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my primary partition is damaged

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9 replies

by irfan

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I have a Toshiba Laptop computer with a 20 GB of Hard Disk, which is divided into four partition among which three are FAT32 including primary partition (The effected one) and one is NTFS. Windows Me is installed on primary Fat 32 partition and windows XP is installed on NTFS extended logical drive.
The error occred when I restart my computer after installing Nortron firewall and nortron antivirus, The computer stop responding when it was loading startup program in windows xp. Then I turn ofthe computer by switching off the power then restart it again but computer refuse to boot. then i change my boot sequence and boot the computer by using CD Rom. Now the computer start successfully the I access my hardisk (c:\) on taking 'dir' it wasdispalying 'Abort Retry Ignore massege '. so i run scandisk which prompt me about that your disk information has been change continouing scandisk may couse some serious damage but i continue with scandisk. snadisk take more then a hour and scan only 1000 cluster among which it make 106 badsetor. After this scandisk prompt me to changr my undo disk when as i change my undo disk after that moment scandisk was showing every sector it read as bad sector so i pause the process and exit scandisk and then shut off the computer This is the place where i am standing now. My first priority is my data which is in my extended partition which are safe upto now.
So please tell me how can i transfer my approx. 3 GB data from my computer HD to any other computer in dos mode espasially by using my lancard suppport(i donot know whether it is installed in dos or not but it is attached to computer) and tell me if i will delete my primary partition will the extended partion will remain same and my datawill not be effected.
system configration
Operating System: dos

9 replies

by thechas

You should be able to delete and re-create the primary partition using fdisk from either the Me CD, or a boot floppy.

So long as you make no changes to the extended partition or logical drives they should remain intact as long as the drive itselfis not failing.

You will need to re-install Me, and then perform a repair install of XP to get your dual boot setup back.

My reomendation for backing up your data, would be to remove the drive from the laptop, and connect it to a desktop on the secondary IDE channel.
(You will need a 2.5" to 3.5" drive converter kit to do this.)
Then, simply copy the files onto the desktop hard drive.

Chas

by ozzbat2

I don't aggree to removing the HDD, fdisking, or re-formatting, and also feel there is no need for re-installing windows. Try these solutions first, ALWAYS troubleshoot your system from the least damaging procedurefirst. Formatting and re-install isyour last procedure...

It sounds like the new software has made changes to the boot.ini file creating some havoc as a result. The boot.ini file will have configurations refering to both OS's, partitions, HDD, etc... Corrupting this information will prevent boot up. More info on configuring and creating a boot.ini file can be found here:

--http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q289022--

Another possibility is to boot to a "Last Known Good" State. This reconfigures the system to a previous "Known Good" configuration from when the system was functioning properly. More info on "Last Known Good Configuration" found here:

--http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q307852--

Good Luck!

by planetgti

i like both answers to this, but there is one other factor to consider - how inportant is the data.

If the data is critical, then you can forgot about fixing the machine until the data is safe (it should of already have a backup :) )
If you do have critical data, i would NOT use the machine at all, take the disk out of the laptop and then copy as much of the information that you can access (hopefully all of it) to the desktop machine using the converter kit as previously metioned.

Oncethis is complete you can reassamble your laptop and go about fixing it. The corrupted boot file may be fixable, otherwise you are going to have to look at answer 1

by otl

See answer in your other question.

If you basically just want to restart the partition, yes you can delete it and reinstall it but do NOT make any other changes between reboots and annotate size start sectors, end sector prior to changing/deleting anything (completed HD parameters [so you can put them back exactly])

BTW - did the above and never lost a thing by resetting parameters to what they were before changes were made. This is not a good indication for the problem you are experiencing though.

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