[NBLUG/talk] Lost Windows 2000 from Dual Boot machine

[Kyle Rankin]

On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 09:54:17AM -0800, Peter Lutz wrote:
> Thanks for your instant response, Kyle.
> My gparted modifications were all at the other end of the disk.
> I originally partitioned Windows, Debian (or Ubuntu, can't recall),
> a swap partition, the other Linux, and a 200Gbyte ext3 shareable
> partition.  I was only reducing the size of the 200Gbyte ext3
> partition, which was not at the top of the disk.  There is still
> some free space.  Unfortunately, gparted seg faulted during the
> operation, so I'm not sure what all happened.  I didn't notice it
> for a week or two until I tried to boot windows.  Everything seemed
> to be working fine on the two Linux systems (and still does.)
> 
> Peter
> 
> Kyle Rankin wrote:
> > On Fri, Dec 14, 2007 at 09:28:53AM -0800, Peter Lutz wrote:
> >> Good morning.
> >>
> >> I was messing with gparted on a dual (actually triple) boot machine.
> >> I got some of the partitioning changed as I wished, but now Windoz does
> >> not boot.  Both Ubuntu 7.10 and Debian Testing boot and run perfectly,
> >> and I can mount and read the Windows files from either Linux system just
> >> fine.  When I try to boot Windows, the splash screen comes up just fine.
> >> The blue bar starts across the screen, but about half way across I get a
> >> blue screen saying    stop: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE    a bunch of hex
> >> numbers and some suggestions for fixing things.  Suggestions are:
> >> Check for viruses.  That is very unlikely, as I seldom run Windows and
> >> don't do virus kinds of things.  Mostly I run my old GPS map programs.
> >> Remove new hardware.  There is none.  The system has been working fine
> >> for six months.
> >> Check HD for proper termination and configuration.  Well, yes, the
> >> config seems to have changed.  Termination is fine.
> >> Run CHKDSK /F to check for HD corruption.  How, on a broken computer?
> >> The box has no floppy drive, although I could put one in.
> >>
> >> AMD64X2, 2GByte ram, 400GByte disk, difficult Nvidia card (requires a
> >> new module set whenever I build a new kernel).
> >>
> >> The boot system is GRUB, which seems to be working just fine with the
> >> Linux systems.
> >>
> >> My question is: is this fixable without trashing the whole system?
> >> Windows was the first system installed.  If I re-install windows, will
> >> I loose access to the Linux?
> >>
> >> Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> >>
> >> Thanks.
> >> Peter
> >> -- 
> >> Peter Lutz AA6AV
> >> Meaning is homemade.
> >>
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > So you said you were "messing with gparted" but what exactly did you mess
> > with. Did you resize your Windows partition at all (specifically did you
> > shrink it?)
> > 
> 

In that case you probably need to resort to the windows recovery tools. If
it's windows 2000 the boot cd booted into "recovery mode" should be able to
do a fixboot and repair things. If you have XP they essentially do an
install on top of your old windows install. In either case you might have
to follow up with a Linux repair disk to restore grub, as the windows disk
will probably wipe out the boot code in your MBR and replace it.

-- 
Kyle Rankin
NBLUG President
The North Bay Linux Users Group
http://nblug.org
IRC: greenfly at irc.freenode.net #nblug 
kyle at nblug.org