Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!--SOLVED
a fixboot from the recovery mode of the WinXP CD will be necessary. This should not overwrite the MBR, only the boot loader that is at the beginning of the windows partition. The problem was two-fold: 1. WinXP boot sector was bad(my best guess). 2. Recovery Console suffered from obscure bug that prevented the use of admin password -- even though the correct password was used. To top it off, Macro$haft expects its drones to _pay_ for the patch to fix _their_own_ mistake! I just re-installed XP-Pro, this time the one w/ the integrated SP1 which fixes the bug. Then I edited grub to map the drive up a notch and now everything knocking on wood is cool! -mw __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
Martins wrote: it is possible with fdisk, i did it and it worked, and this is steps i followed, step 7 wasnt necesary for me: More info about the bug can be found here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzill...g.cgi?id=115980 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzill...g.cgi?id=113201 Note that whatever web browser and method you are using to cut and paste URLs is producing broken links. Fortunately, at least the bug ID was intact so I was able to lookup the bugs. I don't see how either bug applies to Maxim, as he didn't get this after installing FC2, changing from kernel 2.4 to 2.6, or doing anything to his partiton table. He just moved the disk from primary master to (primary slave?). Also, AFAIK this has not been a problem for any Gentoo user using fdisk to partition his drives. Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 63 33732719 16866328+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda2 74692800 78140159 1723680 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hda3 35834400 74692799 19429200 83 Linux /dev/hda4 33732720 35834399 1050840 82 Linux swap So I recreated this partition table on a spare 100Gb USB disk: Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 193821 cylinders Units = cylinders of 1008 * 512 = 516096 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 1 3346516866328+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 74101 77520 1723680 83 Linux /dev/sda3 35551 7410019429200 83 Linux /dev/sda4 33466 35550 1050840 83 Linux Command (m for help): u Changing display/entry units to sectors Command (m for help): p Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes 16 heads, 63 sectors/track, 193821 cylinders, total 195371568 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 633373271916866328+ 83 Linux /dev/sda27469280078140159 1723680 83 Linux /dev/sda3358344007469279919429200 83 Linux /dev/sda43373272035834399 1050840 83 Linux $ fdisk -H 255 /dev/hda # or 240 for some configurations Command: o (create new partition table) 6. by now you have a newly generaed partition table, with the original disk geometry. Recreate the partitions as they were before: Command: n (new partition) Primary partition (p) Partition number: 1 First cylinder: 63 # beginning of first partition Last cylinder or +size[...]: 33732719 # end of first partition This doesn't work, because we are still working in cylinders: Partition number (1-4): 1 First cylinder (1-12161, default 1): 63 Last cylinder or +size or +sizeM or +sizeK (63-12161, default 12161): 33732719 Value out of range. But I assume what you really meant is to switch to sectors. After recreating all of the partitions in sector mode, I have: Disk /dev/sda: 100.0 GB, 100030242816 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 12161 cylinders, total 195371568 sectors Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 633373271916866328+ 83 Linux /dev/sda27469280078140159 1723680 83 Linux /dev/sda3358344007469279919429200 83 Linux /dev/sda43373272035834399 1050840 83 Linux Ok, so this seems to work. I didn't know about the 'u' command for fdisk, so thanks for that. But I still have a problem with this from a sanity standpoint. Note the output of sfdisk for the 16-heads vs 255-heads tables: carcharias rjf # sfdisk -l /dev/sda Disk /dev/sda: 193821 cylinders, 16 heads, 63 sectors/track Units = cylinders of 516096 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End #cyls#blocks Id System /dev/sda1 0+ 33464 33465- 16866328+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 74100 7751934201723680 83 Linux /dev/sda3 35550 74099 38550 19429200 83 Linux /dev/sda4 33465 3554920851050840 83 Linux Disk /dev/sda: 12161 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track Units = cylinders of 8225280 bytes, blocks of 1024 bytes, counting from 0 Device Boot Start End #cyls#blocks Id System /dev/sda1 0+ 2099- 2100- 16866328+ 83 Linux /dev/sda2 4649+ 4863 215- 1723680 83 Linux /dev/sda3 2230+ 4649- 2419- 19429200 83 Linux /dev/sda4 2099+ 2230-131- 1050840 83 Linux Notice all of the extra '+' and '-' signs...those mean that the partitions do not line up with cylinder boundaries, and we probably should have left the partition table at 16-heads. Fdisk may (now) handle this ok, but it is not standard and less intelligent partition tools are likely to throw a fit. Actually, this is what most of the bug reports regarding parted and disk druid are about...they couldn't handle the misalignment. Anyway, my information about fdisk
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!--SOLVED
maxim wexler wrote: everything knocking on wood is cool! Very cool indeednow you can do what we all got computers for in the first place...to play solitaire. ;-) -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
log to linux, erase partition table, get those heads corect, write new partition table -- reboot, LBA is on and win is booting. none of dos/win apps worked for me to fix partition table. i asume LBA is needed only for win itself, not vfat or ntfs partitions, therefore files are accesible from linux martins On Monday 25 July 2005 08:42, maxim wexler wrote: there were no succesful winxp boot, because bios didnt enable LBA seting. i dont think (win95)fdisk wil work with linux partitions. Right, but booting a win95/98 CD and running fdisk /mbr from the DOS prompt will usually restore a WinXP boot sector. What's so bizarre in this case is that it should only partially restore(so it seems) bootability. Can you or anyone explain what this 16/255 controversy has to do with it? True, LBA is 'off', but WinXP starts at the beginning of /dev/hdb and *doesn't* boot, whereas gentoo starts at the 60G point and it *does* boot. Also FWIW all WinXP files are readable from gentoo once it's up. Even when I eliminate the first drive, the 200M drive where grub resides, and install the 120G HD as pri-master and try to boot, boot.ini opens up giving me the choices of WinXP and Recovery Console as I said before; only problem: neither goes anywhere, just hangs. -mw __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
Martins Steinbergs wrote: log to linux, erase partition table, get those heads corect, write new partition table -- reboot, LBA is on and win is booting. none of dos/win apps worked for me to fix partition table. i asume LBA is needed only for win itself, not vfat or ntfs partitions, therefore files are accesible from linux martins Um, if you do this, you will more than likely destroy the filesystems as well, because the new partitions will not line up exactly with the old ones. Anyway I don't think this is the problem. Afterall, WinXP booted fine before on this drive with LBA disabled, so something else is up. If you already made the right changes to the boot.ini file, then I suspect that a fixboot from the recovery mode of the WinXP CD will be necessary. This should not overwrite the MBR, only the boot loader that is at the beginning of the windows partition. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
Um, if you do this, you will more than likely destroy the filesystems as well, because the new partitions will not line up exactly with the old ones. Anyway I don't think this is the problem. Afterall, WinXP booted fine before on this drive with LBA disabled, so something else is up. If you already made the right changes to the boot.ini file, then I suspect that a fixboot from the recovery mode of the WinXP CD will be necessary. This should not overwrite the MBR, only the boot loader that is at the beginning of the windows partition. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list there is no worry, writing new partition table give it the same values (partition start, end, type, order) as before and not a single bit is lost this is kind of fedora installer bug, since i have amd64 box i was moving from mandrake to some more amd64 distro at that point, and befor gentoo i checked fedora. and problems started when i upgraded bios. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
--- Martins Steinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: log to linux, erase partition table, get those heads corect, write new partition table -- reboot, LBA is on and win is What does this mean? LBA was off before and now it's on? Where? In the POST? dmesg? In the BIOS? fdisk? dos or unix? Also note: as I've said elsewhere, even when the big drive(/dev/hdb) is installed alone as master WinXP is accessible, otherwise how could boot.ini open? But both available options, WinXP or Recovery Console(by which I had hoped to use fixboot etc.) lead to system hangs. The method you propose seems rather drastic. I'd like to be sure before proceeding __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
Martins wrote: Um, if you do this, you will more than likely destroy the filesystems as well, because the new partitions will not line up exactly with the old ones. Anyway I don't think this is the problem. Afterall, WinXP booted fine before on this drive with LBA disabled, so something else is up. If you already made the right changes to the boot.ini file, then I suspect that a fixboot from the recovery mode of the WinXP CD will be necessary. This should not overwrite the MBR, only the boot loader that is at the beginning of the windows partition. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list there is no worry, writing new partition table give it the same values (partition start, end, type, order) as before and not a single bit is lost What I am saying is that this is not possible with fdisk, because fdisk will insist on creating the new partitions aligned on cylinder boundaries, which will have moved in terms of logical sectors. Example: Let's say you want a 100MB partition, or about 20 512-byte sectors: With non-LBA geometry, the math is 20 sectors / (63 sectors/track * 16 heads) = 198.41 cylinders. Now round down to 198 cylinders and you get 199584 sectors in your partition With LBA geometry, the math is 20 / (63 sectors/track * 255 heads) = 12.449 cylinders. Again, round down to 12, and you get 192780 sectors in your partition. You can round up to 13 and get 208845, but you *cannot* get 199584. Possibly with another partitioning tool that allows you to specify the starting and ending heads as well as cylinders, but not with fdisk. It is *possible* for this to work if you have just one huge partition, or if your partitions happen to end at even multiples of both (63 * 255) and (63 * 16). And just for the sake of accuracy, the cylinder alignment thing is true for all partitions except: - Cylinder 0, head 0 is reserved for the MBR, so any partition starting at cylinder 0 actually starts at head 1. - Logical partitions actually start at head 0, sector 1, because the first sector contains another partition table that points to the next partition. -Richard -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
it is possible with fdisk, i did it and it worked, and this is steps i followed, step 7 wasnt necesary for me: Fix for the XP dual boot problem * From: Radu Cornea ccradu yahoo com * To: For testers of Fedora Core development releases fedora-test-list redhat com * Subject: Fix for the XP dual boot problem * Date: Tue, 18 May 2004 22:37:57 -0700 (PDT) Like other people on this list I was affected by the bug which makes the XP partition in a dual boot configuration inaccessible after installing Fedora. Below are the steps I used to restore the partition table to its original configuration. Some people mentioned a fix that involved setting the hard disk configuration to LBA in the BIOS, but that may not work in some cases (I have an old IBM Thinkpad which does not allow it). By looking at the partition information as printed by fdisk after the partition is corrupted, it seems that the bug affects only the C/H/S values, the LBA are still correct. Even the fdisk manual specifies that DOS uses C/H/S only, Windows uses both [C/H/S and LBA], Linux never uses C/H/S. This means that the correct information is still there but just one copy is correct, the LBA one (most people affected said they could access the Windows partition from Linux just fine). The procedure below attempts to regenerate the MBR from scratch using the LBA values. In most cases the original disk geometry had 255 (or 240) as number of heads initially and was changed to 16 after the partition was corrupted by FC2. More info about the bug can be found here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzill...g.cgi?id=115980 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzill...g.cgi?id=113201 This did work for me. I don't guarantee it will work for everyone, use it at your own risk... You need a bootable Linux CD (e.g. Knoppix) and a DOS system disk with fdisk on it. Here are the steps I followed: 1. boot from Knoppix or other bootable Linux CD (using the Fedora rescue CD or booting in the newly installed system in single mode, ro mounted may work too, but I haven't tried) 2. save the content of the MBR (and possibly all the boot sectors from the partitions). This is important in case something goes wrong and you want to restore later: $ dd if=/dev/hda of=mbr.img bs=512 count=1 3. run fdisk, go into expert mode and write down (or save into a file) the starting sector (NOT block), end sector and type for each partition (example below): $ fdisk /dev/hda Command: u (change units to sectors) Command: p (print) Example output: Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/hda1 * 63 33732719 16866328+ 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/hda2 74692800 78140159 1723680 1c Hidden W95 FAT32 (LBA) /dev/hda3 35834400 74692799 19429200 83 Linux /dev/hda4 33732720 35834399 1050840 82 Linux swap 4. completely erase the MBR by writing zeros to it (you may skip this step, I am not sure if it is really needed, but this way it worked for me): $ dd if=/dev/zero of=zero.img bs=512 count=1 $ dd if=zero.img of=/dev/hda 5. force the original number of heads. In my case (20Gb in a Thinkpad) this was 240, but in most other cases it would be 255. See this post for more info: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=bofh.itrnum=4 Using fdisk this will also create a new DOS partition table and restore the original partitions: $ fdisk -H 255 /dev/hda # or 240 for some configurations Command: o (create new partition table) 6. by now you have a newly generaed partition table, with the original disk geometry. Recreate the partitions as they were before: Command: n (new partition) Primary partition (p) Partition number: 1 First cylinder: 63 # beginning of first partition Last cylinder or +size[...]: 33732719 # end of first partition Command: t (change type) Partition number: 1 Hex code: 07 # they type of the partition Repeat for all 4 partitions. Verify at the end that the start/end/id are correct: Command: p (print) If everything is correct, write the partition table to the disk and exit: Command: w (write) Command: q (quit) 7. in my case, I had to run an extra fdisk /mbr using the DOS bootdisk (may work with a XP installation CD too, but I haven't tried). After that, everything worked fine, the partition table was back to the original configuration. If you have the GRUB in the MBR, the fdisk /mbr will overwrite it so you may want to restore it later (but use the Knoppix CD, not FC2, otherwise you may end up where you started if the bug is in grub). On my machine GRUB was installed in the Linux partition so it wasn't affected. You can return to the original MBR at any time by writing the saved image to the disk (in case this fix does not work for you) as long as you only make changes to the MBR: $ fdisk if=mbr.img of=/dev/hda This is it, I hope it works for others, if it does please let me know. -- Radu At 21:25 2005.07.25., you wrote: Martins wrote: Um, if you do this, you will more than likely destroy the filesystems as well, because the new partitions will not line up exactly with the
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
Richard Fish wrote: Martins Steinbergs wrote: log to linux, erase partition table, get those heads corect, write new partition table -- reboot, LBA is on and win is booting. none of dos/win apps worked for me to fix partition table. i asume LBA is needed only for win itself, not vfat or ntfs partitions, therefore files are accesible from linux martins Um, if you do this, you will more than likely destroy the filesystems as well, because the new partitions will not line up exactly with the old ones. In most cases, with such a misalignment, wouldn't the filesystem driver see that the superblock (or whatever signature it uses) is misplaced and refuse to mount? I have destroyed an ext3 partition due to improper geometry settings for an external usb hard drive. Something about a computer I plugged it into (bad bios?) caused this. From the Large Disk HOWTO I learned to manually specify the C,H,S as a kernel parameter sda=24321,255,63 in order to correct the problem. Good fdisk -l output: Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Bad fdisk -l output: Disk /dev/sda: 137.4 GB, 137438952960 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 16709 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Zac -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
[gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
Hello everybody, You may recall my tussle with an Sempron/Asus K8N-e box: first it wouldn't boot but I fixed that and then the entire unit died. The tech at Asus suggested I *reverse* the CMOS battery for a few seconds. I was skeptical but it seems to have done the trick. However LBA remains 'off' for my Maxtor120G HD in the POST even though it's listed as LBA-capable in the BIOS and LBA is also set to 'auto' in the BIOS. Also gentoo boots but not WinXP. To recap: I moved all my boot stuff to a 200M HD, mounted as Pri-Master. The Maxtor 120G(Pri-Slave) was split nearly in two with WinXP on the first half, gentoo on the 2nd. When I try to boot WinXP I get: rootnoverify (hd1,0)#2nd drive,first partition,right? makeactive chainloader +1 then the cursor advances a couple of lines and just sits there blinking. Does WinXP absolutely have to be the first partition on the first drive? What if I made the 200M the slave and re-did grub, could I still boot from it. -mw Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
had same problem, solved rebuilding mbr check fdisk, if same problem (16 heads instead of 255 heads) this will help http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-user%40lists.gentoo.org/msg07969.html On Monday 25 July 2005 03:39, maxim wexler wrote: Hello everybody, You may recall my tussle with an Sempron/Asus K8N-e box: first it wouldn't boot but I fixed that and then the entire unit died. The tech at Asus suggested I *reverse* the CMOS battery for a few seconds. I was skeptical but it seems to have done the trick. However LBA remains 'off' for my Maxtor120G HD in the POST even though it's listed as LBA-capable in the BIOS and LBA is also set to 'auto' in the BIOS. Also gentoo boots but not WinXP. To recap: I moved all my boot stuff to a 200M HD, mounted as Pri-Master. The Maxtor 120G(Pri-Slave) was split nearly in two with WinXP on the first half, gentoo on the 2nd. When I try to boot WinXP I get: rootnoverify (hd1,0)#2nd drive,first partition,right? makeactive chainloader +1 then the cursor advances a couple of lines and just sits there blinking. Does WinXP absolutely have to be the first partition on the first drive? What if I made the 200M the slave and re-did grub, could I still boot from it. -mw Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
--- Martins Steinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: had same problem, solved rebuilding mbr check fdisk, if same problem (16 heads instead of 255 heads) this will help http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-user%40lists.gentoo.org/msg07969.html hmm, yes it *is* 16 heads. But before I try this thing can you recall trying to boot WinXP after running (win95)fdisk /mbr? In my case the boot.ini file on the c:\ drive actually opens giving me a choice of WinXP and the Recovery Console but clicking one or the other just leads to a blank screen. Seems if I can reach boot.ini all should be OK windows-wise. -mw Start your day with Yahoo! - make it your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
On Monday 25 July 2005 07:35, maxim wexler wrote: --- Martins Steinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: had same problem, solved rebuilding mbr check fdisk, if same problem (16 heads instead of 255 heads) this will help http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-user%40lists.gentoo.org/msg07969.html hmm, yes it *is* 16 heads. But before I try this thing can you recall trying to boot WinXP after running (win95)fdisk /mbr? In my case the boot.ini file on the c:\ drive actually opens giving me a choice of WinXP and the Recovery Console but clicking one or the other just leads to a blank screen. Seems if I can reach boot.ini all should be OK windows-wise. -mw there were no succesful winxp boot, because bios didnt enable LBA seting. i dont think (win95)fdisk wil work with linux partitions. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
maxim wexler wrote: --- Martins Steinbergs [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: had same problem, solved rebuilding mbr check fdisk, if same problem (16 heads instead of 255 heads) this will help http://www.mail-archive.com/gentoo-user%40lists.gentoo.org/msg07969.html hmm, yes it *is* 16 heads. But before I try this thing can you recall trying to boot WinXP after running (win95)fdisk /mbr? In my case the boot.ini file on the c:\ drive actually opens giving me a choice of WinXP and the Recovery Console but clicking one or the other just leads to a blank screen. Seems if I can reach boot.ini all should be OK windows-wise. Did you fix the disk references in boot.ini? For example, my boot.ini: [boot loader] timeout=30 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 /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn I am pretty sure that those disk(0) options need to be changed to disk(1). Although, I don't actually know what the rdisk(0) means, so you may need to play with both. -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
Re: [gentoo-user] He's baaaaaack!
there were no succesful winxp boot, because bios didnt enable LBA seting. i dont think (win95)fdisk wil work with linux partitions. Right, but booting a win95/98 CD and running fdisk /mbr from the DOS prompt will usually restore a WinXP boot sector. What's so bizarre in this case is that it should only partially restore(so it seems) bootability. Can you or anyone explain what this 16/255 controversy has to do with it? True, LBA is 'off', but WinXP starts at the beginning of /dev/hdb and *doesn't* boot, whereas gentoo starts at the 60G point and it *does* boot. Also FWIW all WinXP files are readable from gentoo once it's up. Even when I eliminate the first drive, the 200M drive where grub resides, and install the 120G HD as pri-master and try to boot, boot.ini opens up giving me the choices of WinXP and Recovery Console as I said before; only problem: neither goes anywhere, just hangs. -mw __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
