1 Topic by bobrcnut

  • bobrcnut
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Topic: [SOLVED] GPARTED Fails, but fixes WIN XP Boot Failure???!!!

Forgive my newbie-ness here... I'm a long time user of GPARTED, but not a Linux person by any means.
Since my problem is now solved (by a totally unexplainable sequence of events), I'm just posting this to see if anyone has even the wildest of explanations:
I've been fighting a Win XP boot failure for several days now.  Details aren't relevant, I'll just say that I had to resort to building a bootable USB stick to reinstall XP.  Immediately after the install, the Win XP bootup would fail with one of several errors... HAL.DLL corrupt, unrecognizable or misconfigured mass storage device (SATA hard drive), or just plain old "this is not a bootable drive".  Since the PC has no diskette, and (apparently) no usable OS, I fiddled around for hours trying to find a way to (1) determine drive and partition numbers accurately to eliminate the HAL.DLL error, or (2) run XP recovery console, or (3) find out why known good XP Install CDs would not boot.  (Incidentally, the USB stick would no longer boot either, and the only CDs that would boot successfully were a Vista Recovery CD (did me no good), and Knoppix. 
Tonight, in a fit of desperation, I tried booting a GPARTED CD, to see if maybe there was a phantom partition that was messing up the drive or partition numbers and causing boot.ini to be wrong.  Well... GPARTED wouldn't run, kept telling me "Signal out of Range".  Tried it twice.. no luck.  Tried Ctl/Alt/Del, it did nothing.  SO.. tried ejecting the GPARTED CD.  Nothing.  I shut power off so I could power back up and retrieve the GPARTED CD.  Grabbed it out of the tray, went to put it back in its rightful place, looked back over at the PC, and lo and behold:  Windows XP is booting!  I'm mystified, stumped, and baffled.  Any thoughts?

2 Reply by class413

  • class413
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Re: [SOLVED] GPARTED Fails, but fixes WIN XP Boot Failure???!!!

The "Signal out of Range" message doesn't come from GParted, but directly from the video monitor itself. It appears in any case the monitor can't detect the operating mode of the graphics adapter. In fact, GParted tries to use a resolution and frequency that isn't supported by the monitor. In this case, you can use one of the other 2 alternative boot ways from the initial screen, i.e. failsafe or VESA graphics with a resolution of 1024x768 that usually works on any monitor, even 10 or more years old.

About Knoppix, it always had the reputation to detect very well the hardware.

Tried Ctl/Alt/Del, it did nothing.  SO.. tried ejecting the GPARTED CD.  Nothing.

You could use Ctl/Alt/Backspace , to kill X (the failed graphics mode) and then give reboot from the command line. (backspace is the key with the arrow left sign, above the return key).
The cdrom drive door is locked during operations, because the drive contains portions of the software. It is released by the powerdown or reboot procedure.

Concerning the problem it self: GParted doesn't write anything on the hard drive unless we do some specific operation (create a new partition, modify existing partitions, ... ). I found that a possible source for the "HAL.DLL error" is some bad BIOS setting for the hard drive. So, it would be possible that you changed something or activated some autodetect function in the BIOS....

... unless Steven Shiau is really a magician!

You make me recall an event long ago, at the windows 3 years. The technician tried again and again all the afternoon to install the graphics driver on the new system and failed each time. He tried various things but always nothing. Finally, after doing exactly the same things he had already do previously, it worked. I was nearby to follow the operations, and asked him, how this happened this time but not before. Instead of replying, he just looked up, to the heaven!
smile

I am glad that the problem is solved. Of course, any other explanation would be welcome.

(topic moved to the Live media section)

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