... sorry for lack of threading ... I get this list in digest form ... please email me directly and CC the list if you want threading ... >Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:38:53 -0400 >From: Tony Nelson <tonynelson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> >At 11:37 AM -0400 8/31/05, Michael Wiktowy wrote: > > >>>Greetings all, >>>I have an odd problem happening that I have experienced on a Fedora Core >>>install in the past and in recent history also. >>> >>>Background: >>>When I try to set up a dual-boot w2k+linux system (resizing w2k >>>partition and filesystem, verifying w2k is happy after resize, >>>installing FC), w2k is not happy sometimes on some systems. It will >>>start to boot, switch to its more graphical starting windows boot >>>screen, get halfway though and then blue screen [1] with a >>>BOOT_INACCESSABLE error advising me to do a chkdsk /f and giving me no >>>means of doing so. The recovery console on the install media doesn't >>>seem to do the trick on this system (Dell GX280 with a SATA drive) >>>either. [2] >>> >>>Specifics: >>>I have narrowed down the problem to w2k not liking me simply adding >>>extra partitions to the disk.[3] I boot to Knoppix and use fdisk to add >>>some partitions (to try avoid the "anaconda changing the CHS values in >>>the partition table with a buggy bios" issue) but as soon as I do, w2k >>>becomes unhappy. I can subsequently remove the partitions and w2k is >>>content again and boots normally.[4] >> >> > ... > >You don't say if you have any Extended partitions on the drive. If you do, >your extended partitions will get their number bumped up when you add new >Basic partitions, so you will need to renumber them in boot.ini. Umm, by >using FIXBOOT in the Recovery Console? (You say Recovery Console doesn't >work, but you don't say what you tried in it. On its own, it just sits >there and does nothing.) > > To add more detail: - no extended partitions ... just two primary ones - the exact error is *** STOP 0x0000007B (0x81826B10,0xC000014F,0x00000000,0x00000000) INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE ... followed by some chkdsk /f verbage. - I just reproduced it by simply adding a primary linux type partition taking up the rest of the space on disk and got rid of it by deleting that partition -w2k is on the first (and only) primary partition that is 150GB big and the drive is 250 GB total and is SATA. I don't know if it is supposed to but w2k does not report any free disk space after its partition when you go into the disk management dialog. I went through all the steps again so that they are fresh in my mind - after adding the second primary partition, I booted to the recovery console and tried: - CHKDSK - gives the informative and useful "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems." when the second primary partition is present (recovery) - removing the second partition causes w2k to boot normally - FIXMBR - complains that the computer has a non-standard or invalid master boot record and warns of dire consequences - ... going through with it anyways has no effect other writing a new MBR to \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 - which clobbers grub if was there and the blue screen persists with the first hex number after the bracket changing to 0x81877CB0 (recovery) - but after the second partition is removed, w2k boots normally. - FIXBOOT - warned that the bootsector was corrupt after thinking that the file system on the startup partition is unknown. - It then checked the file system type and detected that it was an NTFS system and wrote a new bootsector. - This had no effect other than hooping the system such that it wouldn't even begin to start the ntloader (A disk read error occured ... Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart) - looking at the output of sfdisk -d /dev/sda ... it appears to have seriously pooched the partition table also making 4 overlapping primary partitions (recovery) - restoring the mbr (containing the 2 partitions) from the backup image didn't make it work again but I got the blue screen again (with a different hex number again like after the FIXMBR step) (recovery) - removing the second primary partition caused w2k to boot normally So somehow w2k is getting seriously confused on my system ... turning on /bootlog and /sos in w2k boot.ini and removing /fastdetect was not illuminating. I took dd snapshots at each step with Knoppix. Does anyone know of a good hexeditor that I could view them in or ideally compare two binary files? My next step is to experiment with hidden partition types. If that works I will file an RFE against anaconda to write more failsafe grub rules by hiding the linux partitions. Preliminary experiments would indicate that changing the partition to a hidden type doesn't help. I am not sure if that is all the "hide" command does in grub. /Mike