot be set to boot from the CD-ROM drive to have a bootable
start up
option from which to begin XP setup.

If you try with the XP floppies, the worst that can happen is you
still
cannot reach the recovery console. You're problem is not one of
being able
to boot from the CD so I'm not sure how use of the XP floppies would
help
unless the Recovery Console was included on those floppies and as
far
as I
know, it isn't. Hence, this is just another bootable option that
still
passes you to the XP CD in order to try to execute the Recovery
Console and
that's something, thus far, you've been unable to do either from the
CD or
from the downloaded version of the RC.


The Recovery Console is included on the six floppy disk set and is
accessed by pressing R. No XP CD necessary.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#RC
In his instance, I am not sure it would make a difference either.
Just wanted to clarify about the RC and floppy disk set.
BRAVO and BANZAI!, Michael Stevens. Another intelligent contribution
to possible solution of my problm. I enjoy being a test bed for
helping you find solutions. I booted with 6-floppy Sp1A XP Pro boot
set.....at end,
it asked me to insert a CD. This correlates with Michael Solomon's
judgement that the RC is 50 MB and won't fit on 6 floppies.......

Recovery Console runs perfectly from the six floppy disk XP Boot set. Just
to make sure I wasn't dreaming it I loaded on my other computer and am
looking at the RC console screen at this very moment.


--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

Hi,

I will concur with Michael Stevens, as I know from personal recent
experience that the boot floppy set will indeed include a fully-functional
Recovery Console, no CD is required.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone
www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone
Win98 Help - www.rickrogers.org

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael Stevens wrote:
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

Windows 98 boot floppies will not get you to the Recovery Console. I
can't
say about the XP floppies as I've never tried with them and that was
not
their purpose. The purpose of the XP boot floppies was to allow
systems
that cannot be set to boot from the CD-ROM drive to have a bootable
start up
option from which to begin XP setup.

If you try with the XP floppies, the worst that can happen is you
still
cannot reach the recovery console. You're problem is not one of
being able
to boot from the CD so I'm not sure how use of the XP floppies would
help
unless the Recovery Console was included on those floppies and as far
as I
know, it isn't. Hence, this is just another bootable option that
still
passes you to the XP CD in order to try to execute the Recovery
Console and
that's something, thus far, you've been unable to do either from the
CD or
from the downloaded version of the RC.


The Recovery Console is included on the six floppy disk set and is
accessed
by pressing R. No XP CD necessary.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#RC
In his instance, I am not sure it would make a difference either. Just
wanted to clarify about the RC and floppy disk set.
BRAVO and BANZAI!, Michael Stevens. Another intelligent contribution to
possible solution of my problm. I enjoy being a test bed for helping you
find solutions. I booted with 6-floppy Sp1A XP Pro boot set.....at end,
it asked me to insert a CD. This correlates with Michael Solomon's
judgement that the RC is 50 MB and won't fit on 6 floppies....... So I
inserted a CD (happened to be a different borrowed XP CD) and it went
to RC (!!!) and asked me if I wanted C: or D: ..... (The hard drive has
both). Then I chickened out and started up normally so that I could file
this progress report. I plan on repeating all this and then telling it
C: and praying a lot.

--
William B. Lurie

Rick "Nutcase" Rogers wrote:
Hi,

I will concur with Michael Stevens, as I know from personal recent
experience that the boot floppy set will indeed include a fully-functional
Recovery Console, no CD is required.

Okay, Rick and Michael, I will try again 8 hours hence with
the 6-floppy set/SP1A/ and no CD and see if it makes RC. I
thought I recalled that after th floppies I needed a CD.
All I want is the RC and then FIXMBR (followed by a little bit
of luck). I believe it was Michael Solomon who told me that the
RC was 50 MB and couldn't come on floppies.......and by the way
I went to MS Download website seeking a download for RC and I
couldn't find one there/
William B. Lurie

I haven't been following the thread but seen the mention of DI 7 and DI
2002. I have both but use DI2002 exclusively and the main reason I do it is
that I discovered that DI 7 cannot restore an image to a disk drive that is
smaller than the one the image was made from. I have a 120gb with only 12gb
used and found I couldn't restore that image to a 60gb drive. Emails to
Powerquest support confirmed that shortcoming of DI 7 and the recommendation
was DI2002. I've made and restored images of XP with DI 2002 many times
with no problems at all. I haven't tried the new 7.1 version and don't know
what changes it may have. I realize that the likely hood of replacing a
failed drive with a smaller one is not something most people would do but I
have removable drive trays and often move drives around on my system.
Hope this helps.

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Michael, following what I consider both safe and logical, I am
getting further toward a solution. Unanswered questions are still why
I should try Win 98 boot floppies on an XP system, when I have the XP
6-floppy set, and also why you want me to use Drive Image 2002 when
that is contraindicated for XP, and I have DI 7.0 which is indicated
to be for XP.

I ran the XP 6-floppy boot set, and it leads me to an option to
call Recover Console. But when I insert the XP CD, it starts up
fine but halts, not finding certain files it needs to load. And
I tried it with a second borrowed XP CD with the same results. Maybe
this tells you something. I think I can borrow a 3rd XP CD to try,
but after that, I think it's just live with it. Not the way I,
as a scientist, was trained.

An interesting sidelight is that I am due to do another Drive
Image, for backup. When I do, it will be interesting to se whether
(a) the problem fixes itself, or (b) D.I. may not be happy to run,
since the MBR is obviously in need of repair, or (c) if it does
run, I will probably be making an image of the system which is in
need of repair.
--
William B. Lurie

William B. Lurie wrote:
Rick "Nutcase" Rogers wrote:
Hi,

I will concur with Michael Stevens, as I know from personal recent
experience that the boot floppy set will indeed include a
fully-functional Recovery Console, no CD is required.

Okay, Rick and Michael, I will try again 8 hours hence with
the 6-floppy set/SP1A/ and no CD and see if it makes RC. I
thought I recalled that after th floppies I needed a CD.
All I want is the RC and then FIXMBR (followed by a little bit
of luck). I believe it was Michael Solomon who told me that the
RC was 50 MB and couldn't come on floppies.......and by the way
I went to MS Download website seeking a download for RC and I
couldn't find one there/
William B. Lurie

After checking again, it looks like the RC loads and has limited
functionality without the CD or a previous install of the RC to the hard
drive.

--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

Thanks, Michael, I was obviously unaware of that.:-)

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"Michael Stevens" wrote in message
...
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
Windows 98 boot floppies will not get you to the Recovery Console. I
can't
say about the XP floppies as I've never tried with them and that was
not
their purpose. The purpose of the XP boot floppies was to allow
systems
that cannot be set to boot from the CD-ROM drive to have a bootable
start up
option from which to begin XP setup.

If you try with the XP floppies, the worst that can happen is you
still
cannot reach the recovery console. You're problem is not one of
being able
to boot from the CD so I'm not sure how use of the XP floppies would
help
unless the Recovery Console was included on those floppies and as far
as I
know, it isn't. Hence, this is just another bootable option that
still
passes you to the XP CD in order to try to execute the Recovery
Console and
that's something, thus far, you've been unable to do either from the
CD or
from the downloaded version of the RC.

The Recovery Console is included on the six floppy disk set and is
accessed
by pressing R. No XP CD necessary.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#RC
In his instance, I am not sure it would make a difference either. Just
wanted to clarify about the RC and floppy disk set.
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

I'll be most interested to see if you finally get it working, Bill.

Good luck.

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"William B. Lurie" wrote in message
...
Rick "Nutcase" Rogers wrote:
Hi,

I will concur with Michael Stevens, as I know from personal recent
experience that the boot floppy set will indeed include a
fully-functional
Recovery Console, no CD is required.

Okay, Rick and Michael, I will try again 8 hours hence with
the 6-floppy set/SP1A/ and no CD and see if it makes RC. I
thought I recalled that after th floppies I needed a CD.
All I want is the RC and then FIXMBR (followed by a little bit
of luck). I believe it was Michael Solomon who told me that the
RC was 50 MB and couldn't come on floppies.......and by the way
I went to MS Download website seeking a download for RC and I
couldn't find one there/
William B. Lurie

$&%#$*%*!!!!!

Sorry, just had to blow off a little steam!:-)

--
Michael Solomon MS-MVP
Windows Shell/User
Backup is a PC User's Best Friend
DTS-L.Org: http://www.dts-l.org/

"Michael Stevens" wrote in message
...
William B. Lurie wrote:
Rick "Nutcase" Rogers wrote:
Hi,

I will concur with Michael Stevens, as I know from personal recent
experience that the boot floppy set will indeed include a
fully-functional Recovery Console, no CD is required.

Okay, Rick and Michael, I will try again 8 hours hence with
the 6-floppy set/SP1A/ and no CD and see if it makes RC. I
thought I recalled that after th floppies I needed a CD.
All I want is the RC and then FIXMBR (followed by a little bit
of luck). I believe it was Michael Solomon who told me that the
RC was 50 MB and couldn't come on floppies.......and by the way
I went to MS Download website seeking a download for RC and I
couldn't find one there/
William B. Lurie

After checking again, it looks like the RC loads and has limited
functionality without the CD or a previous install of the RC to the hard
drive.

--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:
$&%#$*%*!!!!!

Sorry, just had to blow off a little steam!:-)



LOL, you are welcome. RC console does run, but in a very limited capacity.
--

Michael Stevens MS-MVP XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com
For a better newsgroup experience. Setup a newsreader.
http://michaelstevenstech.com/outloo...snewreader.htm

"Michael Stevens" wrote in message
...
William B. Lurie wrote:
Rick "Nutcase" Rogers wrote:
Hi,

I will concur with Michael Stevens, as I know from personal recent
experience that the boot floppy set will indeed include a
fully-functional Recovery Console, no CD is required.

Okay, Rick and Michael, I will try again 8 hours hence with
the 6-floppy set/SP1A/ and no CD and see if it makes RC. I
thought I recalled that after th floppies I needed a CD.
All I want is the RC and then FIXMBR (followed by a little bit
of luck). I believe it was Michael Solomon who told me that the
RC was 50 MB and couldn't come on floppies.......and by the way
I went to MS Download website seeking a download for RC and I
couldn't find one there/
William B. Lurie

After checking again, it looks like the RC loads and has limited
functionality without the CD or a previous install of the RC to the
hard drive.

Michael Stevens wrote:
Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

$&%#$*%*!!!!!

Sorry, just had to blow off a little steam!:-)




LOL, you are welcome. RC console does run, but in a very limited capacity.
Limited might be okay, I'm up and a bit later this morning I will try
th six-floppy boot to see if it gets me to RC. Then I'll play it by ear
as to FIXMBR. A still unanswered question is the reference as to whether
I tried the RC download......I would appreciate having a link to that
download as I could save it on a CD and then not have to go through the
tedious loading of six floppies............

--
William B. Lurie

William B. Lurie wrote:
Michael Stevens wrote:

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

$&%#$*%*!!!!!

Sorry, just had to blow off a little steam!:-)




LOL, you are welcome. RC console does run, but in a very limited
capacity.

Limited might be okay, I'm up and a bit later this morning I will try
th six-floppy boot to see if it gets me to RC. Then I'll play it by ear
as to FIXMBR. A still unanswered question is the reference as to whether
I tried the RC download......I would appreciate having a link to that
download as I could save it on a CD and then not have to go through the
tedious loading of six floppies............

Dear Michaels:
Well, I tried the 6-floppy boot and it led me to "Type R for Recovery
Console" and I did. That led me to a choice of "Which do you want to
fix, C: or D:?"....... So I selected "1" for C: and that led me
immediately to a prompt C:\WINDOWS ............. Not knowing what to do
next, I simply rebooted, and it booted up with the usual error 2
etcetera on which I simply hit any key and here I am. So my next
question, gentlemen, is, what should I have done at that C:\WINDOWS
prompt, or, is it a case of the floppy boot without the CD doesn't
really take me to a full RC capability? In that case, I'll revert to
having the XP CD in place, and maybe it will load full RC capability?
Awaiting further advice.......
WBL

--
William B. Lurie

William B. Lurie wrote:
William B. Lurie wrote:

Michael Stevens wrote:

Michael Solomon (MS-MVP Windows Shell/User) wrote:

$&%#$*%*!!!!!

Sorry, just had to blow off a little steam!:-)




LOL, you are welcome. RC console does run, but in a very limited
capacity.


Limited might be okay, I'm up and a bit later this morning I will try
th six-floppy boot to see if it gets me to RC. Then I'll play it by ear
as to FIXMBR. A still unanswered question is the reference as to whether
I tried the RC download......I would appreciate having a link to that
download as I could save it on a CD and then not have to go through the
tedious loading of six floppies............

Dear Michaels:
Well, I tried the 6-floppy boot and it led me to "Type R for Recovery
Console" and I did. That led me to a choice of "Which do you want to
fix, C: or D:?"....... So I selected "1" for C: and that led me
immediately to a prompt C:\WINDOWS ............. Not knowing what to do
next, I simply rebooted, and it booted up with the usual error 2
etcetera on which I simply hit any key and here I am. So my next
question, gentlemen, is, what should I have done at that C:\WINDOWS
prompt, or, is it a case of the floppy boot without the CD doesn't
really take me to a full RC capability? In that case, I'll revert to
having the XP CD in place, and maybe it will load full RC capability?
Awaiting further advice.......
WBL
Continuing on with this saga, which is indeed making progress,
I got to the WINDOWS prompt mentioned above, and reread one of your
notes, and entered FIXMBR. Sure enough, it proceeded to tell me
"Nonstd or invalid MBR. Continuing may damage partition tables,
may make all partition tables inaccessible. If you're not having
trouble accessing drives, do not continue." Well, that was enough to
convince me that I should break off here and ask advice from Rick and
the two Michaels.

For the record, the error messages I get during bootup, which are the
real reason I am trying to FIXMBR, a

Err 5-- Error finding VFLOPPY.SYS
Err 8-- Fake floppy driver not found
Press any key to proceed.
WBL



--
William B. Lurie