1 Topic by O.O.

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Topic: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Hi,

    I have Windows XP on this machine, and I wanted to grow the System Partition. I performed a number of operations using GParted and they all went OK (verified by running chkdsk and rebooting into Windows after each) up till I resized i.e. grew the System Partition.

    The first problem I faced when resizing the System Partition was that it complained that my NTFS Journal/Filesystem was unclean. This was true. While booting into Gparted Live I forgot to change the BIOS – so it accidently got into Windows XP. I killed it by powering the machine off (thinking that it would not hurt.)

    I then rebooted into the Windows XP Recovery Console and did a chkdsk. (Here I forget if I got the recovery console via the HD or via a CD.) After chkdsk went fine, I booted into GParted Live. It shows the System Partition aka C:\ Drive with the new larger size. When I go to check it, it seems to do/complete the resize. I went back to the Recovery Console of XP and did a chkdsk and it goes through fine, showing the larger size of the System Partition.

The Problem: I cannot Boot!!

Through the Recovery Console, I can see that all of my files are there, but I cannot boot?? I attempted fixmbr, fixboot, and bootcfg /rebuild (in that order) and I still cannot get through. Also via the GParted Live, I attempted to run ntfsfix and that did not help. In addition to this I would like to note that everytime I boot into Gparted Live and attempt a check on the System Partition, it always does a NTFS Resize. When I do a check on other partitions it does not do this. Why?? (I think chkdsk returns approximately the correct size though. So something worked!)

Any clues on what I should try?

When I refer to GParted Live above, I am referring to the image/files on a USB – not a CD. If you are going to ask me to get the output of certain commands, please let me know how to get this output out. I specifically want to know if using a Live USB I can write the output to itself. I also attempted attaching another USB to the machine (in order to write the data). 

I first did a 

mkdir /mnt/usb1
mount /dev/sdc /mnt/usb1

and it tells me

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

I then did 

mount –t vfat /dev/sdc /mnt/usb1

and 

mount –t fat32 /dev/sdc /mnt/usb1

both of which did not work. (I am not familiar with Linux.)

Sorry for the long post. I would be grateful for any help. 
O. O.

2 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Is the boot flag set on the System partition?

Have you looked further into the XP System Recovery console to see if there are some more options you can use to restore boot?

What exactly happens when the PC will not boot?  What is displayed on the screen?

3 Reply by O.O.

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Dear gedakc,

    Thank you for posting. How do I check if the boot flag is set on the System Partition?? I have looked at each of the commands in the Windows System Recovery and I cannot find any other than fixmbr, fixboot and bootcfg – but I am not an expert in this.

    On booting, it gets through the BIOS, and then reports: 

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I would be grateful to know what to try next.
O. O.

4 Reply by O.O.

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Dear gedakc,

    I mentioned this in my original post, but I would like to repeat it. Do you know why when I do a check on the System Partition in GParted, it always does a NTFS resize – as compared to doing a  check on any other partition where it does not do a NTFS Resize. Could it be that something is stale?

O. O.

5 Reply by O.O.

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Dear gedakc,

    I think I figured how to get the Boot Flag. I basically right click on the drive on Gparted, and then select Information.  I did this, and under Flags it says boot – so I guess this is set.  I found that the boot flag can be got from doing a fdisk. I did a 

fdisk -u –l /dev/sda

and it shows /dev/sda1 having an asterix under Boot. Here I am wondering why it shows a + sign next the number of Blocks in /dev/sda and not alongside other partitions?

O. O.

6 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

O.O. wrote:

Dear gedakc,

    I mentioned this in my original post, but I would like to repeat it. Do you know why when I do a check on the System Partition in GParted, it always does a NTFS resize – as compared to doing a  check on any other partition where it does not do a NTFS Resize. Could it be that something is stale?

O. O.

The "Partition --> Check" option in GParted performs a partition check.  This involves not only a file system check, but also a check to ensure that the file system neatly fits with the partition.  That is why the resize command is called.  If the file system properly fits, then the resize command will have no effect.

7 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

O.O. wrote:

On booting, it gets through the BIOS, and then reports: 

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

I would be grateful to know what to try next.
O. O.

You might wish to check all of the physical connections for the hard drive to ensure that nothing is loose.  It is also possible that the hard drive is beginning to fail.

Usually the drive manufacturer will have testing software available on their web site.  Please note that often the software will overwrite you data on the drive so be sure to have a good backup before running the drive testing software.

8 Reply by O.O.

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Dear gedakc,

    I don’t think the problem is with the physical connections to the drive since through the Windows Recovery Console I can see all of the files.

    Could you please give me instructions on starting MC_HxEd via the most recent release of the Live CD? When I right click on the desktop I get Fluxbox to open but when I click on MC_HxEd nothing happens?
O. O.

9 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

cmdr are you available to help O.O.?

[cmdr wrote the MC_HxEd utility]

10 Reply by O.O.

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Dear gedakc,

    Let it be – I think I got this resolved.

For the benefit of others attempting what I did my mistakes were:

1. Do not attempt to use GParted on a FileSystem that is Unclean:
    Before running GParted on the System Partition aka C: Drive, I accidently booted into Windows because I forgot to change the BIOS. I forcibly shut down the machine (using the power button). GParted should have warned me about this, but it attempted to resize and then failed – that’s where my problems started.

It would be good to do a Defrag, and a chkdsk before each operation that you perform on the disk.

2. Don’t liberally use fixmbr, and fixboot:
    In my original post here, I mentioned that I had used fixmbr, and fixboot. I however realized that I used fixmbr wrongly. Fixmbr needs the Device Name, not the drive name i.e. 

fixmbr \Device1\HardDisk1

and not fixmbr C:\ as I had attempted before. (Fixboot on the other hand takes the Drive Name, so I was originally correct.)
    When I ran these concurrently, they caused my System Partition to be formatted as FAT16, and limited to 16MB.

I am not sure what I would have done differently. However in my search I came across TestDisk (also on the GParted Live CD) can supposedly repair the Bootsector. It could not help me though.

Thanks a lot to you guys,
O. O.

11 Reply by gedakc

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Thanks O.O. for posting with how you were able to resolve the problem.

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

Your welcome gedakc. I hope you could either post this somewhere (FAQ/Docs) that GParted would prefer the NTFS Filesystem/Journal to be clean before resizing. It would be even better if GParted checks the NTFS Filesystem to see if it is clean before attempting a resize. (At least warn the user.)

O. O.

13 Reply by gedakc (edited by gedakc 2011-04-12 03:36:47)

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Re: Cannot Boot Win XP: Resized/Grew NTFS System Parition

GParted calls the ntfsresize command from the ntfsprogs project, and it does check if the file system is clean or not.  For some unknown reason it would appear that in your case the file system was not seen as unclean.  This is the very first time I have heard of this happening.

EDIT:
Which version of GParted and/or Live CD are you using?