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#61
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
On 01/22/2014 03:02 AM, philo wrote:
Basically all you are doing when you use Hiren's is omit loading the HD's MBR...which is further evidence of an MBR problem. Aye, it would certainly point in that direction, except putting grub on the mbr will boot Linux just fine, but won't boot Windows (nor will rescatux). I don't even get the error messages with the latter two loaders, which would suggest a bad boot partition (but doesn't explain why Hiren can boot it). Why it cannot be fixed, I don't know. Yeah, it's a pretty good puzzle. One thing points in one direction, and something else in another, and around and around they go. Jon |
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#62
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
On 01/22/2014 04:12 PM, Jon Danniken wrote:
On 01/22/2014 03:02 AM, philo wrote: Basically all you are doing when you use Hiren's is omit loading the HD's MBR...which is further evidence of an MBR problem. Aye, it would certainly point in that direction, except putting grub on the mbr will boot Linux just fine, but won't boot Windows (nor will rescatux). I don't even get the error messages with the latter two loaders, which would suggest a bad boot partition (but doesn't explain why Hiren can boot it). Why it cannot be fixed, I don't know. Yeah, it's a pretty good puzzle. One thing points in one direction, and something else in another, and around and around they go. Jon If all else fails maybe a repair install would fix it? |
#63
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
Jon Danniken wrote:
On 01/22/2014 03:02 AM, philo wrote: Basically all you are doing when you use Hiren's is omit loading the HD's MBR...which is further evidence of an MBR problem. Aye, it would certainly point in that direction, except putting grub on the mbr will boot Linux just fine, but won't boot Windows (nor will rescatux). I don't even get the error messages with the latter two loaders, which would suggest a bad boot partition (but doesn't explain why Hiren can boot it). Why it cannot be fixed, I don't know. Yeah, it's a pretty good puzzle. One thing points in one direction, and something else in another, and around and around they go. Jon Have you tried scanning the drive with a Kaspersky disc ? It's listed as a 375MB download. http://support.kaspersky.com/8092 That's a standalone boot CD, that does a scan for malware while the OS is not running. It has a tick-box to scan the MBR. Your Hiren result would likely suggest what is potentially corrupted, but perhaps the Kaspersky CD can find it. Paul |
#64
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
On 01/22/2014 03:03 PM, Paul wrote:
Have you tried scanning the drive with a Kaspersky disc ? It's listed as a 375MB download. http://support.kaspersky.com/8092 That's a standalone boot CD, that does a scan for malware while the OS is not running. It has a tick-box to scan the MBR. Your Hiren result would likely suggest what is potentially corrupted, but perhaps the Kaspersky CD can find it. Thanks Paul, that's a neat tool to keep on hand. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it didn't find any bugs, but it did put up an interesting piece of information just as it was starting. Apologies for the poor quality of this, it only flashed on the screen for a moment: http://i.imgur.com/Cgv7uMA.jpg Maybe I have found a clue.... Jon |
#65
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
On 01/22/2014 02:44 PM, philo wrote:
If all else fails maybe a repair install would fix it? Aye, most likely so, hopefully anyway. I'd still like to figure it out though. Jon |
#66
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
Jon Danniken wrote:
On 01/22/2014 03:03 PM, Paul wrote: Have you tried scanning the drive with a Kaspersky disc ? It's listed as a 375MB download. http://support.kaspersky.com/8092 That's a standalone boot CD, that does a scan for malware while the OS is not running. It has a tick-box to scan the MBR. Your Hiren result would likely suggest what is potentially corrupted, but perhaps the Kaspersky CD can find it. Thanks Paul, that's a neat tool to keep on hand. Unfortunately (fortunately?) it didn't find any bugs, but it did put up an interesting piece of information just as it was starting. Apologies for the poor quality of this, it only flashed on the screen for a moment: http://i.imgur.com/Cgv7uMA.jpg Maybe I have found a clue.... Jon Something about the partition table entries themselves ? I wish I could understand how that stuff all works, because I've run into a situation before where something broke like that, and I couldn't tell using PTEDIT32 or other similar tools, exactly what was broken. When your WinXP is running, try recording a screenshot of PTEDIT32, when it displays that particular disk. In this sample picture, is a Win2K disk. It's legacy aligned, and all numbers on the right hand side should be divisible by 63. Newer Linux and Vista/7/8 will use megabyte alignment. Notice how my fake head count and sectors are 255 and 63 respectively, on a 500GB disk. Once you get above a certain disk size, CHS geometry bitfields aren't wide enough to properly represent the size, so fake "max" values are substituted. Modern stuff knows it should use LBA when seeing bogus CHS numbers. The stuff on the right is LBA related. http://i41.tinypic.com/16kxrb9.gif See what you disk looks like, with this (free) tool. For the latest OSes, you would select "Run as administrator" to avoid getting an error 5. It might just work by clicking it in WinXP (after you unzip it of course). ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip In addition to that definition, it should be noted that the virtual file system size can be smaller than the physical size declared in that table. One user tried to shrink a partition using Disk Management in a modern OS, the virtual portion shrank but the physical definition did not. Half the disk was "wasted", because of that bug. Linux is king at doing that sort of thing, as for some reason (on purpose), users are allowed to have unaligned usage (virtual smaller than physical). When a fraction of a cluster is involved, it's normal for the virtual file system definition (defined by the file system header), to be smaller than the physical space. A fraction of a cluster can't be used to hold data. I'm referring to more gross errors, where the virtual file system definition is only half the size of the physical space as defined in the partition table. I think your error is referring to the stuff PTEDIT32 displays. That's a guess. If the virtual definition was bigger than the physical, I expect the result would be more immediate. And permanent. Paul |
#67
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
On 01/22/2014 06:04 PM, Paul wrote:
Something about the partition table entries themselves ? I wish I could understand how that stuff all works, because I've run into a situation before where something broke like that, and I couldn't tell using PTEDIT32 or other similar tools, exactly what was broken. When your WinXP is running, try recording a screenshot of PTEDIT32, when it displays that particular disk. In this sample picture, is a Win2K disk. It's legacy aligned, and all numbers on the right hand side should be divisible by 63. Newer Linux and Vista/7/8 will use megabyte alignment. Notice how my fake head count and sectors are 255 and 63 respectively, on a 500GB disk. Once you get above a certain disk size, CHS geometry bitfields aren't wide enough to properly represent the size, so fake "max" values are substituted. Modern stuff knows it should use LBA when seeing bogus CHS numbers. The stuff on the right is LBA related. http://i41.tinypic.com/16kxrb9.gif See what you disk looks like, with this (free) tool. For the latest OSes, you would select "Run as administrator" to avoid getting an error 5. It might just work by clicking it in WinXP (after you unzip it of course). ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip Thanks Paul, neat tool (it did just run without trouble in XP). Here's a shot of mine from XP, on the troublesome disk: http://i.imgur.com/ORobvwu.jpg I notice that none of my numbers in the right hand column are divisible by 63, probably because I did modify the partitions with Gparted at one time (I am pretty sure I didn't fiddle with them since the last time it was working, though). In addition to that definition, it should be noted that the virtual file system size can be smaller than the physical size declared in that table. One user tried to shrink a partition using Disk Management in a modern OS, the virtual portion shrank but the physical definition did not. Half the disk was "wasted", because of that bug. Linux is king at doing that sort of thing, as for some reason (on purpose), users are allowed to have unaligned usage (virtual smaller than physical). When a fraction of a cluster is involved, it's normal for the virtual file system definition (defined by the file system header), to be smaller than the physical space. A fraction of a cluster can't be used to hold data. I'm referring to more gross errors, where the virtual file system definition is only half the size of the physical space as defined in the partition table. I think your error is referring to the stuff PTEDIT32 displays. That's a guess. If the virtual definition was bigger than the physical, I expect the result would be more immediate. And permanent. Gotcha, thanks Paul. Jon |
#68
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
Jon Danniken wrote:
On 01/22/2014 06:04 PM, Paul wrote: Something about the partition table entries themselves ? I wish I could understand how that stuff all works, because I've run into a situation before where something broke like that, and I couldn't tell using PTEDIT32 or other similar tools, exactly what was broken. When your WinXP is running, try recording a screenshot of PTEDIT32, when it displays that particular disk. In this sample picture, is a Win2K disk. It's legacy aligned, and all numbers on the right hand side should be divisible by 63. Newer Linux and Vista/7/8 will use megabyte alignment. Notice how my fake head count and sectors are 255 and 63 respectively, on a 500GB disk. Once you get above a certain disk size, CHS geometry bitfields aren't wide enough to properly represent the size, so fake "max" values are substituted. Modern stuff knows it should use LBA when seeing bogus CHS numbers. The stuff on the right is LBA related. http://i41.tinypic.com/16kxrb9.gif See what you disk looks like, with this (free) tool. For the latest OSes, you would select "Run as administrator" to avoid getting an error 5. It might just work by clicking it in WinXP (after you unzip it of course). ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip Thanks Paul, neat tool (it did just run without trouble in XP). Here's a shot of mine from XP, on the troublesome disk: http://i.imgur.com/ORobvwu.jpg I notice that none of my numbers in the right hand column are divisible by 63, probably because I did modify the partitions with Gparted at one time (I am pretty sure I didn't fiddle with them since the last time it was working, though). In addition to that definition, it should be noted that the virtual file system size can be smaller than the physical size declared in that table. One user tried to shrink a partition using Disk Management in a modern OS, the virtual portion shrank but the physical definition did not. Half the disk was "wasted", because of that bug. Linux is king at doing that sort of thing, as for some reason (on purpose), users are allowed to have unaligned usage (virtual smaller than physical). When a fraction of a cluster is involved, it's normal for the virtual file system definition (defined by the file system header), to be smaller than the physical space. A fraction of a cluster can't be used to hold data. I'm referring to more gross errors, where the virtual file system definition is only half the size of the physical space as defined in the partition table. I think your error is referring to the stuff PTEDIT32 displays. That's a guess. If the virtual definition was bigger than the physical, I expect the result would be more immediate. And permanent. Gotcha, thanks Paul. Jon Your partition table, is not in spatial order. (Partition1, Partition4, Partition2, Partition3) You have a partition 0x05. DOS 3.3+ Extended Partition. https://web.archive.org/web/20130402...n_types-1.html Your first partition has a megabyte alignment, not a 63 alignment. None of these are fatal. The 0x05 partition is a bit weird. Your boot flag is set on the first partition. ******* Now, a weird one, is the declaration at the top of that picture, says 15505 cyl, 240 heads. 63 sectors. Mine here is 60801, 255, 63. And, I don't know what controls that. Whether it's an attempt to factor the drive size, or what. 114470MB = 114470*1024*1024 = 120,030,494,720 In other words, a number selected to be just larger than 120GB 15505*240*63*512 = 120,031,027,200 Now, without plugging it in, I have a ST3120026A 120GB drive, which is listed here as: http://www.redhat.com/archives/linux.../msg00044.html hda: ST3120026A, ATA DISK drive 234441648 sectors CHS=14593/255/63 Yours is 234434560 sectors, so it is different. On this page... http://forum.s-t-d.org/viewtopic.php?id=1954 ST3120023A 234441648 sectors CHS=15505/240/63 So the alternative values, aren't so out of the ordinary. There's an explanation here. It seems to suggest the drive reports this information, but what puts the information there ? How does it know to use a fake value of 240 or 255 ? A drive with four platters would have 8 physical heads, so that number has no physical significance. http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/dri...r-t434220.html Paul |
#69
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
On 01/22/2014 10:16 PM, Paul wrote:
Jon Danniken wrote: Thanks Paul, neat tool (it did just run without trouble in XP). Here's a shot of mine from XP, on the troublesome disk: http://i.imgur.com/ORobvwu.jpg Your partition table, is not in spatial order. (Partition1, Partition4, Partition2, Partition3) You have a partition 0x05. DOS 3.3+ Extended Partition. https://web.archive.org/web/20130402...n_types-1.html Your first partition has a megabyte alignment, not a 63 alignment. None of these are fatal. The 0x05 partition is a bit weird. Your boot flag is set on the first partition. Yeah, the 0x05 is the extended; I usually end up putting that in right after I install Windows, if I know I'm going to be using it and/or have an immediate use for it. In this case I did, as I wanted to put 2GB partition at the back end of the drive for all of the particular drivers needed by Windows (this being a laptop). My logic was that if I needed to reinstall Windows, I wouldn't have to transfer them from my main machine, and also as a backup of same (who knows how long the manufacturer is going to keep them available). Now, a weird one, is the declaration at the top of that picture, says 15505 cyl, 240 heads. 63 sectors. Mine here is 60801, 255, 63. And, I don't know what controls that. Whether it's an attempt to factor the drive size, or what. 114470MB = 114470*1024*1024 = 120,030,494,720 In other words, a number selected to be just larger than 120GB 15505*240*63*512 = 120,031,027,200 Now, without plugging it in, I have a ST3120026A 120GB drive, which is listed here as: http://www.redhat.com/archives/linux.../msg00044.html hda: ST3120026A, ATA DISK drive 234441648 sectors CHS=14593/255/63 Yours is 234434560 sectors, so it is different. On this page... http://forum.s-t-d.org/viewtopic.php?id=1954 ST3120023A 234441648 sectors CHS=15505/240/63 So the alternative values, aren't so out of the ordinary. There's an explanation here. It seems to suggest the drive reports this information, but what puts the information there ? How does it know to use a fake value of 240 or 255 ? A drive with four platters would have 8 physical heads, so that number has no physical significance. http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/dri...r-t434220.html Thanks Paul, that's a good read. I was hoping something might jump out as being out of place, but that's the breaks. Jon |
#70
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Blinking cursor at failed boot
"Jon Danniken" wrote in message ...
On 01/20/2014 05:26 AM, Ben Myers wrote: Start XP, click "Start", "Run", type "diskmgmt.msc" into the "Open" box and click "OK". Right-click the "C:" drive in the top window and see if "Mark partition as active" is available. If so, select it. Also, removing Grub may actually be a three step process, fixboot, fixmbr and then fixboot again. http://www.wikihow.com/Uninstall-the...-With-an-XP-CD Hi Ben, and thanks. I gave that a shot, but still no joy. I actually did it the other way, too (fixmbr, fixboot, fixmbr) just for fun. Jon Try using the "map" command. Both fixboot and fixmbr can take parameters and map will allow you to repair the correct disk and drive. Ben |
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