I just had to restore a w2k from a partimage image, trying to make the 
partition bootable

I did not work with default MBR records, it did not work with w2k rescue 
tools, it only worked with the original MBR record that was restored from the 
partimage image, after another 78 MB hidden partition was restored, that 
apparently contained the w2k bootloader. It was a standard Dell laptop 
installation.

Steen

Tirsdag 16 januar 2007 21:34 skrev James Harper:
> > However, I didn't
> > mark the partition as active (forgot about that), so maybe that is a
> > required step still.
>
> The boot process on an x86 PC goes something like:
>
> . BIOS reads first 512 bytes of the disk (the MBR, which includes the
> partition table) into memory
> . BIOS begins execution of the MBR code
> . MBR checks the partition table to find an active partition
> . MBR reads the first 512 bytes (bootsector) of that partition into
> memory
> . MBR begins execution of the bootsector
> . bootsector begins execution of the code
>
> I may be wrong, but I don't think there is even any requirement to have
> a partition table on the disk, with a custom bootsector you could do
> almost anything you want. Fortunately Microsoft still use the MBR and
> partitions on the boot disk which allows backwards compatibility with
> everything else. I'm not sure if this is true for 'dynamic disks' under
> windows though.
>
> Anyway, as someone else said I don't think the standard MBR code is
> smart enough to do anything sane if there is no active partition, which
> (for once :) is not the fault of Windows.
>
> > If I get a chance I'll have to play around with it
> > some more to see what happens.
>
> I for one would be grateful if you could find the time to do this, it
> would put my lingering doubt to bed too :)
>
> Btw, if you use an older version of mkntfs (not sure exactly what
> version, but I think it's the one still in Debian Etch), you'll get a
> windows partition that looks perfect but doesn't boot no matter what you
> do, or at least it didn't boot when I tried it no matter what I did. The
> current version appears to work fine.
>
> Thanks
>
> James
>
>
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