Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Hello,

I've been foolish....

So, please can anyone advise re this:

I have C:\ with one partition with XP HOME on it.
I fitted another disk from another PC into another IDE slot. I intended to format this and then use it as extra space. Because it came from another PC, it had a fully working copy of win 98SE on it.

Yesterday I installed Partiton Magic V8 but did not use it to change anything.

Then I installed Boot Magic, which comes with it, thinking that I would not use it yet.

When Boot Magic installed, it noticed the win 98.

When I came to boot up next time, XP will not start. It goes through its initialisation checks, then it says "Loading Bootmagic..." and then it hangs on a black screen.

If I start from a bootable CD or floppy I can start in DOS and read ny C drive, but does anyone know how I might get my system to restart?

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

As part of the installation of Boot Magic, you should have made a Boot Magic Rescue Diskette. Boot from that diskette now, and it will restore access to the OS partition: this is why the Rescue Diskette exists.

Other things you might try are removing the hard disk that you recently installed.

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

I'm afraid I did not create a resue disk. I guess I just thought it was yet another boot disk. Oh well!

I pulled the IDE cable out of the W98 HD but to no avail...

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

With luck you should still be able to boot to safe mode and undo the boot magic stuff from there I think. If not try booting to the XP CD and repairing the XP instalation from there.

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

I see that a rescue disk appears on the PM CD and it has a number of utilities but I would not know what to do with them. There must be a way......

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Maybe you can download a rescue disk image?

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Thanks once more Soc. glad you are online!

I put the XP disk in but chickened out of playing with it I don't want to lose my data! I thought that there may be a line in an .ini file somewhere that I could rem out and so stop Boot Magic from starting. What do you think?

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

could it be that the MBR is corrupt? Is it worth booting from the XP disk and running fixmbr from the console screen?

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

The XP disk should detect the XP installation and repair the MBR so it can boot.

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Another thing: is there a way of copying all my important files to my external USB disK? Is there a way I can get USB limping along? If I could back up my data files I'd feel a lot happier about messing around....

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Unfortunately not ... the USB drivers will be loaded within windows.

The data on the disk should be fine, it's just the boot loader that needs fixing.

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

My best bet is the the location for the XP partition got messed in the boot.ini file on C:\ with the changes made after adding an extra HD and running the boot magic so that is the file that may need editing.

But as others have said you should be able to use the XP CD to repair or even overwrite the existing install without any loss of data. At worst you may need to reinstall some programs but data files as such should survive the process as you will not be doing a format.

Hope that helps.

EDIT: From memory there should be an option to go to last known good boot which will revert to that version of the startup files see if you can get to that via holding the Ctrl key down on boot or hitting the F8 key prior to windows trying to load.

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Hello Jelly,

Would fix MBR just get me into more trouble if it changed anything? I haven't a clue!

Maybe I'll give it a try....

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

Thanks Nemesis.....Here goes...(gulp)

Re: Partition Magic, Boot Magic: XP won't start!
 

If you run fixmbr from the XP disk, then it should rewrite it to boot the XP partition