Paragon Saves Idiot

[jefboyardee]

My hard drive had 170GB for the Windows 7 c: drive, 45 for a FAT32 with nothing to do and 20GB for Mint and swap. Last night, predicting I was about to do something stupid, I backed up everything with Paragon, free and had already burned its free recovery CD.

So today I decided to convert all the stuff that wasn't part of c: into one swap and three secondary 20gb distro partitions. Using stuff like MS Disk Mgr and Aomei, that seemed to be no problem. I booted to confirm that and got the dreaded everythings.

I tried this and that, merged everything onto the c: drive, just got worse and worse. Couldn't even boot with W7HP disk. But I could get to the command prompt, to discover that c: had become that eensy System Reserved partition and what was in c: was now in d:.

I installed Mint just so I could discover a link that explains how Diskpart works. I found it and clicked print... all the paper came out, none of it printed. Things were getting frantic as I wrote down the page's instructions with this old thing called a pencil.

I finally gave in and decided either Paragon would save me or I'm off to Walmart to buy a 500-dollar bundle with, ugh, Windows 8.1. Turns out that Paragon put EVERYTHING back. Grub popped up, Mint works, Windows works. I am both embarrassed and amazed.

And once I ironed down the corners, I discovered that even the printer works. Next...

 

[Joelgp83]

Ugh.

Only. Use. Disk. Management. To. Modify. Windows. Partitions. In. Any. Way! :banghead:

Ok, now that that's out of my system......

....We've gotta teach you how to set up everything from the Windows side, in Disk Management, before trying to make any partitions from the linux side. Reason being, that Win7/8 disk management will actually notify windows about the change in partitioning so that it doesn't freak out.

So, to start with, you'd wanna right-click everything to the right of C:\ in disk management, then go >Delete Partition.

After it consolidates everything into one single unformated/Unallocated space, we can start chopping it up, or adding parts of it to C:\ (which is where its important to be using Disk Management to do this).

Click on the unallocated mass, and go > New Simple Volume. In the box for size, it wants a value in megabytes, so if you wanna be chop it up exactly into 20gb chunks, grab a calculator and go 1024x20, then type in the resulting number. Do this for each 20 GB partition, then leave the swap at the end as Unallocated.

Now, Reboot!

....Oh, and have your Win7 disc handy, since nuking the linux stuff wiped grub off the HDD. Boot from it, and select "Repair your Computer".

It should then give you a list of windows installs on the HD to choose from (for a grand total of 1 ). Select it, click ok, then select recovery console from the list.

In the Recovery console, type:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

Then type exit, then reboot the machine. You should have your win7 back, minus Rollback and your other bootloading goodies...

But that's ok, since you were planning to put other distros in there, which'll put grub in, which, if I remember right, you need to install Rollback after them to do it right. But I digress.

Once you've confirmed Win7's just fine, proceed to boot to your linux install discs and install them one at a time, preferably from oldest to newest (since you don't want old versions of grub to be overwriting new ones). You can use whichever one to create the swap partition, just as long as you direct at the one unallocated chunk we left behind in disk management earlier.

And there you have it! One sliced and diced HDD!

 

[jefboyardee]

I got started pretty similar to that, until the first reboot went south. And yes, fixmbr has become a standard in my mental arsenal. But one thing I could not understand is that I got Diskpart to work and it acknowledged that I just changed C to * and D to C and so on, but when I left that and booted, it was all back the way it was.

That's when I gave up and did Paragon. Anyway, everything is back, except that when in Mint, Gparted has a problem with the Mint partition, which doesn't appear to affect things and can be ignored.

 

[jefboyardee]

Like this:

 

[jefboyardee]

Only. Use. Disk. Management. To. Modify. Windows. Partitions.

I complied, shrank the spare back under 32 so I can format it as fat. Disk Mgr, although it's not as hold-your-hand-helpful as, say, Aomei, does indeed do what it says it just did. Doing what I just did in Aomei or the Gparted CD is not reflected when I return to Disk Mgr... I'm pretty sure Aomei doesn't quite know what they're doing and might've caused the c:/d: switcheroo on me.

 

[Joelgp83]

Wait. Under 32 what?

 

[jefboyardee]

Sorry for the sparsity. That spare partition was about 44GB and Disk Mgmt will only allow formatting to FAT32 with 32GB or less, so I moved most of it back into c: and formatted the remainder as FAT32... my hard drive now appears as:

 

[jefboyardee]

Things are getting crazy... turns out that it's the W7HP install disk that's changing the drive letters, not Aomei or anyone else. When that happens, I have to boot the MS System Repair disk, launch the prompt and reassign them with diskpart. Then I do sfc /scannow, chkdsk /f, bootrec /fixboot and /fixmbr. Everything checks out fine, so I choose reboot, yank the disk, boot into my Win 7 and everything works great.

The only clue I get from the W7HP install disk, and not every time, is "The file is possibly corrupt. The file header checksum does not match the computer checksum." I'm lost there, but pretty sure that's a problem on my c drive that I caused and that's what's making the W7 disk change the drive letters.

Other than what I've done up there, I don't know how to fix the checksum... but as long as I don't boot from the W7 disk, I guess I don't need to.

 

[jefboyardee]

I snooped checksum, got Microsoft File Checksum Integrity Verifier and got stuff like:

fciv /list

Error msg : The system cannot find the path specified.
Error code : 3

fciv /bp

Error msg : The system cannot find the path specified.
Error code : 3

fciv /v

Entry to Add: Path is too long or missing. Exiting...

That got me closer but I still have no clue...

 

[Joelgp83]

The checksum issue usually means you've got a bad DVD image, if it shows up during DVD's boot sequence.

If its in the hard disk, it could be a partition/format issue. If you wanna be TOTALLY sure its not the hard drive, I'd recommend killing ALL partitions (Linux AND windows), using diskpart's clean command to wipe it totally clean, then building everything from the ground up.

Install win7 first. Set your partition at install time to the desired size. Do NOT try to format the space you don't use.

In Windows, get to disk management and carve off the amount of space you want for the FAT32 partition you mentioned earlier. Again, don't try to format the linux/swap stuff.

Finally, boot your linux distro installers, oldest to newest, and install them in the unallocated space.

That should sort everything.

 

[jefboyardee]

The checksum issue usually means you've got a bad DVD image, if it shows up during DVD's boot sequence.

Given that all my other disks boot just fine, not to mention that my computer does too... that theory very likely. And it's a lot more attractive than having to wipe everything and start over ;(.

The part that doesn't line up with that theory is that I still get those weird fciv messages, with no disks installed or booted from. But being that I have no idea what those messages mean or what to do with them...

And by the way, once I brought the grub menu up by booting from a distro stick, saving it with Grub-Customizer, then yanking the stick and rebooting, everything works like any other dual-boot day. But there is a much longer pause on win 7 boot, before the password splash come up.

 

[jefboyardee]

And it just gets stranger... turns out that I thought it was Aomei or Gparted doing the assignment switch. Then, since I noticed that every time I tried booting the W7 disk, I had to diskpart everything by booting MS System Repair, I had to think the W7 disk was doing it.

I just tried, without booting the W7 disk first, booting directly off the MS System Repair disk. It worked fine but IT was the beast that pulled the switcheroo. In fact, I can reboot it and it makes all new letters to assign to.

I guess that means it's not the W7 disk, and probably not even the System Repair disk, but it's something related to the checksum problem that the W7 disk mentions from time to time. That means I have to either fix that or start over as you described earlier.

I still think it's just a little thing that was caused by one of the stupider distros I recently tried, and it would take five seconds to fix if I just knew what to fix.

 

[jefboyardee]

My ten year old battery?!

How to Determine if the CMOS Battery Has Failed

The CMOS RAM settings are wrong or change every time the computer is restarted...

...CMOS Checksum Failure After CMOS RAM values are saved, a checksum value is generated for error checking. The previous value is different from the current value. .hanged.

When I installed a couple of those distros, my clock got cockeyed... hmmm.

 

[jefboyardee]

Well, ripping out the old battery, driving to the store, getting a new one, driving home and installing it resulted in apparently nothing, other than I probably needed it anyway. The W7 disk once said "BOOTMGR image is corrupt. The system cannot boot." I assume it was talking about the disk, because the PC works fine by itself. The disk won't even talk to me now and the Sys Repair disk still jumbles the drive letters... getting closer and closer to your start-over suggestions.

 

[Joelgp83]

DONT . DO. ANYTHING. Until I can get home from work and can respond on something other than my phone. If your win7 disc is corrupt, that kinda dooms any future reinstalls.

 

[Joelgp83]

Ok, back home now. Boy, it looks like we got some things to cover.

Well, ripping out the old battery, driving to the store, getting a new one, driving home and installing it resulted in apparently nothing, other than I probably needed it anyway.

Maybe, maybe not. My laptop frequently loses track of time when switching between Linux and Windows on my dual-boot setup. This has been consistent since I first got the laptop brand new last year, so unless I got a bad battery off the factory line, I doubt your battery was in need of replacement.

The W7 disk once said "BOOTMGR image is corrupt. The system cannot boot." I assume it was talking about the disk, because the PC works fine by itself.

Ok, that's actually the 6 million dollar question. If the BOOTMGR on the win7 install disc is corrupt, that probably means that you never had a pure unadulterated copy to begin with. Without BOOTMGR, windows-based systems can't boot, whether they be portable, optical/flash disc based versions or the real deal installed on a hard disk.

Either way, I need context. Did it throw that error and keep on going, or did you have to restart? Did it do it during the original windows install, or just randomly while the installer was booting off the disc? Have you ever got it when booting fresh off the hard disk?

If your win7 disc is bad, then you definitely need to download a fresh legit ISO from digital river. The ones I'm refering to are unhacked and are actually ordained from microsoft themselves, and will respond to your own product key.

The disk won't even talk to me now and the Sys Repair disk still jumbles the drive letters... getting closer and closer to your start-over suggestions.

Ok, what is this sys repair disk? I was under the impression you were using the Win7 disc's recovery console to do your fixboot-ing. If its a separate disc/utility, I've never used it so I can't predict how its code can interact with everything else.

 

[jefboyardee]

I doubt your battery was in need of replacement.

I had set it to internet time a couple years ago because the clock was stopping, so I had suspicions. I never knew a a dead one could mangle other things, like checksum.

If the BOOTMGR on the win7 install disc is corrupt, that probably means that you never had a pure unadulterated copy to begin with.

That's possible, being that I got it off eBay, but it has acted new and survived three reinstallations, months prior to this.

Did it throw that error and keep on going, or did you have to restart?

As I recall yesterday morning, I had just stuck it in and booted just to see if it was content with my installation. I think I had to power off/on, remove the disk and that probably led to needing the Sys Repair disk which led to having to employ Diskpart.

Did it do it during the original windows install, or just randomly while the installer was booting off the disc?

Every time I installed with it, things went fine. Yesterday was the only time that checksum problem appeared.

Have you ever got it when booting fresh off the hard disk?

Nope, just once, yesterday, booting off the install disk.

The ones I'm refering to are unhacked and are actually ordained from microsoft themselves, and will respond to your own product key.

I used the key on the three installs and passed the activation phone calls each time.

what is this sys repair disk?

It's the disk one can burn off the install disk. Can't remember its exact name because I scribbled something on the disk itself and I can't get to that option now on the install disk.

But as you said, I'm increasingly tempted to start over but that won't work if the disk really is bad. All this seems like a clever way to convert me to being a Linuxhead.

 

[Joelgp83]

Ok, here's the thing. BIOS/CMOS checksums and Microsoft File checksums are two entirely different things. One does not affect the other.

Having a bad BOOTMGR on your install disc shouldn't have corrupted your existing install and required you to use the ms repair disc if you never told the installer to start copying to the hard drive before it occured (Boot from DVD > Get error > Restart > Boot from Hard drive = nothing should have been touched). Something else is going on here.

Finally, yes, I know your disc's key works fine and passes activation and all. What I was talking about was if we deteremine your disc no longer works properly (check for scratches!), then you should grab the ISO from Digital River (google it), as the ones they've got were actually given to them by microsoft themselves -- this means you can have a master copy that you can re-burn anytime your existing DVD gets all scratched up, and they all expect you to have a legit key on a piece of paper (perferably stamped by microsoft) that you use to type in your product key.

...its more reliable than ordering another disc of possibly questionable data integerity on ebay and being forced to buy another key with it when your existing key still works just fine on your existing machine.

 

[jefboyardee]

Yow. How can you see that far? I've been very careful with that disk, snapping it into its protective case and stashing it in the back of my computer cubbyhole. But apparently, snapping the disk into that damn protective case ruined it:



I'm downloading the Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River. We shall see...

 

[jefboyardee]

And as for the repair disk juggling my drive numbers and me having to diskpart them over and over, I've seen vids that reflect that juggling as commonplace and ignorable... I'm good at ignoring.

 

[jefboyardee]

I got this for 32-bit:

Windows 7 Home Premium SP1-U ISO
English x86: X17-58996.iso

 

[jefboyardee]

That sucker pops right up when I boot it, giving me all the usual options. So now I have this mystery disk, a physically broken disk that I used to activate the install in my PC, and its Product Key numbers... what else will I need?

All this time I thought the increasingly worse performance of the disk was due to my PC install getting muddled and confusing the disc... never thought to look at the damn thing.;(

 

[jefboyardee]

While sitting on the edge of my seat, I asked Mr. Bill:

Broken W7HP Disc

I have an OEM Windows 7 Home Premium disc that I used to install on my PC, about three times. Each time, my Product Key was accepted and it passed the phone activation. Then the disc stopped working. Turns out that it was cracked by snapping it into its 'protective' case. I just downloaded and burned a new disc for 7.1 from Digital River. It boots just fine, but...

If and when I need to reinstall Windows, on my PC, can I use that disc and my Product Key to activate it? If there's something else to be done, could you please tell me?

 

[Joelgp83]

Yow. How can you see that far?

You know that song where Jimi Hendrix asks, "Are you experienced?" Why yes, yes I am. In IT, that is.

While sitting on the edge of my seat, I asked Mr. Bill:

Broken W7HP Disc

I have an OEM Windows 7 Home Premium disc that I used to install on my PC, about three times. Each time, my Product Key was accepted and it passed the phone activation. Then the disc stopped working. Turns out that it was cracked by snapping it into its 'protective' case. I just downloaded and burned a new disc for 7.1 from Digital River. It boots just fine, but...

If and when I need to reinstall Windows, on my PC, can I use that disc and my Product Key to activate it? If there's something else to be done, could you please tell me?

As long as 1) The system hardware is identical to the last time you activated it.

And 2.) You use the same key

And 3.) You install the correct edition of Windows that key is for

Then it'll accept it the first, second, third, eighteenth, 10,000th, or however many times you reinstall it. Its designed to be used that way, since it's the SAME computer.

Consider yourself safe.

 

[jefboyardee]

As long as 1) The system hardware is identical to the last time you activated it.

Yes, but. I've since added another gig of RAM and two little cards, each with three USB 2.0 ports. That and a whole bunch of software, of couse.

You install the correct edition of Windows that key is for

What the OEM has is SPzero in which I've downed SP1. The new disc is already at SP1. Otherwise, they're both W7HP 32-bit.

...may need to do your start-over just out of curiosity, but otherwise it's just a new security blanket.