re-formatting problems

jellyfish · Post by **jellyfish** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:36 pm

I had to re-install windows XP today which i've done many times before, but this time I couldn't format the partition it was on before hand (I also have another operating system on my computer) and so i thought that I could just put the disc in and it would let me re-format the partition from there (setup), strangly enough it wouldn't let me (though having done it lots of times before) and so I had to install windows on the partition next to it on the same disc...that went fine however I still couldn't re-format the original partition and so i tried to use partition magic and that seemed to wipe the data but then couldn't format it...now my boot file has gone missing and it won't let me make another one, does that mean that when i re-start my computer it won't be able to boot???

I saved a backup boot.ini on my flash drive just in case, but what do I do about formatting the partition which windows won't let me format?

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3577, old post ID:29128

Cold Drink · Post by **Cold Drink** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:04 pm

You can always boot to a boot disk and to a fdisk /fixmbr to restore your boot sector to something function. It will pretty much just load the first OS.

What was the other OS you had installed?

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3577, old post ID:29129

jellyfish · Post by **jellyfish** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 6:07 pm

the other operating system is windows 2003 on the second disk.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3577, old post ID:29130

jellyfish · Post by **jellyfish** » Wed Aug 17, 2005 9:30 pm

It's all sorted now, I tried to install FreeBSD instead of XP but it didn't work and so I booted from my Win XP CD and re-installed it without any problems this time.

Thank you for helping though.

Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:3577, old post ID:29131