Partitioning problem with windows vs. linux

[Michael Wiktowy]

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>Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 12:38:53 -0400
>From: Tony Nelson <tonynelson at georgeanelson.com>
>At 11:37 AM -0400 8/31/05, Michael Wiktowy wrote:
>  
>
>>>Greetings all,
>>>I have an odd problem happening that I have experienced on a Fedora Core
>>>install in the past and in recent history also.
>>>
>>>Background:
>>>When I try to set up a dual-boot w2k+linux system (resizing w2k
>>>partition and filesystem, verifying w2k is happy after resize,
>>>installing FC), w2k is not happy sometimes on some systems. It will
>>>start to boot, switch to its more graphical starting windows boot
>>>screen, get halfway though and then blue screen [1] with a
>>>BOOT_INACCESSABLE error advising me to do a chkdsk /f and giving me no
>>>means of doing so. The recovery console on the install media doesn't
>>>seem to do the trick on this system (Dell GX280 with a SATA drive)
>>>either. [2]
>>>
>>>Specifics:
>>>I have narrowed down the problem to w2k not liking me simply adding
>>>extra partitions to the disk.[3] I boot to Knoppix and use fdisk to add
>>>some partitions (to try avoid the "anaconda changing the CHS values in
>>>the partition table with a buggy bios" issue) but as soon as I do, w2k
>>>becomes unhappy. I can subsequently remove the partitions and w2k is
>>>content again and boots normally.[4]
>>    
>>
> ...
>
>You don't say if you have any Extended partitions on the drive.  If you do,
>your extended partitions will get their number bumped up when you add new
>Basic partitions, so you will need to renumber them in boot.ini.  Umm, by
>using FIXBOOT in the Recovery Console?  (You say Recovery Console doesn't
>work, but you don't say what you tried in it.  On its own, it just sits
>there and does nothing.)
>  
>

To add more detail:
- no extended partitions ... just two primary ones
- the exact error is *** STOP 0x0000007B
(0x81826B10,0xC000014F,0x00000000,0x00000000)
INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE ... followed by some chkdsk /f verbage.
    - I just reproduced it by simply adding a primary linux type
partition taking up the rest of the space on disk and got rid of it by
deleting that partition
-w2k is on the first (and only) primary partition that is 150GB big and
the drive is 250 GB total and is SATA. I don't know if it is supposed to
but w2k does not report any free disk space after its partition when you
go into the disk management dialog.

I went through all the steps again so that they are fresh in my mind
- after adding the second primary partition, I booted to the recovery
console and tried:
    - CHKDSK
         - gives the informative and useful "The volume appears to
contain one or more unrecoverable problems." when the second primary
partition is present
         (recovery) - removing the second partition causes w2k to boot
normally
    - FIXMBR
         - complains that the computer has a non-standard or invalid
master boot record and warns of dire consequences
         - ... going through with it anyways has no effect other writing
a new MBR to \Device\Harddisk0\Partition0
         - which clobbers grub if was there and the blue screen persists
with the first hex number after the bracket changing to 0x81877CB0
         (recovery) - but after the second partition is removed, w2k
boots normally.
    - FIXBOOT
         - warned that the bootsector was corrupt after thinking that
the file system on the startup partition is unknown.
         - It then checked the file system type and detected that it was
an NTFS system and wrote a new bootsector.
         - This had no effect other than hooping the system such that it
wouldn't even begin to start the ntloader (A disk read error occured ...
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart)
         - looking at the output of sfdisk -d /dev/sda ... it appears to
have seriously pooched the partition table also making 4 overlapping
primary partitions
         (recovery) - restoring the mbr (containing the 2 partitions)
from the backup image didn't make it work again but I got the blue
screen again (with a different hex number again like after the FIXMBR step)
         (recovery) - removing the second primary partition caused w2k
to boot normally

So somehow w2k is getting seriously confused on my system ... turning on
/bootlog and /sos in w2k boot.ini and removing /fastdetect was not
illuminating.
I took dd snapshots at each step with Knoppix. Does anyone know of a
good hexeditor that I could view them in or ideally compare two binary
files?
My next step is to experiment with hidden partition types. If that works
I will file an RFE against anaconda to write more failsafe grub rules by
hiding the linux partitions.
Preliminary experiments would indicate that changing the partition to a
hidden type doesn't help. I am not sure if that is all the "hide"
command does in grub.

/Mike