XP Freezes at Loading Bars/XP Cd fails to load! [following Ubuntu install]

Okay, this is a long story, so grab a cup of coffee if you need it.

Here I was, yesterday evening, trying to get Ubuntu 8.04 working. I was installing it so that XP was on one separate physical drive, and Ubuntu on another drive, which was partitioned to be mostly NTFS storage, and a little bit left over for Ubuntu. This drive is 160 GB, I had about 155 partitioned in NTFS, and I left the remaining for Ubuntu.

Anywho, due to some complications, Ubuntu would not be allowed the option to boot when I start up my computer. I tried all sorts of things, but none of it would work. So I installed Wubi and did it that way.

So this leaves me with a triple-partition drive that I want to be restored back into one solid thing. I pop in the Ubuntu CD and delete the two Linux partitions as well as the NTFS (I had backed it up earlier), and restart.

All is fine, well, except that the drive is now free space rather than partitioned.

So I load up Paragon Partition Manager 9 and it says that the two linux partitions still exist. It wont let me delete them, so I open up Partition Magic 8.

Partition Magic tells me that it's all one big BAD thing, the whole drive. No Linux partitions necessary.

So, I pop in my Ubuntu disc, and then find that apparently the two linux partitions were still hanging around. I deleted them this morning, and formatted the whole big thing (All 160 GB) into FAT32 using the Ubuntu installer.

Fine, great, awesome, and then the **** hits the fan. I go to reboot, and find that XP will not boot up. It allows me to select it from the boot option, I select it, the XP logo comes up, and the blue bars start scrolling. BUT THAT'S IT. Nothing else. It just sits there, those blue bars scrolling, for all infinity. It wont actually boot up the OS.

So I decide to throw in my Partition Magic boot-cd. I tell it to scan for bootable partitions, it gets about half way in, and NEARLY THE SAME THING HAPPENS! It just sits there! The CD stops reading, nothing hangs or freezes, it just stops what it's doing.

So, I try rebooting in Safe Mode. Guess what happens? Same deal. It loads a bunch of drivers or whatever, and then just sits there. It wont boot up.

By this point, as you can imagine, I'm getting incredibly frustrated. All I do is format something into FAT32 and my whole system goes to hell.

But that's not the worst of it.

I call for drastic measures. I pop in my Windows CD, it loads the drivers list, etc,etc and then gets to the 'Starting Windows' point, you know, where it actually lets you do ****?

It hangs. It just sits there, the CD stops spinning, etc. It's like it just gives up on trying to read.

So here I am, totally ****ed, and without any way to even reinstall Windows!

I'm currently making this post via the Ubuntu LiveCD, which is the only way that I can actually use my computer right now!

The odd thing is, my drives are still intact! My XP drive shows up here in Linux, and all of the files appear to be there. The FAT32 drive also shows up, empty, as it should be.

So why does XP refuse to load, and WHY OH WHY do none of my CD items, especially my Windows Installer, fail to load?!

Thanks, and praying for a speedy response,

Brad

EDIT: It appears that the two linux partitions still exist, because I think the Linux installer only caries out the actions if you continue installing the whole deal. I was just changing the partitions and then quiting the installer...

so it appears that I have no way to format any of the partitions. It also appears that nothing has changed. All of this has no cause, since the partitions are the same now as they were when XP was running this morning....

 

If that don't do it see this!

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=72733

Mike

 

It's wierd. All I had to do was delete the partitions (All three of them) which I did using Gparted inside the Ubuntu LiveCD.

Now, to get Ubuntu working...

Thanks a lot for the help anyway guys

 

Not weird!

The XP boot partition was pushed 3 steps away by the 3 partitions.

When the 3 partitions were removed the XP partition fell back to its rightful place.

Appearently you built your partitions at the beginning of the drive instead of at the end.

Build them again make sure they are after the XP partition instead of before it.

OR! You did put it at the end and made one of the new partitions the Active partition.

Mike

 

Huh. Maybe I did put them at the beginning.... i'm pretty sure I didn't make them active anyway...

I'll have to try again then, since using Wubi has brought me no luck at all.