Having trouble with partition tables!

[FAS284]

Bought a new laptop which had two NTFS partitions - first with vista, second with an OEM recovery version. Formatted the first partition without any problem, proceeded to install XP which copied files appropriately but BSOD in the middle. Repeated process several times to no avail. Ran partition magic (dos version) which says it cannot find partition table.

Basically, I need to know how to fix partition table quickly via command prompt. I do not have a way of attaching the laptop to another computer because it has a different adapter. any help would be appreciated greatly! thanks

 

[myocardia]

It sounds to me as if you need to fix your MBR, and possibly your boot sector, which is covered on the same page.

 

[RonAKA]

Laptops normally boot up right out of the box? Didn't this one? I avoid partitions like the plague, as there is no value in having one unless you want to do something unusual like running two operating systems off the same HD. I would boot up with the Vista disk and select the options it should give you to delete the partition and format the whole drive as one, and install the operating system.

 

[Jiggz]

When you boot from a XP CD it will show you your hdd partitions. If it doesn't it's most likely your MBR is messed up. In this case you can use the Recovery Console using DOS command FIXMBR. If nothing else, you can try recovery by using the restore option on the other partition or restore cd. Then go by deleting the partition again like you did before except this time do it with the XP installation CD.

 

[FAS284]

actually, I cannot use the recovery console because it says "no hd found" and forces me to press f3. I already tried fdisk /mbr but i'll give fixmbr a try... however, it is the entire partition table that is messed up. and I have no way of accessing the recovery partition as I did not get any recovery disk (requested them today from hp...)

 

[FAS284]

bump. still cannot access recovery console.

for some reason, I can install windows 98 on that partition (though hp has no drivers for network/USB/anything for win98 so I have no way of getting partition magic on there); but trying to install win2000 / xp keeps stopping on the restart after the initial copying of files - BSOD says "inaccessible_boot_record"

and pqmagict reports partition table messed up ..

any ideas?

 

[Arcanedeath]

Completely wipe the drive including the recovery part. and re-part. the drive and formant from the XP cd

 

[FAS284]

how would i do that? my bios is pretty crappy and won't let me format from there. pqmagict won't let me see the drives as it keeps saying partition table messed up ... and I do not have a way of connecting this HD in another computer as I don't have the SATA connector for notebook HD. thanks

 

[RonAKA]

Do you know the brand of the hard drive? If you do at least some hard drive manufacturers offer a download utility (which I think is bootable) to do a diagnosis on the hard drive and format it if necessary. For example you can find the Western Digital Lifeguard utilities at the link below:

http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?cxml=n&pid=999&swid=30

Again, do you have a bootable XP or Vista install disk? If so, I don't understand why you can't use it to delete the partition and format the drive? I hope you do, as how will you install the operating system once you blow away everything on the hard drive?

 

[FAS284]

i have a bootable XP install disk. it goes straight to copying files like the normal routine, reboots, loads the drivers, then does the BSOD. There is no option to delete partitions ...

 

[FAS284]

oh and my drive is fujitsu.. good idea, i'll see if there's anything

 

[FAS284]

seems like the HD is irreversibly messed up in one of the sectors from what testdisk tells me. the software taht comes with fujitsu does not even recognize the HD...

 

[Jiggz]

Originally posted by: FAS284
i have a bootable XP install disk. it goes straight to copying files like the normal routine, reboots, loads the drivers, then does the BSOD. There is no option to delete partitions ...

If you can do this you ought to be able to delete all partitions unless the XP disk you are using is an OEM. Try using a retail version where it asks you where to install XP. If you still cannot do this, download hdd utilities to zero or "low level" format the hdd. This utilities should boot in DOS mode. Try this for a starter, Disk Utilities