Vista will not boot - work around
Richard Urban
eight of those computers I have run into, and solved, this nasty boot
problem. I have also assisted with this problem for a rather large handful
of people who post here with a similar condition.
The problem concerns computers with the following configuration/condition:
1. A computer with multiple hard drives (any mix of S-ATA or PATA it
turns out)
2. Any of the 2nd, or higher, drives has been setup as having a logical
partition/partitions
3. The user installs Vista by booting from the DVD
When a drive is setup with a logical partition, 8 meg of unallocated space
is reserved at the beginning of the drive.
The Vista installer, it appears, will start installing boot code to the
unallocated space on a 2nd, 3rd or 4th drive. I have used a hex editor and
have found this code there. This 8 meg of unallocated space is quickly
filled and the installer places the remainder of the code on the disk chosen
by the user for the Vista install.
The Vista install completes and the user removes the DVD. Upon startup, the
user finds that Vista will not boot. Vista is looking for the boot code on
the drive where the user had chosen to install Vista (system partition). It
is not there. Part of it resides on another drive where it is not
recognized.
If the user puts the DVD into the drive tray, Vista boots fine. Startup
takes the code from the DVD.
This should not occur, but it is too late to change the code on the Vista
DVD's at this point. The work around is to physically disconnect any drive
that you do not want the Vista installer to touch. In this way, all of the
code is written to the desired drive/partition.
Upon arriving at the Windows desktop, go to system management | Disk
Management and change the drive letters for your CD drive, DVD drive, USB
drives, card readers etc. to the end of the alphabet. This gets them out of
the way prior to you shutting down the computer and reconnecting your other
drives.
Now, shut down your computer and reconnect your drives. Upon booting to the
desktop, you will see that the new drives are recognized and initialized.
You will also see that the drive letters are in sequence, and not broken up
by the various other drives (you previously moved them). You may be asked to
reboot so the changes can be made permanent. Do so if directed.
The next time you boot to the desktop you can rearrange those re-lettered
drives if you so desire.
Now, I am not certain how pervasive this problem is but I have seen it on
old/new motherboards from 3 major M/B manufacturers. It is not, of course,
going to affect those who purchase a new computer with Vista on it. It
"will" affect those who upgrade or build their own computers, as these are
the users who are more likely to have multiple drives installed in their
machines.
--
Regards,
Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
retired fire
received resolve from them...... Also for-your-information....Complete PC
backup and restore feature on computers you mentioned will not work...You
will be able to make a Complete PC backup without issue, but the Complete PC
Restore will fail....The SATA-PATA issue is real and Microsoft is aware, but
no answer yet.....
Andyistic
When I want to install Vista (or any O/S for that matter),
I remove ALL drives except for the drive to host the installation (and the
DVD units).
After the base system is installed, then I reconnect the other drives (quite
a few)
and let Windows find the new hardware and install drivers for all of it.
Quite a hassle, but it's necessary.
-- Andy
"Richard Urban" <richardurba...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ONgaZ1cX...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
retired fire
the Complert PC Backup and Restore issue.....Thus giving a false sence of
security..thinking one can do a complete backup and then depend on being able
to restore it....In my opinion this is unacceptable and the Vista code must
be changed to correct this, and new DVD's issued to those affected.....Lets
see how Microsoft respondsto this issue as they have known about this for
almost a month now....
Chad Harris
ones for months and why the workarounds have been like yours.
It would be nice if there were a way to correct it in a service pack, but
I'm not sure that's possible. You have to wonder though, Richard, how this
wasn't picked up and corrected prior to RTM.
This is nice work.
CH
"Richard Urban" <richardurba...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ONgaZ1cX...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
CZ
>> turns out)
Richard:
Does that apply to two SATA disks or only to a mix of SATA and PATA disks?
I assume that you are using Vista to create the partitions.
I have used XP to create the partitions and have not had the problem.
My 1.5 yrs old Dell Dimension 9100 with two SATA disks:
Disk 00 has one primary partition and an ext partition
Disk 01 has an ext partition only
I have installed Vista RTM several times without the 8 MB issue when using
the Vista DVD boot method to install Vista.
andy
<richardurba...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>I have installed the various versions of Vista on 56 various computers. On
>eight of those computers I have run into, and solved, this nasty boot
>problem. I have also assisted with this problem for a rather large handful
>of people who post here with a similar condition.
>
>The problem concerns computers with the following configuration/condition:
>
>1. A computer with multiple hard drives (any mix of S-ATA or PATA it
>turns out)
>
>2. Any of the 2nd, or higher, drives has been setup as having a logical
>partition/partitions
>
>3. The user installs Vista by booting from the DVD
>
>When a drive is setup with a logical partition, 8 meg of unallocated space
>is reserved at the beginning of the drive.
>
>The Vista installer, it appears, will start installing boot code to the
>unallocated space on a 2nd, 3rd or 4th drive. I have used a hex editor and
>have found this code there. This 8 meg of unallocated space is quickly
>filled and the installer places the remainder of the code on the disk chosen
>by the user for the Vista install.
This makes no sense. Boot code cannot be written to unallocated disk
space. It has to be written to a valid file system.
>
>The Vista install completes and the user removes the DVD. Upon startup, the
>user finds that Vista will not boot.
This is because the BIOS is booting from a hard disk that does not
contain the system partition. If you go into BIOS setup and change the
hard disk that the BIOS boots, then Vista will boot.
> Vista is looking for the boot code on
>the drive where the user had chosen to install Vista (system partition). It
>is not there. Part of it resides on another drive where it is not
>recognized.
>
>If the user puts the DVD into the drive tray, Vista boots fine.
This means that there is in fact valid boot code on one of the hard
disks, namely, the one that the BIOS told Windows setup is the disk
that it is set to boot. Otherwise, the operating system would not be
able to boot at all. The startup code (i.e., the code that issues the
"Press any key to boot from the CD/DVD") on the DVD does the same
thing that Windows setup does, namely, identifies the boot disk from
the BIOS. Then it boots that disk if no key is pressed.
> Startup
>takes the code from the DVD.
>
>This should not occur, but it is too late to change the code on the Vista
>DVD's at this point. The work around is to physically disconnect any drive
>that you do not want the Vista installer to touch. In this way, all of the
>code is written to the desired drive/partition.
The problem is the motherboard BIOS. If it provides the wrong
information to Windows Vista or XP setup, there is nothing Windows
setup can do to fix it other than to allow the user to manually
specify which disk should contain the system partition.
If you want to see if a motherboard has this problem, just run
Windows XP setup (up to the point in the initial text phase that shows
the disks and their partitions), and see which partition is assigned
C:. Then reboot the computer, go into BIOS setup and change the disk
that the BIOS boots (i.e., the first disk in the list of drives under
Hard Disk Boot Priority (Award/Phoenix) or Hard Disk Drives (AMI)).
Run Windows XP setup again and check which disk now has the C:
partition. If the same disk has the C: partition, then the motherboard
BIOS has the problem. If the new disk has the C: partition, then the
motherboard BIOS is okay.
Richard Urban
I just assisted a fellow yesterday in the
microsoft.public.windows.vista.installation group who had 2 SATA drives.
When he reinstalled with the 2nd SATA drive disconnected his system booted
fine.
It may well be dependent on motherboard, chipset, SATA implementation or
some other thing. But, it has been happening way too frequently.
--
Regards,
Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
"CZ" <C...@no99spam.com> wrote in message
news:O7arZ$gXHHA...@TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
Richard Urban
I have found the written code in the 8 meg unallocated space by using a hex
editor. In some cases (three) this has caused the 2nd drive to become
unusable as well, as it somehow altered the partition table for that drive.
The entire drive has showed up under Acronis Disk Director as being
unrecognized. Previously it was a logical drive with one partition,
formatted as NTFS.
You're right. It makes no sense and should not happen. But it **is**
happening, as many who work these groups can attest to. I first saw this
during a beta 2 install, and it has persisted right through to RTM code.
--
Regards,
Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User
"andy" <bogusa...@bogusaddress.123> wrote in message
news:pi9lu25a62okk9t36...@4ax.com...
SugarDaddy
<richardurbanREMOVET...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> ...
> You're right. It makes no sense and should not happen. But it **is**
> happening, as many who work these groups can attest to. I first saw this
> during a beta 2 install, and it has persisted right through to RTM code.
It absolutely is happening. I am having the same if not similar
issue.
I have 2 PATA drives (neither of which ever had an OS installed) and 1
SATA drive which used to have XP on it before I installed Vista 64
where it created the 'Windows.old' folder. When booting without the
Vista DVD in the drive, I get the "ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt"
error message. Booting with the DVD in the drive (not booting FROM
the DVD), it boots into Vista fine from the boot partition. In Disk
Management, it says that my Master PATA drive contains the system
partition while the singular SATA drive contains the boot partition
and all that other good stuff. I tried disabling the IDE controller
in the BIOS and running a repair from the Vista DVD, but it didn't
work. It recognized a problem, said it would fix it, but didn't.
After I did that, I couldn't even boot with the DVD in the drive. I
had to re-enable the IDE controller in the BIOS to get it back to it's
old faulty behavior rather than the current completely broken
behavior.
Needless to say, this is incredibly frustrating behavior. I want my 3
drives to be C, D and E, but they're C, F, and H. I can't change them
to the configuration I want because the system partition resides on F,
which I want to be D.
So the solution is what? Format the SATA, disconnect the 2 PATA and
reinstall? Is this not the hackiest, worst Windows boot scheme ever?
Yuck.
Richard Urban
It's NOT right. It IS happening - TOO frequently!
--
Regards,
Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)
Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
"SugarDaddy" <eric....@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1177501247.0...@o40g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
andy
wrote:
>On Mar 4, 9:26 am, "Richard Urban"
><richardurbanREMOVET...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> ...
>> You're right. It makes no sense and should not happen. But it **is**
>> happening, as many who work these groups can attest to. I first saw this
>> during a beta 2 install, and it has persisted right through to RTM code.
>
>It absolutely is happening. I am having the same if not similar
>issue.
>
>I have 2 PATA drives (neither of which ever had an OS installed) and 1
>SATA drive which used to have XP on it before I installed Vista 64
>where it created the 'Windows.old' folder. When booting without the
>Vista DVD in the drive, I get the "ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt"
>error message.
This happens because the BIOS is set to boot from the SATA disk, which
does not contain the Windows system partition.
> Booting with the DVD in the drive (not booting FROM
>the DVD), it boots into Vista fine from the boot partition.
The computer started to boot from the DVD. If you see the prompt
"Press any key to boot from the CD/DVD," that means that the startup
code on the DVD detected a bootable (a primary, and the system in
Windows terminology) partition on one (and not necessarily the one
that you assume) of the disks.
> In Disk
>Management, it says that my Master PATA drive contains the system
>partition while the singular SATA drive contains the boot partition
>and all that other good stuff. I tried disabling the IDE controller
>in the BIOS and running a repair from the Vista DVD, but it didn't
>work. It recognized a problem, said it would fix it, but didn't.
>After I did that, I couldn't even boot with the DVD in the drive.
Since you disabled the IDE channel, the disk containing the system
partition is missing.
> I
>had to re-enable the IDE controller in the BIOS to get it back to it's
>old faulty behavior rather than the current completely broken
>behavior.
>
>Needless to say, this is incredibly frustrating behavior. I want my 3
>drives to be C, D and E, but they're C, F, and H. I can't change them
>to the configuration I want because the system partition resides on F,
>which I want to be D.
>
>So the solution is what? Format the SATA, disconnect the 2 PATA and
>reinstall? Is this not the hackiest, worst Windows boot scheme ever?
The problem is cause by a faulty motherboard BIOS that does not
correctly identify to Windows setup the disk that the BIOS is set to
boot from. If you have faulty hardware, you do what you have to to
successfully install Windows.
>Yuck.
retired fire
issue" with Vista.....
SugarDaddy
> This happens because the BIOS is set to boot from the SATA disk, which
> does not contain the Windows system partition.
>
This is true. The BIOS is set to use to the SATA disk as the first
boot disk.
> Since you disabled the IDE channel, the disk containing the system
> partition is missing.
>
That's what I assumed. However, shouldn't the repair function on the
Vista DVD pick that up and rebuild the MBR on the SATA disk to be the
system partition (or whatever has to be done to set that partition to
the system one)? I'm not really clear on how all of this works....
> The problem is cause by a faulty motherboard BIOS that does not
> correctly identify to Windows setup the disk that the BIOS is set to
> boot from. If you have faulty hardware, you do what you have to to
> successfully install Windows.
I actually just flashed the BIOS to the latest version thinking that
would correct the problem. However, either that is not the problem or
the latest available BIOS update does not address the issue. In any
case, this is the second motherboard that I have had this issue with.
I'm convinced it's because the system partition is not the same as the
boot partition rather than it being a BIOS issue.
andy
wrote:
>On Apr 25, 3:52 pm, andy <bogusaddr...@bogusaddress.123> wrote:
>> This happens because the BIOS is set to boot from the SATA disk, which
>> does not contain the Windows system partition.
>>
>
>This is true. The BIOS is set to use to the SATA disk as the first
>boot disk.
>
>> Since you disabled the IDE channel, the disk containing the system
>> partition is missing.
>>
>
>That's what I assumed. However, shouldn't the repair function on the
>Vista DVD pick that up and rebuild the MBR on the SATA disk to be the
>system partition (or whatever has to be done to set that partition to
>the system one)? I'm not really clear on how all of this works....
This can work only if the repair function has the ability to create
new Vista boot files on the SATA drive, The partition also has to be
set active if it is not.
>
>> The problem is cause by a faulty motherboard BIOS that does not
>> correctly identify to Windows setup the disk that the BIOS is set to
>> boot from. If you have faulty hardware, you do what you have to to
>> successfully install Windows.
>
>I actually just flashed the BIOS to the latest version thinking that
>would correct the problem. However, either that is not the problem or
>the latest available BIOS update does not address the issue. In any
>case, this is the second motherboard that I have had this issue with.
>I'm convinced it's because the system partition is not the same as the
>boot partition rather than it being a BIOS issue.
The system partition not being the same as the boot partition despite
the fact that the BIOS is set to boot from the disk containing the
boot partition when Vista is installed is a symptom of the problem.
The question is what is the cause of the problem.
SugarDaddy
resolution with you all in hopes of maybe shedding some more light on
this situation.
For one, I feel that my original configuration was irregular. I
actually had the device connected at IDE1 being my DVD drive. I think
that might have been causing confusion in the windows setup/repair.
Anyway, after I opened up the computer and connected the 2 IDE drives
to IDE1, the problem began to unravel itself.
I disabled the IDE1 controller in the BIOS, then ran the Setup/Repair
utility on the Vista Boot DVD. It detected that the SATA wasn't the
system drive and apparently repaired it. From there I began to
experience some oddities. For one, I couldn't get into the BIOS, but
after a few restarts and boots into Vista, that magically corrected
itself. I was able to re-enable IDE1. Then I booted into Vista and
the IDE1 device 0 was magically no longer the system drive anymore.
Rearranging my drive letters was standard after that.
So thanks all for providing your feedback here. You have helped at
least one person.
talkinggoat
I resolved the problem in a similar fashion (probably exact) I have a
SATA drive as the primary for vista, an IDE drive as a master on the
primary IDE chain, and a DVD RW as its slave. I disabled the IDE
master HDD in the BIOS, booted into the vista setup, and chose repair.
At that time, it said that it could not find where the boot
information was stored, or something like that... it asked if I wanted
to repair it. Obviously, I told it yes and rebooted. Again, I booted
back into the DVD and chose repair. This time, it showed that the boot
data was on the correct drive. I chose the first option on the repair
menu... I think it's boot repair (or something like that) it went
through and did a couple of things. I clicked finish and the computer
rebooted. I left the DVD in the drive, allowed vista to boot off the
HDD, then promptly rebooted. At this bootup, I took the DVD out and
the HDD install took over just fine. It booted up. I then rebooted
again, and enabled the IDE drive that I had turned off.
This post helped me! Thanks.
This is really a rookie mistake for a multi billion dollar company.
I'm very surprised and disappointed, but, at the same time, I'm not. I
believe that they are making their software for downtime. After all,
they are helping the economy by employing how many computer tech's?
Although, half don't know what BIOS even stands for...