Re: Resizing FAT32 produces unexpected results

[Andrew Clausen]

Sean Hogan wrote:
> > Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or
> > corrupt:
> > windows 2000 root\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
> > Please re-install a copy of the above file.
> >
> <etc etc etc>
> 
> I had a similar problem.  And I don't have the solution (altho I did get
> W2000 running again... see below).  I would be interested in finding out
> why.

Interesting!

> Whenever I acquire a HDD, the first thing I do is put a small DOS partition
> at the start, and install PowerQuest's PartitionMagic and BootMagic in that
> partition.  I would like to do this with Parted & Linux/FreeBSD instead...
> so that I could mount and read every partition no matter what format.
> Haven't got around to it...
> 
> So... I have this system with DOS/Win2000(Fat32)/Data(Fat32) partitions.  I
> copy the data to a 2nd HDD, then kill that partition to install FreeBSD.
> All this was done with PartitionMagic... sorry...
> 
> When I got around to rebooting Windows 2000, voila:
> Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or
> corrupt:
> <windows 2000 root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
> Please re-install a copy of the above file.

So, it's not just Parted then?  (PM does it too?)

> Well, I verified that this file is still there/ hasn't been changed.  So I
> tried several things...
> Including trying to rescue the installation with the Win2000 CD... which
> could NOT detect a Win2000 installation... except that it did detect when I
> selected console mode (which didn't help much).  If I had an Emergency
> Repair Disk (stoopid me) then maybe it would have been different... maybe
> not.
> Anyway, I figured on reinstalling Win2000 to the same partition (different
> directory) and then doing some diffing, etc.  Well... the installation did
> detect the present W2000 system and offered to repair it... which I
> accepted... which took a long time and seemed to do a complete
> reinstallation.... except that when it finally rebooted I still had all my
> apps and profiles more or less intact (haven't tried them all yet).
> 
> Now... my suspicion is that for some reason the boot.ini file is no longer
> valid (I have no basis for this... completely arbitrary).  I messed around
> with it but nothing helped.  However, now that everything is reinstalled my
> boot.ini file is changed (here is it's present contents)
> 
> [boot loader]
> timeout=0
> default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
> [operating systems]
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 2000
> Professional" /fastdetect
> 
> Does anyone know what multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3) means??
> I tried a few different combinations in my trials and travails... maybe this
> one, maybe not.
> 
> cheers,
> SDH
> 
> PS  I have just added the line:
> multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 2000
> Professional" /fastdetect
> 
> to my boot.ini file and when I reboot select this second option it comes up
> with exactly the afore-mentioned error.  I'm also wondering whether I did my
> mucking around while W2000 was hibernated (as opposed to shutdown).  This
> would be so not good.

Hmmm.  It looks like I need to get W2000, and play with this myself,
unless you can think of something...

Andrew Clausen