XP Partition Problem

[Johnny™]

i'm running windows xp pro on 2 drives, couple months back i had problems with the install on my c drive and kept puttin off fixing it, well tonite was the nite, i have windows XP pro also installed on my f drive and it was getting full so i decided it was time to format the c drive and copy the f drive to the c drive, after formatiing with partition magic, system commander lost a file and i couldnt reboot to the f drive, leaving me with no working o/s. after reinstalling xp and system commander on the c drive the f drive o/s disappeared, the partitoning utility in system commander shows the f drive has no o/s on it, i tried to repair the installation with the XP disk both with the repair option and with the install, funny thing is only 1 XP is found, and thats on the c drive, windows can be detected on the f drive, but no specific windows version, when i try to boot the f drive i get the following BSOD

Stop: c000021a {Fatal System Error}
The session manager initialization system process terminated unexpectedly with a status of 0x000003a (0x00000000 ox00000000)
The system has been shut down

this happens after it appears windows is going to boot and it says autocheck program not found skipping autocheck

can anyone help me figure out how to get this drive t oboot again without losing all the files i have on it?...... i know i can copy them to the c drive, but i like to keep 2 o/s's on my system so i can still function when one goes down, we all know how reliable microsoft is

 

[Poco81]

As far as I can tell you have lost your boot information after the format on drive C, so windows no longer can see the second Boot Partition.

I assume you were running a dual boot system with C: being the primary boot drive and f: the secondary.

As you have formated the C: Drive you also erased the dual boot info contained within. Maybe Microsoft has an answer for this one as for future reference create two independent boot drives. Meaning create your first drive then remove add the second drive (disk) as the primary drive and repeat.

You can swap between both using your bious settings making the appropiate drive the primary boot drive.

Done that for a friend and it works fine.

good luck.

 

[Poco81]

Thanks to MS Knowledge Base,

You might have hope yet.

Follow the links on the original webside will give you more info.

Microsoft Knowledge Base Article - 315233

Windows XP Does Not Start on a Computer That Is Configured for Dual Booting
Applies To
This article was previously published under Q315233
For a Microsoft Windows 2000 version of this article, see 249000.

SYMPTOMS
When you attempt to start Windows XP in a dual-boot configuration, you may get the following error message:

Windows XP could not start because the following files were missing or corrupted:
WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM NTLDR MISSING
You can attempt to repair this file by starting Windows setup from original floppies or boot from CD-ROM.
Select 'r' at first screen to repair
CAUSE
This behavior can occur if you are dual booting Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows XP and you installed Windows NT 4.0 after you installed Windows XP, or if you reinstalled Windows NT 4.0. Windows NT 4.0 does not detect the additional startup features of Windows XP and replaces the shared Windows boot files (Ntldr and Ntdetect.com).
RESOLUTION
To resolve this behavior, replace the Windows XP Ntldr and Ntdetect.com files. Follow these steps:
Start to the Recovery Console, type the command fixboot at the prompt, and then press ENTER.
If the Recovery Console does not appear, follow these steps:
Use one of the following methods to start the computer so that you can gain access to the file system of the boot partition:
Specify another operating system on the Boot menu.
Start from the Windows XP CD-ROM, and then at the Windows Setup screen, press R to use the Recovery Console to repair the Windows installation.
Use a Windows NT 4.0 boot disk that also contains the Windows XP boot files.
If your boot partition is a basic disk that is formatted with the FAT file system, use an MS-DOS boot disk.
Copy the Ntldr and Ntdetect.com files from the I386 folder on the Windows XP CD-ROM to the root folder of your boot drive (usually drive C).
If you are using MS-DOS to perform this file replacement, you may need to remove the System, Read-only, and Hidden attributes from the files by using the attrib command. To do this, at the MS-DOS command prompt, type the following lines, pressing ENTER after each line:
attrib ntdetect.com -r -s -h
attrib ntldr -r -s -h

STATUS
Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.
MORE INFORMATION
Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 5 (SP5) or higher is necessary for successful dual booting with Windows XP.

For additional information about how to dual boot with Windows XP, refer to the following Microsoft article:
306559 HOW TO: Create a Multiple-Boot System with Windows XP

For additional information, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
119467 Creating a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition

245808 Prompt for Choosing Hardware Profiles Even if Only One Exists

283433 Cannot Start Windows XP After You Install Windows 2000

The information in this article applies to:
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Microsoft Windows XP 64-Bit Edition
Last Reviewed: 4/16/2004 (1.2)
Keywords: kberrmsg kbenv kbinterop kbprb kbsetup KB315233


Both of the following files exist in my dual boot XP setup:
C:/ntdetect.com and ntldr.

Follwing the above info should get you up and running again

 

[Johnny™]

i had realized that my boot record would be on the c drive and for that reason i had used the fixboot command to rewrite it, but there is one point of interest to me in that MS article, when i try to boot the f drive it did say that ntdlr is missing, from that point i tried to fixboot again which is when i started to get the BSOD. i have been using a dual boot for quite sometime, but use system commander to choose which O/S to boot. System commander writes a new boot record so there is no need for bios settings at all, but for some reason it still wont find what version of windows is there in neither system commander nor the windows repair utility

 

[serjer]

give testdisk a try 2 fix ur problems

 

[Sorondil]

Put the Win XP cd in
Boot off of the cd
Go to repair and then recovery console
Logon
Type fixmbr and fixboot

 

[Johnny™]

i had already used the fix mbr and fixboot as previously stated, but i will try fixdisk even tho the partition is not lost, it just wont boot.