Need to repair XP partition table, help please.

There are 6 disks on this computer. I have used Partition Magic 8 to make one Primary NTFS partition on each drive. Only (C: ) and (G: ) have any important data at this time. (C: ) which has the OS and apps. and Drive G: which is my storage disk. Drive G is accessible and working fine. Drive C also works ok in that I can open all apps, etc...

A crash seems to have messed up the partition table:
when I try to start parition magic from within windows, I get an error:

"Init failed. error 100. partition table is bad"

Furthermore, when I boot the computer, it takes several minutes and one drive has a strange label on the black boot screen, gibberish. Also, In the Device Manager I see that there is a SCSI disk (it is an IDE attached to a Promise card) that has a gibberish label.

I do not have any recovery floppies. I do have Knoppix Linux and I do have the full XP pro SP2 disk. How do I fix this error?

I really do not mind if I lose the other drives' partitions, they are not being used right now for anything but windows swap files. And , of course, I can just reinstall partion magic and reformat the other drives (not G: or C: ) with Partition Magic. Help.........!

This is a two week old install that I have spent hours and hours honing and installing software. I would rather die than reformat C and start again.

Thanks,
B.

 

i did a very quick search on google, and came up with this: http://www.techspot.com/vb/all/windows/t-18269-Need-input-with-partition-magic.html

i'll try finding out more, and i'll post back when i can find more info.

 

Similar, but I can't find your exact one

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...88256e75007cb069?OpenDocument&src=bar_sch_nam


http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPOR...88256e75007c8bde?OpenDocument&src=bar_sch_nam



Do you have goback or norton protection enabled?

I presume that everything works except for launching Partition magic from within windows?

 

We are talking that there are 6 different HDDs in the computer, not one HDD partitioned into several drives?

What I would be concerned about with that many HDDs is if they are partitioned as extended logical drives. Once there is a change in the configuration, the partition tables are all out of whack. (Also, antiviruses love to start changing things in the boot sectors and cause chaos).

I would be tempted to copy the OS HDD to another, repartition it, then copy it back again (copy it to two other HDDs for the sake of peace of mind). When you know the OS drive is partitioned properly, repartition the others *although I would do it with that drive as the only one connected so that it is not partitioned as an extended drive*, using a Win 98 startup disk or the manufacturer's utilities. I think you can only have 4 drives set as "active ", drives need to be set to active to run an OS, so two would not able to run an OS.

The HDD manufacturer's utilities should have a program to copy one HDD to another. There is also Ghost or DriveCopy if you happen to have those.

Matt

 

I still need help, please read this...

I just tried something. I went into the Windows Device Manager and disabled the drive with the erratic name. I was then able to start "Partition Magic ". Of course, with that drive disabled, I was not able to access it with Partition Magic. Part way there, but I still need help

But, I believe that this isolates the problem to that drive.

What now? The drive has no data on it. It is one big NTFS partition.

Should I just take it out and put it into another computer and Fdisk it, then reinstall it. Windows and Partition Magic should pick it up if it is not ******* up.

I can then reformat it to NTFS with Partition Magic and all is well, right?

Better ideas, another way?

Please help. I am pretty green to this stuff and I figured out this much. Someone has got to be able to read this and go, "oh.... that's easy, do this... "

background: XP pro sp2 upgraded from SP1 complete installation disk. I have the complete installation disk with SP2 slipstreamed onto it. 6 hard disks. The main drive, C: is on the motherboard controller, the disk is fine.
There are two promise cards. One has the Maxtor 80 that is acting up on one channel and another Maxtor on the other channel. The other Promise card has three drives that pretty much act only as storage.

 

Have you tried XP disk management?

have you tried going to start/run and type
diskmgmt.msc
hit enter
Locate that drive, right click and delete the partition.
THen select it and choose format?
See if XP can handle the partitioning since it is empty.