Hard Drive Help

[SuperBatXS]

Hey,
I haven't posted in QJ in a long time, and i really need help. I used Norton Partition Magic to make my two partitions into one (c and d into one; d didn't contain anything). It worked, and when i went to my computer, it was one drive. Then, i restarted my computer, and now i get a problem saying no bootable drive. How do i boot my C: drive which has my windows installed on it?

Thanks,
SuperbatXS

[GW2]

Try booting from your windows disk and repairing your installation.

[SuperBatXS]

Lol, that's the problem...i can't reboot to my windows disk. I have this bootable cd with a bunch of partition programs, though i don't know what to do with those. I checked the settings on this computer, and the hard drive is primary; the other computer's is logical. I converted the other's from logical to primary, and set it active, though just a cursor is showing up now.

[mohaas05]

Make sure your CD drive is set higher in the boot order in the BIOS than the Hard Drive.

[SuperBatXS]

That just boots my partition cd before the hard drive. I just want to boot my hard drive. I'm just curious as to how i can fix my hard drive. I mean it has the operating system installed like before. It just want to boot it cause i get an error saying "No bootable devices".

[Tommi]

Sound like Boot.ini is screwed.

Get a Linux bootdisk and boot it.

Once in there, search for Boot.ini, and check it.

Depending on your OS, this is what a Boot.ini looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rd isk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)pa rtition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

If boot.ini does not exist, your going to need to rebuild it, in which case you need a Windows disk.

Enter Windows XP Recovery Console. When you reach the command prompt, type the following command and then press Enter.

bootcfg /rebuild

The first prompt asks Add installation to boot list? (Yes/No/All).

Type Y in response to this question and press Enter.

The next prompt asks you to Enter Load Identifier:.

This is the name of the operating system. For example, type Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition and press Enter.

The final prompt asks you to Enter OS Load options:.

Type

/Fastdetect

here and press Enter.

Take out the Windows CD, type

exit

and then press Enter to restart your PC.

Assuming that a missing or corrupt boot.ini file was your only issue, Windows XP should now start normally.

[mohaas05]

I've had this issue before. Usually I just installed the GRUB bootloader (usually through linux) and pointed it to my windows partition.

Repairing NTLDR usually works too but I like the flexibility of GRUB, either way is fine though.