Everyone I know who deals with partitions a lot has one or more
Partition Magic horror stories, except myself; I don't know why it
never gave me any trouble, but I love the program.
Anyway, before you do anything to your boot record, it is wise to make
a backup copy. You can do this with a program such as the freeware
DISKMAN; put it on your boot disk and run the command (from the A:\>
prompt on your floppy disk):
DISKMAN MBR SAVE 1 C:\BACKUP.BIN
You need to download the program yourself, because he asks that you
register your name, but registration is free and painless:
http://diskman.no-ip.com/ntlworldsite/diskman/index.htm
After this suggested step, you have two options;
a) you can reinstall Windows 98 over your previous install, to the
same directory, which will take about 30-90 minutes, depending on your
setup, but will NOT mess up any of your existing programs;
or
b) simply issue the command:
FDISK /MBR
This should wipe the boot record clean and make everything better, but
it's a little more risky. Hence you definitely want to have made a
backup (and verified it if you can) if you go with this method.
In either case, if you successfully boot and want your partition space
back, you should probably try running Partition Magic one step at a
time (i.e., delete the partition, apply changes, resize the partition,
apply changes...)
If this fails to solve your problem, or you need more help getting
back your space that was previously dedicated to Linux, please ask for
a clarification request. |
Request for Answer Clarification by
kd-ga
on
27 May 2002 19:54 PDT
Thanks for your helpful response, but I still can't boot.
I did an fdisk /mbr and I re-installed Win98 from the
original Windows CD-ROM.
But when the installation process reaches the point where
the computer reboots, I get the Windows cloudy-sky logo screen and it
says "Getting ready to run Windows for the first time" at the bottom in large type.
THEN I get this screen:
>> 1 file(s) copied
>>Your are currently running in MS-DOS mode. Do you want to
>>return to normal mode, to run Windows applications again [Enter=Y,Esc=N]?
I respond with Enter, and then the computer reboots, I get the Windows
cloudy-sky logo with the "Getting ready to run ..." message again, and then
that same "1 file(s) copied..." screen again.
An infinite loop.
Can you help?
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Request for Answer Clarification by
kd-ga
on
27 May 2002 20:11 PDT
Oh, and if I answer "n", I get a C:\> prompt.
If I type "win" at the C:\> prompt, I get
the message again:
>>Your are currently running in MS-DOS mode. Do you want to
>>return to normal mode, to run Windows applications again [Enter=Y,Esc=N]?
Again, infinite loop.
|
Clarification of Answer by
bookface-ga
on
28 May 2002 02:42 PDT
The problem your are describing matches the one given here:
http://www3.sympatico.ca/rhwatson/dos7/x-dos.html
Press N to go to DOS mode, then type:
edit config.sys
to look at and (not suprisingly) edit your config.sys file.
Look for the line, "DOS=SINGLE" and if it exists change it to "DOS=high,umb".
Restart.
Hopefully this will help you solve your problem.
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Request for Answer Clarification by
kd-ga
on
29 May 2002 17:10 PDT
You are very good! I edited config.sys and now I can boot to Win98.
Thank you.
I have 2 questions. See both [1] AND [2] below.
I still cannot get PM6.0 to resize my FAT32 partition.
My goal is to increase my 5GB Win98 FAT32 partition to 10GB without
destroying my files.
[1] How do I do this?
PM6.0 should be able to do this.
I now have a 5GB FAT32 partition followed by 15GB of unallocated space
(I deleted Linux).
I want to make it 10GB FAT32 / 10GB unallocated.
I resized the FAT32 partition using the graphical resizing tool to
8GB(*).
Then clicked "Apply Changes".
Computer reboots,
I again see this:
>> 1 file(s) copied
>>Your are currently running in MS-DOS mode. Do you want to
>>return to normal mode, to run Windows applications again
[Enter=Y,Esc=N]?
I guess that the correct answer is Y, so I give it a Y, and computer
reboots to Win98. That's good, but my FAT32 partition is still 8K!
(*) PM6.0 gives a warning if I try to make it bigger than about 8GB.
Something about partition may not be bootable because I'm over 1,024
clusters. I can live with 8GB, but I'd prefer to make it 10GB.
[2] Please comment on this issue -- can I go up to 10GB safely??
What's the deal with this 1,024 cluster limit? Should I change the
cluster size in order to stay under 1024 clusters?
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Request for Answer Clarification by
kd-ga
on
29 May 2002 17:13 PDT
Correction:
I wrote:
"That's good, but my FAT32 partition is still 8K!"
What I MEANT to write was:
"That's good, but my FAT32 partition is still 5GB!"
|
Clarification of Answer by
bookface-ga
on
30 May 2002 03:59 PDT
I think something is wrong with the way MS-DOS mode programs are
supposed to run. I suggest trying PM in DOS mode if you have the DOS
programs installed (reinstall and include the section "DOS/Win3.1
support" or the like, if you haven't last time.)
How to check if you installed this:
start, run, "C:\Program Files\PowerQuest\Partition Magic" (WITH
quotes)
Look for a folder named DOS; if it's there (and not empty) you have
the support installed.
How to run:
Restart your computer, and hold F8 right as your BIOS completes
(technically, you're aiming for as soon as it says "Starting Microsoft
Windows..." but it's easy to miss sometimes...)
Choose Command Prompt Only.
type:
cd PROGRA~1\POWERQ~1\PARTIT~1.0\DOS (this may be different
depending on your setup, try changing the 1's to 2's individually if
this fails)
pqmagic
A graphical user interface virtually identical to the Windows version
will start; actually, it ends up being more graphical, as you can see
the progress without needing to restart or exit the program and
multiple progress bars to show what is happening tell you exactly how
much is complete.
As I said before, I recommend changing only one thing at a time,
especially if you're having problems, and applying the changes between
each step.
As for the booting thing, you have nothing to worry about, especially
as your partition was that big once before without issue. Some older
BIOSes can't support drives over 8 GB properly -- it used to be an old
maximum for addressable hard drive memory under a different system of
identification for positions on disk at a very low level. Assuming you
have not changed any BIOS settings, you should be fine. The cluster
size has nothing to do with this limit.
Hope this helps, and thanks for choosing Google! Answers.
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