Hello CJRhoades,
I think, you got into the "Hidden Sectors" trap; i.e. the value of some bytes in the Volume (Partition) Boot Record of Vista points to the wrong target. To get out of trouble, you have to upload some informations for me, to download something ... and to use "GParted" in an unusual way ( details follow below ). At last, I can give you an instruction on how to correct this above mentioned wrong value. With the additional help of Vista Recovery disk, you will get Vista work again, I hope.
1. What to download ?
- Latest stable version of "GParted Live CD" (forget versions, that come with other Linux distros !)
- Vista Recovery CD(free download, works also from bootable USB stick, if "unpacked") or original Vista DVD (not OEM version)
2. What to upload ?
- Summary of drive informations (partitioning) of the involved drive,
- its Master Boot Record,
- Volume Boot Record of its "active" (bootable) partition.
3. Where to upload ?
- Use a quick file sharing site, where you are not urged to register, like "mediafire.com"
- Feel free to "zip" files
4. How to get and store the informations
You need a small USB stick or external harddisk as storage media (you can store something neither on the "Gparted" CDROM, nor should you use the corrupted drive !). The advantage of a stick is, that it gets automatically mounted.
A. Attach the external storage media
B. Launch "GParted" and let it finish its activity (it's not absolutely necessary and not sufficent informative, but feel free to give us a screenshot, too - as soon as the stick is mounted later. Therefore minimize the window now.)
C. Right-click anywhere on the desktop (background) - fluxbox opens - select "system/file utils" - "MC_HxEd"
D. Click on all [+]- signs (only one at the start visible) to unfold the "treeview".
E. I don't know, how familiar you are with Linux, but you ought to know something about device names. The most important difference is between physical drives (the whole harddisk) and logical drives ( with partitionable media only; Volumes with file systems). A logical drive name ALWAYS ends with a number, a physical NOT. As we are talking about the structure of MSDOS-like drives, you should know further, that only four primary partitions are possible and that the "active" (bootable) Volume has to be primary, when booting with MSDOS/Windows own
means. The four primary partitions are numbered from 1 to 4; i.e. if you read "sda2", you know, that it is the 2nd partition on harddisk(or stick) "sda". And what if you have or need more than 4 partitions on your drive ? Well, there are "extended" partitions for that purpose.
An extended partition is a container for one or more logical volumes on a harddisk, queued up in a chain within one extended partitioning space. Numbering starts with 5 and ends with a (MSDOS) maximum of 26. Note, that there might be a numbering gap ( extended partition "sda2", next logical volume "sda5"), and primary partition order (numbering) and disk order (location sequence) might differ.
F.Double-click on the physical name of your corrupted harddisk (e.g "sda" or "hda")
Confirm, when you are asked, if you want to mount your USB Stick. Leave the hex viewer immediately again. MC filemanager shows the stored MBR-file ( left side permanently). Highlight it and confirm, if you want to inspect the file.
G. Do the same with bootable Volume ( e.g "sda1" or "hda1", must have an asterisk, too)
H. When you are back to treeview, do not unfold it again, but double-click on the text of the single visible line to store "drvs.dat" on your stick, the important summary information file.
I. Feel free to add a screenshot of (maximized again) "GParted" window now , see B.
(cp /root/gparted.jpeg /mnt/usb/BootRec/)
J. Shutdown "GParted", upload all stored files and give us the link.
My subsequent post will then give the analysis ... and hopefully the solution of your problem.
Regards
cmdr
