Dear all I have the following 1 hard disk with WIN XP installed 2 hard disk messed up with 2 linux installations and partitioned in 4 parts. I use acronis OS loader to handle the different OS and hard disks and I have norton partition magic on WIN XP . I am trying to reformat the second hard disk to NTFS or FAT32 so to be able install VISTA or WINXP and get then rid of LINUX forever I tried to use G Parted editor to format the linux hard disk to NTFS from the live cd and it worked (so it seems) but now when I try to install WINXP or VISTA it tells me that there is a bad disk and no label. TO make matters worse I had a look with Norton and tried to format the whole hard disk to NTFS but norton sees the whole hard disk with linux as BAD and if I try to reformat it the error message is BADMBR If I look into this hard disk with ACRONIS disk manager I can see all the 4 partitions, logical and primary and the formatting in FAT and NTFS I have done with G parted editor. What should I do to solve all issues? 1) try to do a repair of the MDR via the WIN XP cd? Will it work if the disk has only LINUX installed? 2) reinstall LINUX and try to get rid of LILO or ACRONIS Loader somehow? 3) buy a new hard disk? thanks for all your help in this matter Arale Chan
Yes, insert your Windows XP disk and reboot, boot from disc. Select option to Repair. "R" Windows will ask which OS to repair, choose #1 (on my system I only have one XP Pro). "1" It will notify you that you have another OS on the system and make you confirm this action. "Y" At prompt type "fixmbr" enter. Confirm this action? "Y" Type "exit", system will reboot, remove disc. After reboot, go to "Administrative Tools - Computer Management-Disc Management". From here you need to delete the old Linux partions/drives. As long as they are NOT on you boot drive, you can delete, then reformart them. Piece of cake. Scary the first time though! (edit a couple of typos)
Acronis is your problem. Download the free version of active@killdisk and run it one pass 00 It doesn't have to finish, 10% will do. then try your M$ installer again. The other options are to get a copy of puppylinux from http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=1 It has a good version of Gparted.
HI all I have reinstalled WIN XP on my primary hard disk and I will try this afternoon the option wiht the @kill programme to see if I have any success. regarding G Parted I tried already G Parted Editor live cd. Anyway this is my plan: bought new hard disk so I will have one hard disk with WIN XP one hard disk (the new one) with VISTA and then on the hard disk that refuses to get VISTA installed I will install LINUX Mandriva and live happily ever after. Only question is: should I install first vista and then linux and have grub or lilo handle the triple boot? Thanks again for all your suggestions Arale Chan
Hallo again. My problem is now sorted. I kind of cause it due to lack of knowledge. There was nothing wrong with my hard disk. I have formatted it all right wiht G parted and even wiht the low level format from Maxtor. My problem was that when I tried to install VISTA I did not click first on new so that it could recognize the hd and then format...therefore I got an error message when trying to install the OS. In fact I could not understand why I could see the hd under partition magic and Acronis OS loader and why I coudl install LINUX mandriva on it without problems I am not an expert but I do find WIN XP installation screens more clear than VISTA. I know now for the future. Anyway by wednesday I will have a brand new system 1 hd with xp 1 hd with vista 1 big hd with Linux Mandriva Arale Chan
