Deleted C Drive.....

B

beamo

New member
I have an 80gig Hd I split into four primary partitions. Win XP was running on C Drive, but I did a new install of XP and added to H Drive.

This worked fine and on load up, i was prompted to choose which OS I would run (C or H Drive).

Stupidly I thought that I now no longer needed the C Drive and could rely on H Drive to kick in each time, so under the Control Panel, Administrative Tools, I made H Drive the Active Partition (I think it called it "BOOT", whereas I recall C Drive was called "System") and I formatted the C Drive. The format did not successfully complete and the C Drive was I believe 'RAW' not NTFS or FAT (I dont really understand that anyway). I thought this would be sufficient for the OS on H Drive to continue to load.

When I rebooted my system I got the "NTLDR file is missing error" and now I can't get into the system at all.

Is there anyway I can fix this without losing the data I already have on the drives (my F drive is pretty much empty, but my G Drive has lots of family photos and my H Drive is basically XP, XP Office etc)
 
aybesea

aybesea

1
I'm not positive on this one, so check with the other guys as well, but I think that Partition Magic may be able to solve your problems.
 
S

scarecrow

1
You could use "chkdsk/ fixboot" from the recovery console of your XP bootable CD- but since you have wiped your first primary+active partition (not a very wise thing to do...), it is questionable if it will work...
Better run your XP installation CD (if you have inserted SP1 in your installation you should build an XP SP1 bootable CD following Bart's tutorials, http://www.nu2.nu/bootcd/ ) and perform a reparation of your current XP installation.
instructions on using the Microsoft recovery console (including installing it to HD) to be found here
 
Last edited:
ipdave

ipdave

1
A harder but surer way would be to use partition magic booted from a CD or floppy to:
1. Use PM to format 1st Partion ( C: ) and make C: Active Partition
2. Make H: NOT Active
3. Install XP to C: (do NOT install to H: partition - be careful to format and install to the FIRST partition)
4. From the new XP, edit the c:\boot.ini file manually to point to the 4th partition ( H: ) such as:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional C: (MAIN)" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional H: (BACKUP)" /fastdetect

NOTE: The C: above is the 1st partition, the H: is the 4th.

Change the 3rd line, default= , to point to the new H: - partition(4) - as follows:

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS

5. Reboot and you should be good to go.
 
B

beamo

New member
Thanks for all the advice so far people.

From my limited searching on the net yesterday, I took a demo version of ActiveNTFS home last night (on a floppy) and it assessed that the old C: Drive partition could be recovered, but it was only a demo.....I found out the existing C: is FAT16.

I can't get the CDRom to boot CDs so I need to use the floppy drive to get things going. I have bought the XP Pro CD into work today, is there any files on there I should take home on a floppy that might help.....I read comments somewhere about using NTDetect.exe, boot.ini etc.

From my work PC I downloaded the XP Boot Disk (winxp_en_pro_bf.exe) but its 4mb. How can I use that via floppys ?

Anyway Partition Magic, sounds like my best shot....will try and find a copy.
 
ipdave

ipdave

1
jopie said:
Does anybody knows how to format a hard drive with NTFS ??????


Thanks in advance
jopie :(
Click to expand...
- To convert an existing drive in XP, 2000, or NT4:

convert c:/fs:ntfs

- To format fresh install, just select NTFS when you format the drive

- To format a new drive or partition that has nothing on it from a booted system: use Computer Management, Disk Management, Format, and pick NTFS.
 
ipdave

ipdave

1
beamo said:
Thanks for all the advice so far people.

From my limited searching on the net yesterday, I took a demo version of ActiveNTFS home last night (on a floppy) and it assessed that the old C: Drive partition could be recovered, but it was only a demo.....I found out the existing C: is FAT16.

I can't get the CDRom to boot CDs so I need to use the floppy drive to get things going. I have bought the XP Pro CD into work today, is there any files on there I should take home on a floppy that might help.....I read comments somewhere about using NTDetect.exe, boot.ini etc.

From my work PC I downloaded the XP Boot Disk (winxp_en_pro_bf.exe) but its 4mb. How can I use that via floppys ?

Anyway Partition Magic, sounds like my best shot....will try and find a copy.
Click to expand...
To use the boot floppies, run the winxp_en_pro_bf.exe program to build them on an XP or 2000 machine.

Use that to boot with the cdrom in the drive, and you can do a quick repair...
 
J

jopie

1
ipdave said:
- To convert an existing drive in XP, 2000, or NT4:

convert c:/fs:ntfs

- To format fresh install, just select NTFS when you format the drive

- To format a new drive or partition that has nothing on it from a booted system: use Computer Management, Disk Management, Format, and pick NTFS.
Click to expand...

hee thanks a lot man
greetz
jopie
 
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