ok, i'll be the first to admit that. but i wanted to learn how to do it.

Partition Magic 8.0

xp MCE
160G HDD

chopped the main drive in half to have C: at about 80G and the new E: about 80 (for easy numbers)

after the reboot, it gets to the xp startup screen and then gives me the blue screen of death.

How do I run CHKDISK/F like its telling me to do?

2/1/2007 10:06:41 AM

hee hee

2/1/2007 10:16:44 AM

boot into the recovery console with your install CD

2/1/2007 10:16:57 AM

i looked through everything and cant find the recovery CD.

I think Dell screwed me on a recovery disk

2/1/2007 10:24:33 AM

dell includes a small, FAT32 i think, partition with recovery information, instead of sending a CD. i forgot how to boot to it, but get into your bios, or try all the normal keys when booting to see if it gives you that option. Try F2, F8, Del, Esc, etc.

2/1/2007 10:29:26 AM

tell me this

would it be easier to buy a new HDD and install it. or am i being a retard?




i looked through everything in the bios and couldnt find anything.

wont boot in safe mode, last know good config, etc...

[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 10:35 AM. Reason : .]

2/1/2007 10:33:00 AM

buy a new HDD for what purpose? it certainly won't help you regain your OS or data, if that's what you're concerned about.
If you aren't concerned about the data thats on the HDD now, then you're just as good reinstalling windows on your current drive. That is, if you can get a CD or get into the Dell recovery partition, somehow.

2/1/2007 10:40:53 AM

I hope you backed up your shit before doing this....

2/1/2007 10:41:02 AM

i didnt



[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 10:43 AM. Reason : lol]

2/1/2007 10:43:13 AM

try to read through some of these for info on restoring from the dell partition - turns out it's called a Dell System Restore, DRS, feature

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/fixes.htm
http://forums.techguy.org/windows-nt-2000-xp/539639-reinstall-windows-without-disc.html

2/1/2007 10:43:18 AM

good find.

thanks

2/1/2007 10:49:10 AM

if you can't get it back again, there are a number of people on here (me included) who can get your data off for you and THEN you can reformat it

2/1/2007 11:08:54 AM

yeah, that's true. In all likelihood, you can just slave your drive into another PC, pull the data off, then start over with a new installation. It's very unlikely there is anything actually wrong with your data - just a problem with the MBR or something

2/1/2007 11:16:35 AM

Quote :

"just a problem with the MBR or something"

agreed...what flavor XP are you running? home or pro? no sp, sp1, sp2? i'm pretty sure i have dell OS discs for all of those, so if you want to borrow one, you're welcome to it

2/1/2007 11:25:40 AM

xp media center edition sp2

i would love to borrow it if you have it

2/1/2007 11:27:19 AM

gah...i think i only have that for HP

i'll get back to you, though

2/1/2007 11:55:38 AM

cool!

2/1/2007 11:59:01 AM

why not just boot the Partition Magic 8 recovery CD and rollback the partition changes?

2/1/2007 12:37:01 PM

i didnt get a PM recovery cd

^ got one?

[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 12:51 PM. Reason : .]

2/1/2007 12:48:24 PM

sorry, I'm a ppc-based Mac user i just saw a link for a PM recovery CD when i looked up partition magic on demonoid.com

2/1/2007 5:13:12 PM

alright guys.

tried the <cntrl> f11 to initiate a system restore but it doesnt recognize the command.

f2 and f12 both work. gone through hardware diagnostics and havent found any problems yet.

i dont have the xp mce install/repair cd, and that seems to be my only option now. that or a baseball bat.

i need help.

[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 7:56 PM. Reason : .]

2/1/2007 7:55:39 PM

ermm.... so do you have data you need off the drive?
i guess that's a moot point, if you don't even have a CD to install windows over it or can't access the dell drive.....

how old is the computer? is it still under dell warranty? I think you can request they send you a restore CD if something happens to their restoration partition

2/1/2007 8:15:34 PM

im not concerned with the data.

box is about 1.5 yrs. old

im still curious as to why this happened. oh well.

[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 8:19 PM. Reason : no warranty]

2/1/2007 8:18:19 PM

Probably something screwy in Windows. It's suppose to be able to handle that.

2/1/2007 8:21:55 PM

i would go with a problem wih Partition Magic.

2/1/2007 9:02:05 PM

Quote :

"dell includes a small, FAT32 i think, partition with recovery information, instead of sending a CD. i forgot how to boot to it, but get into your bios, or try all the normal keys when booting to see if it gives you that option. Try F2, F8, Del, Esc, etc."

Ctrl + F11 does work - you just have to press them both at the same time repeatedly when you are booting the computer. Power on the computer and start pressing Ctrl + F11 (at the same time) and release, press and release, etc. until it either boots into the recovery partition or keyboard beeps at you. If the keyboard beeps at you then stop pressing the buttons...it should be enough to get you into the partition.

2/1/2007 9:13:16 PM

i dunno, it's possible if Partition Magic completely FUBARed the MBR that Ctrl+F11 might not work. I assume it's just something built into the BIOS that instructs the bootup procedure to a specific MBR record. and if the MBR is corrupted, it might not be able to boot into it. or something.

2/1/2007 9:31:32 PM

Partition Magic is pretty damn powerful and if you screw something up you might not be able to easily fix it.

2/1/2007 9:47:09 PM

If the MBR was screwed up, it wouldn't even load windows.

Probably, if Partition Magic actually moved the partition, Windows is looking for something at an absolute location, doesn't know it moved, reads junk in to memory, then crashes.

You could probably reinstall windows, without a reformat, and things would work again, but then you'd have whatever issues you would have with a windows-over-windows situation.

And would a Dell recovery partition even work if the drive was reformatted?

[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 9:59 PM. Reason : ]

2/1/2007 9:59:18 PM

Pusha, dont think you answered this, but why exactly did you partition your main drive? were you planning to do something? i mean besides just "learning how to do it".

^ the DRS is installed on a separate partition so as long as that partition is not reformatted then it will be safe from the other reformatting of partitions.

[Edited on February 1, 2007 at 10:02 PM. Reason : ,]

2/1/2007 10:01:02 PM

^ yeah, I know, but if he split his drive in to 2 drives, that seems to imply that he might have nuked it.

2/1/2007 10:11:24 PM

oo..i see what ur saying.

2/1/2007 10:21:51 PM

the cntrl f11 thing i have tried probably 20 different times. I've done it on 2 other computers just to make sure i was pressing the keys at the right time, and it worked on both other comps, just not on mine.

My ultimate goal was to have 2 OS's.

It actually worked with the first partition that I made. Rebooted and everything worked fine, had a new E: drive. I then decided to resize the C: and E: again to get the size I wanted to keep for good, and thats when my computer died.


I want a new hdd with a fresh install of Vista. that might be my solution




[Edited on February 2, 2007 at 10:00 AM. Reason : .]

2/2/2007 9:53:32 AM

alright, say I go buy a new hdd and a new install Vista OS.

Can i just install the new hdd, insert the vista setup disk, and have it walk me through?

or does the drive need to be formatted first? or anything else that i should know?

2/2/2007 3:43:21 PM

if memory serves me correctly, you get a new drive and hook it and it shows up in BIOS then with the Vista or XP CD you will be able to format it before setting up the installation; it would be the 1st step in the process.

2/2/2007 7:28:54 PM

partition magic...works like a charm...however it's never fried my os/hd before

2/2/2007 7:53:20 PM

I had this happen to me when i partitioned my HD (with Partition Magic) so i could dual boot linux.

it wound up being a problem with the MBR. i was able to fix it and I recovered everything.

dont buy a new HD. and for gods sake, dont buy Vista.

Let me see if i can find the info on how to recover your MBR.

2/2/2007 8:16:15 PM

here they are: the windows XP setup boot disks

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=310994

get 6 blank, formatted floppy disks and follow the instructions for loading the XP setup onto them.

then you can reboot and restore your XP by rebooting with disk1 and following through the rest one at a time.

worked for me.

2/2/2007 8:33:21 PM