Radified Community Forums - How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003

kberg

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	Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003 Reply #30 - Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 9:40am There are some known issues with Ghost Solution Suite and SATA drives. Here are some things to try: http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH109571
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Dan Goodell

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #31 - Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 6:35pm

NightOwl wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 9:27am:

Just out of curiosity, are you usually setting things up with multibooting vs single OS?

Always. I don't think I've had a single-OS computer since c. 1986, when I started dualbooting two installations of DOS 3.3 on a 20MB hard disk. Ever since then, the advantages of multibooting have been obvious to me and well worth the effort.

Quote:

do any of the old DOS disk editors show a full sector at a time--anyone know?--I suspect not--I think DOS has a max number of lines it can display!

DOS was fixed at 80 chars wide by 25 rows. To show an entire sector requires a minimum of 16 two-char columns by 32 rows. There were some video modes on EGA monitors that could do more, but it's probably been at least a couple decades since anyone has had an EGA monitor.

Your screenshot shows a plain-jane Win98se MBR. I booted up my Win98se virtual machine to compare it, byte-for-byte. I think a 1st-edition 98 MBR was the same, but I don't have one of those handy to compare.

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #32 - Jul 23^rd, 2013 at 10:45am

It's been a while since I posted but I still regularly check and keep up with this forum.

@Dan Goodell:
Is there a particular boot manager(s) that you recommend for multibooting and any specific advice for doing so? Thanks for your excellent technical discussion as always! I always enjoy reading your contributions and usually learn something new.

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Dan Goodell

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #33 - Jul 24^th, 2013 at 2:16am

IMHO, of all the various boot managers around there are only two that ever need consideration: BING/BIBM or XOSL.

BIBM (BootIt-Bare-Metal) and it's predecessor, BING (BootIt-NG), have simply been the most versatile and stable boot manager for more than a decade, bar none. But it costs money. Yet, for $40 it's an incredible bargain and includes a partition manager, a partition imaging/cloning utility, and responsive customer support.

Still, some people don't want to spend money, no matter how good the bargain. For those people, I always recommend XOSL. My evaluation of XOSL hasn't changed--it's still the best free boot manager. It was abandoned by its developer a decade ago, yet the function of a boot manager hasn't changed, either, so it still does the job even with modern OS's. Still, abandoned means no tech support, and no hope of any updates to handle tomorrow's UEFI partitioning standard.

XOSL isn't perfect, though--it's always had a niggling bug: it doesn't like certain laptop keyboards for some reason. It works on some laptops but not others. If you have one of those laptops on which it doesn't work . . . well, there's no tech support, remember?

Personally, I use BING/BIBM on my own machines (and have multiple licenses to stay legit). For multiboot configurations I setup for other people, I use XOSL unless they're willing to spring for a copy of BIBM.

As for how I create a multiboot system, it's all on my webpage. It's a tried and true method that has worked for two decades, and continues to work even with Windows 8. The tools have changed over the years, but the basic methodology hasn't. I still create building blocks out of images of individually installed OS's, then setup my final partition layout, pour the images into whichever partitions I like, and strap on the boot manager as the last step.

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Brian

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #34 - Jul 24^th, 2013 at 2:54am

@

Prozactive

I made these summary notes years ago after Dan posted instructions about installing XOSL.

Download XOSL 1.1.5 (450k) from...
http://www.ranish.com/part/

In Disk Management or with a partitioning app, create a 32 MB FAT primary partition. Label it XOSL (in BING use 14/Eh)

Create a folder called TEMP in the partition. Unzip and copy all the files from the xosl folder into TEMP (ignore the manual folder)

Boot from a Win98 boot CD. I suggest "Win98SEnoram_bootdisk.iso" from...
http://www.allbootdisks.com/download/iso.html

At the A: prompt type C: and press Enter

type dir to confirm you are in the correct partition. You should see the TEMP directory listed

type CD TEMP and press Enter

type INSTALL and press Enter

You are now in the XOSL setup

Select Install XOSL and press Enter

Select Install on a DOS drive and press Enter

You should see "Install on drive : C " (make sure it is your 32 MB partition if you have other FAT partitions)

Arrow down to Ranish Partition Manager and use Page Down (or Page Up) key to select NO

Arrow down to Smart Boot Manager and use Page Down (or Page Up) key to select NO

Arrow down to Start Installation and press Enter

Press Enter on Reboot System and remove the CD

XOSL boots

Click Setup

Click Add

Select an OS. Give it a Boot item name. Click Apply.

Click Hiding. Select a partition you wish to Hide and put a tick in the Hide box. Do this again if there are more partitions to Hide. Click Apply.

Click Save. OK, Close.

Click Setup and do the same for another OS you would like to add to the Boot Menu.

If the OS is not on HD0, put a tick in Swap drives before clicking Save.

Now you are ready to choose an OS and click Boot.

*****************************

If desired you can later convert this partition to a bootable DOS partition without losing XOSL.

sys C: But that is not enough. You have to add DOS files. Edit autoexec.bat, msdos.sys, config.sys

***************

Can do an install into a 32 MB FAT logical volume just as easily. XOSL works. But can't sys C: and make this boot DOS. XOSL can't boot it. BING can't either.
If you want DOS it has to be a primary partition.

*****************************

For logical volume OS you don't need to allow for hidden sectors. (but get a bsod until you boot a primary partition ) Next time you try logical it is OK.

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NightOwl

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #35 - Jul 25^th, 2013 at 8:49am

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Dan Goodell

Dan Goodell wrote on Jul 22^nd, 2013 at 6:35pm:

Always.I don't think I've had a single-OS computer since c. 1986, when I started dualbooting two installations of DOS 3.3 on a 20MB hard disk.

Well, what I was thinking is that maybe that was a difference in what I do vs what you do as an explanation for why you see a MBR overwrite when you install a new MS OS. But after thinking more, I doubt you have been setting up the MS way of multi-booting--which is what I was doing also by using a MBR tool to switch active partitions--and avoiding the MS method of multibooting.

It's been so long ago--and there's no way for me to examine what the actual MBR was pre and post the changes that eventually sorted things out and they began to work.

There's also the possibility that what I thought happened was coincidental and something else happened that I didn't even know happened!

Computers--gota love 'em!

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NightOwl

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #36 - Jul 25^th, 2013 at 8:55am

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Brian

Brian wrote on Jul 21^st, 2013 at 4:10pm:

Does this fix the Partition Magic etc issues?

Been busy the last few days and haven't fired up the old system to check the partitions with BIBM.

And, I'm out of town for the next few days--so, my testing will have to wait until I'm back.

Just letting you know I haven't abandoned the effort....

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	Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003 Reply #37 - Jul 28^th, 2013 at 1:57pm @Dan Goodell and Brian: Thank you for the excellent info. Sorry for the slow acknowledgment but I'm having some major hardware problems that make it difficult to compose and do other tasks. Hopefully I'll be able to resolve the problems soon.
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NightOwl

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #38 - Jul 31^st, 2013 at 10:23am

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Brian

Brian wrote on Jul 21^st, 2013 at 4:10pm:

Quote:

Open the Properties window again, this time while holding down the left Shift key.(Pressing the left Shift key while opening the Properties window allows you to edit the ending LBA.)
Change the End LBA to match the number shown in the warning message.
Click OK to save the change.
Open the Properties window once again (without pressing the Shift key) and verify that the warning message no longer appears.

So, using Boot It Bare Metal (BIBM), and the above recommendation--it would only allow me to edit the *ending LBA* on the primary partitions. But, I have 4 FAT32 logical partitions inside an extended partition which show the error that the end of the partition does not match the end of the file system's LBA--and I can not edit those partitions.

But, tried PartitionMagic's Windows interface after editing the one primary partition that had that error message, and still no joy--the error still occurred: Init failed: Error 100 Partition Table is Bad.

The logical partitions in the extended partition has the partition information in the chained EMBR (Extended Master Boot Record) if I remember correctly--can BIBM access the EMBR for editing?

As an alternative, I was thinking I might use BIBM to do a minor edit of the partitions of shrinking and sliding the logical partitions, and letting BIBM modify the various EMBRs to see if that corrects those *Warnings*.

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Brian

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Re: How to Recover from Lost Windows Partition with Ghost 2003
Reply #39 - Jul 31^st, 2013 at 2:54pm

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NightOwl

It looks like BIBM can only edit the end LBA of a primary partition. In the Actions menu on the right side of the Partition Work window, can you access Slide/Resize/Copy ? With primary partitions these buttons are greyed out until the LBA error has been corrected. If the buttons are available, try a small Slide/Resize as you are planning. It should work.

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