Technofyed

Ok I have a problem. I was suppose to help someone today resize the partitions their hdd and I was referred to the program easeus partition manager. I hadn't used this software before so I tried it on the hard drive on my computer that has a copy of vista and my installation of windows 7 on it. Short of Virtual machines this was the one hard drive I could afford to screw up and Somehow I did. I can't boot into either system on that drive. Windows 7 says "the boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible. Error code 0x0000225." I didn't take note of the Vista boot time error because it isn't the boot partition. I know that it was similar and listed a file [I forgot what].

Now I wondered if it is a problem with the boot files however I did get the boot selection menu. Both partitions are accessible through windows explorer [although I didn't try any files because I don't really have any] and I just started check disk on the windows 7 partition. After that I'll do a check disk on Vista. Then I'll try to boot into that copy of Vista and get the exact error. Any other ideas? I know that I can try the recovery console but again the boot menu loads. I just can't get past that.

Ok I'll close this by saying that checkdisk finished on 7. It found some errors and fixed them. One line says "chkdsk discovered free space marked as allocating in the volume bitmap" and also that "discovered free space allocated in the master file table bitmap.":huh:

I'll post back on the results of the Vista scan and my reattempt to boot into the systems.

Ok scan disk on Vista found no problems yet still I couldn't boot. Trying to boot into vista yielded the same message as with 7 but added that the file system32\winload.exe was corrupt or missing. I replaced it with a known good substitute and still nothing. So then I booted into the Vista disk and selected repair and it told me that there was a problem with the boot files and did I want to repair it? I selected yes and then I was able to access the systems. So any idea as to what went wrong? Does anyone know anything about this program?

You may have to issue "fixmbr" after you've been messing with the Master Boot Records. Does your boot disk have fdisk? Check to make sure that your primary partition (with the OS) still has the boot flag marked as "active".

I've never used the software that you are referring to, but when I use gparted (many times), I've had to perform what I said about each time.

The big thing is that I have a complicated system. The drive I primarily use has 2008, Vista, & xp on it. It also used to have 2003 on it as well. That is my primary hdd & the default os is Vista. I have a smaller hdd with windows 7 and Vista. Actually the Vista that is on my primary drive is a copy of what is on the smaller one I just don't us that one anymore. If you want to know about how I got here read this. Anyway on the drive in question there is a small (100 mb) partition created by 7 which is "active, primary", a "primary partition" which is what has 7 on it, and a "logical drive" that has Vista on it. Actually my largest drive (which I call my secondary drive) is the only other partition marked as active (other than the 100 mb partition) and it doesn't even have an OS on it. It is the drive on which I have my documents, files, and backup images.

Regardless of what OSes you have installed on it, the important factor is that it's not booting. For that you must have an active boot partition, & a proper Master Boot record. If either of those items are missing or corrupt it won't boot. Sometimes, no matter how complex the setup is, it comes back to simple fundamentals. *meaning it's easy to over look the beginner stuff once your light years down the advanced road*

Well Its working now thanks to the Vista disk. I put that in my 2nd post. So that said do I need to do anything else?