in 2000 disk issue (fixboot/Dynamic Disk)

A month ago to this day I posted a description of the following issue to
this newsgroup. I've just now returned to the issue and I'm still open
for any suggestions (excuse me for the article length but trying to
include all significant points).

1. In late May I implemented a "Windows Update" on a Windows 2000 SP3
machine. I usually do one update at a time but this time I mistakenly
downloaded/installed all 12 of the critical updates with one big download
(and one big reboot attempt).

2. Rebooting immeiatley following the update produced a "Stop Error 0x7B:
Inaccessible_Boot_Device".

3. So I rebooted with W2K setup floppy disks and accessed the Recovery
Console (RC). I ran "map" and documented my drive setups. However I
observed no filesystem type entry for harddisk0 (whereas harddisk1 was
correctly labeled as NTFS). Then I remembered awhile back I converted
harddisk0 to a Dynamic Disk but left harddisk1 as a Basic Disk.

4. Thinking this might be a corrupted boot sector on the startup volume,
I ran "fixboot" which asked if I wanted to write a new boot sector to
drive C. I replied Yes and then fixboot reported: "File system on
startup partition is unknown... Boot Sector is corrupt... The partition
is using the FAT file system... fixboot is writing a new boot sector...
the boot sector was successfully written". To investigate what had just
occurred I re-ran map which now reported the filesystem for harddisk0 as
FAT-16.

5. Following the fixboot attempt rebooting produced "ntldr is missing...
press any key to restart" message to appear (right after POST).

6. So I rebooted again with my W2K Setup disks (and W2K CD in CD drive).
At the end of loading floppy setup disk 4 I see "Setup is starting
Windows 2000" at the bottom of the screen then activity ceases with the
hard drive LED remaining completely on (usually flashes with activity).

So at this point I'm completely unable to access the logical structures
on harddisk0. And unfortunately I have no current Emergency Repair Disk
for this system.

Note that \device\harddisk0 is a 27.2 GB Maxtor IDE disk. Originally
setup as a Basic Disk, partitioned into two partitions, and each
partition formatted as NTFS. Then later converted to Dynamic Disk. (but
again, after running fixboot, "map" now reports harddisk0 as FAT-16).
Since I originally created disk partitions before converting to Dynamic
Disk (Dynamic Volumes) the original partition table info should still be
intact (hard-linked) (at least it was before running fixboot).

(After a bit of research I learned that "map" and other disk tools
bundled with W2K do not support dynamic disks. That is Dynamic Volumes
are not displayed acurately in Text mode Setup or the Recovery Console.
However I don't understand why fixboot did not see that the file system
was a Dynamic NTFS volume on a Dynamic Disk and at the very least leave
the disk alone if it could not correctly identify the disk/partition type
or does not understand Dynamic Disks/Volumes with hard linked partition
table).

Any suggestions on methods to bring the disk back up or at the very least
access disk file/directory contents so Ican copy to another disk? Any
disk tools/utilities available (free or otherwise) which I can run from a
DOS boot disk and possibly edit disk tables to allow me to once again
access harddisk0?

I'm assuming that first I need to somehow convert back from FAT-16 to
NTFS Dynamic Disk (without harming any disk structures). Does that mean
all I need is a tool to change boot partition system-id byte from type
0x06 (FAT) to 0x42 (Dyn Disk)? Can I do this with DiskProbe (and if so
can I run DiskProbe from a floppy and make a backup of current MBR before
operating on it)? If I edit the system-id byte will other disk structures
be harmed?

I understand the versions of DiskProbe and DiskMap bundled with W2K
cannot read a Dynamic Disks Disk Management Database (at the end of a
Dynamic Disk). But I understand DiskProbe can back up and restore the MBR
and boot sectors on a W2K Dynamic Disk if the logical disk partitions
were created on a Basic Disk before converting to Dynamic Disk (tat is if
partition tables are hard-linked).

Anyone know for sure if this is possible and if so can I use another tool
to repair boot sector? Or did running fixboot kill the Dynamic Disk's
Disk Management (LDM) database at the end of the drive and therefore
there is no way to recover from this operation?

I've investigated various disk tools which have been suggested to work
with dynamic disks but I cannot obtain solid answers from any of the
vendors on if their utility might be helpful in my specific situation.
(e.g. GetDataBack for NTFS and DiskExplorer for NTFS from Runtime
Software).

Same applies to the following vendor links/info which have been
previously suggested.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=222470
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/DiskPatch.htm
http://www.binarybiz.com/vlab/

Thanks again for any suggestions,

Woody

"Woody" wrote in message
27.77...
I've investigated various disk tools which have been suggested to work
with dynamic disks but I cannot obtain solid answers from any of the
vendors on if their utility might be helpful in my specific situation.
(e.g. GetDataBack for NTFS and DiskExplorer for NTFS from Runtime
Software).

Same applies to the following vendor links/info which have been
previously suggested.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=222470
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/DiskPatch.htm
http://www.binarybiz.com/vlab/


Well, looked but can't find one single solid message sent from your email
address to diydatarecovery.nl ...

About DiskPatch and your solid mess ...

Solid answer 1:

If you would not have so stupid to run fixboot, DiskPatch would have
recovered a 'basic' disk with access to both partitions within minutes if
damage was indeed limited to the MBR or even the LDM.

Solid answer 2:

Since you solidly messed up things are slightly more difficult now. The
second partition should be recoverable without problems. After that's done
we can possibly recreate a valid NTFS boot sector for the first partition
which we will then add to the partition table. If indedd damage is limited
to the MBR and the boot sector of the first partitions than things should be
recoverable.

Now, if that's not solid enough, you should have been to try more solid to
begin with ...


About the Runtime tools ... since GetDataBack is read-only why haven't you
just tried the program? Same goes for our tool iRecover for NTFS. Since the
conversion to dynamic, internal structures of the partitions didn't change
so data could be recovered even with tools that do not support dynamic disks
theoretically.

--
Joep

Woody wrote:

A month ago to this day I posted a description of the following issue to
this newsgroup. I've just now returned to the issue and I'm still open
for any suggestions (excuse me for the article length but trying to
include all significant points).

1. In late May I implemented a "Windows Update" on a Windows 2000 SP3
machine. I usually do one update at a time but this time I mistakenly
downloaded/installed all 12 of the critical updates with one big download
(and one big reboot attempt).

2. Rebooting immeiatley following the update produced a "Stop Error 0x7B:
Inaccessible_Boot_Device".

3. So I rebooted with W2K setup floppy disks and accessed the Recovery
Console (RC). I ran "map" and documented my drive setups. However I
observed no filesystem type entry for harddisk0 (whereas harddisk1 was
correctly labeled as NTFS). Then I remembered awhile back I converted
harddisk0 to a Dynamic Disk but left harddisk1 as a Basic Disk.

4. Thinking this might be a corrupted boot sector on the startup volume,
I ran "fixboot" which asked if I wanted to write a new boot sector to
drive C. I replied Yes and then fixboot reported: "File system on
startup partition is unknown... Boot Sector is corrupt... The partition
is using the FAT file system... fixboot is writing a new boot sector...
the boot sector was successfully written". To investigate what had just
occurred I re-ran map which now reported the filesystem for harddisk0 as
FAT-16.

It's the wrong type of boot sector, obviously, put there by Fixboot in result of
a partition table mismatch.

5. Following the fixboot attempt rebooting produced "ntldr is missing...
press any key to restart" message to appear (right after POST).

The message is issued by the wrong boot sector. Of course it can't find NTLDR
because it cannot read an NTFS partition structure with a FAT boot sector!

6. So I rebooted again with my W2K Setup disks (and W2K CD in CD drive).
At the end of loading floppy setup disk 4 I see "Setup is starting
Windows 2000" at the bottom of the screen then activity ceases with the
hard drive LED remaining completely on (usually flashes with activity).

That's expected, as the boot axis is all wrong.

So at this point I'm completely unable to access the logical structures
on harddisk0. And unfortunately I have no current Emergency Repair Disk
for this system.

That shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Note that \device\harddisk0 is a 27.2 GB Maxtor IDE disk. Originally
setup as a Basic Disk, partitioned into two partitions, and each
partition formatted as NTFS. Then later converted to Dynamic Disk. (but
again, after running fixboot, "map" now reports harddisk0 as FAT-16).
Since I originally created disk partitions before converting to Dynamic
Disk (Dynamic Volumes) the original partition table info should still be
intact (hard-linked) (at least it was before running fixboot).

(After a bit of research I learned that "map" and other disk tools
bundled with W2K do not support dynamic disks. That is Dynamic Volumes
are not displayed acurately in Text mode Setup or the Recovery Console.
However I don't understand why fixboot did not see that the file system
was a Dynamic NTFS volume on a Dynamic Disk and at the very least leave
the disk alone if it could not correctly identify the disk/partition type
or does not understand Dynamic Disks/Volumes with hard linked partition
table).

Any suggestions on methods to bring the disk back up or at the very least
access disk file/directory contents so Ican copy to another disk? Any
disk tools/utilities available (free or otherwise) which I can run from a
DOS boot disk and possibly edit disk tables to allow me to once again
access harddisk0?

It could be possible to restore the MBR / boot sector to the basic disk
configuration that existed before changing it to dynamic disk.

I'm assuming that first I need to somehow convert back from FAT-16 to
NTFS Dynamic Disk (without harming any disk structures). Does that mean
all I need is a tool to change boot partition system-id byte from type
0x06 (FAT) to 0x42 (Dyn Disk)?

I wouldn't do that. Instead, I would rebuild the MBR from scratch, using the
knowledge that there were two NTFS partitions on that drive. Then, I would look
for the mirror of the first partition boot sector (should be found in the last
sector of the respective partition) and copy it over the current and erroneous
boot sector.

A tool for doing the above is RESQDISK, from the RESQ utilities
(http://resq.co.il/resq.php).

Can I do this with DiskProbe (and if so
can I run DiskProbe from a floppy and make a backup of current MBR before
operating on it)? If I edit the system-id byte will other disk structures
be harmed?

IMO, wrong tool and approach.

I understand the versions of DiskProbe and DiskMap bundled with W2K
cannot read a Dynamic Disks Disk Management Database (at the end of a
Dynamic Disk). But I understand DiskProbe can back up and restore the MBR
and boot sectors on a W2K Dynamic Disk if the logical disk partitions
were created on a Basic Disk before converting to Dynamic Disk (tat is if
partition tables are hard-linked).

I wouldn't rely on the LDM database in this case.

Anyone know for sure if this is possible and if so can I use another tool
to repair boot sector? Or did running fixboot kill the Dynamic Disk's
Disk Management (LDM) database at the end of the drive and therefore
there is no way to recover from this operation?

You don't need the LDM database. If restoring to basic disk is possible, then
all you need is there, on the drive.

I've investigated various disk tools which have been suggested to work
with dynamic disks but I cannot obtain solid answers from any of the
vendors on if their utility might be helpful in my specific situation.
(e.g. GetDataBack for NTFS and DiskExplorer for NTFS from Runtime
Software).

Forget the dynamic disk avenue and go back to basics. All you need is an
appropriate disk repair utility for DOS, and a little guidance.

Regards, Zvi

Same applies to the following vendor links/info which have been
previously suggested.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=222470
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/~tkuurstra/DiskPatch.htm
http://www.binarybiz.com/vlab/

Thanks again for any suggestions,

Woody

--
NetZ Computing Ltd. ISRAEL http://invircible.com
InVircible Virus Defense Solutions, ResQ and Data Recovery Utilities
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