HELP! I can see only a Boot X: disk

[Escalibur]

Hi, the thing is that I had 2 partitions one for Vista and the other one for Leopard. I did a diskpart > list disk > select... > and activate my fat32 partition to install the leopard 10.5.1 DVD with no succes (it just reboots over and over again). Then when I tried to reactivate the vista partition with my Vista DVD there was only a disk named Boot X:

 

I tried diskpart > list disk from the Repair System Vista DVD

 

Message: NO FIXED DISKS AVAILABLE OR SOMETHING...

 

PLEASE!! What can I do???

 

 

---------------------------

MSI K8T Master 2 Far 7

2 AMD Opteron 246

Nvidia GeForce 246

Vista Ultimate

[Selayan]

Probably cant find your partition for vista because its in FAT32. If you have 2 partitions you should have used diskpart in vista and ran

list disk

select disk (your disk number)

list partition

create primary partition id=af

active

 

I always use paragon partition manager and create a partition of unallocated space before running the lines above in disk part. You can also do this in vista by right clicking on computer, then manage, then hit drive management, and left click the c drive and put shrink. Enter the amount you want to use and hit ok. Then use disk part and run the code above.

 

But now it seems Leo tried to install on the fat32 and it should have been a Mac OS extended partition in the form of id=af like above. I havent had any luck installing leo on my dell cuz it gives me no root device when booting into the installer on the Leo cd.

 

Put in your Vista cd, boot from it, then hit repair my computer. It should find a Vista Operating system and you can select it and then put repair.

If that does not work, you can then click repair manuall or something on the top of that menu that says repair restart (?).

I did the same thing recently and it didnt work so then I pressed command prompt from the Vista Cd and then:

where it says X:/

list disk

it should recognize that you have a hard drive unless the whole thing is formated as FAT32.

But it probably is not recongnizing your hard drive? DId you change any of the cables? Is it a SATA hard drive, if so try running it on RAID in the bios if it is not set to that..or just reset to default in the Bios.

[soulman901]

I think we need some more information about this.

What Method of Install were you trying to use for this?

From what it initially sounds like, the Partition that had Vista is now gone on your system which is why the repair system can't see it.

I would really hope that you have your data backed up in this case.

Maybe what some of these guides and information need at the top of documentation in BIG RED LETTERS, PLEASE DO NOT TRY THIS UNLESS YOU ARE AN ADVANCE COMPUTER USER WHO HAS HAD EXPERIANCE WITH INSTALLING AN O/S MORE COMPLICATED THAN WINDOWS.

Part of the problem is that there are too many nub Window Users on here trying to do this on their Home PC without any real computer experience.

[Selayan]

If he is able to run diskpart in the Vista repair cd by using the command prompt action and it shows nothing..most likely seems like the whole partition was formated as fat32. The reason leo kept rebooting also was prolly cuz it was not a Mac OSx extended partition. Did you use Disk utility on the cd once booted to the OSX install and looked for the 2nd partition that you wanted OSX on? That was the one that you should have clicked on and then erase as a Mac OS extended.

But no fixed disks seems like it cant located the hard drive. Because on mine even if i had 2 partitions, one fat and one ntfs, it would show the hard drive and those partitions as long as they were seperate.

Did you prepare your hard drive for an OSX install before you popped in the Leo dvd and formated the drive using disk utility? What guide did you use.

I sure do hope you did not have any important files that you may recently need...I learned that the hard way A whole set of my semester's projects was gone..(tear)

[soulman901]

The problem though is that you can't install Vista to FAT32 through the Upgrade or Fresh Install. So if he formatted it as Fat32, he probably did it to the entire disk which would have removed the partition.

[Escalibur]

Thaks for your replays.

 

Here is what I did:

 

1 - Crate a 30 gb Fat32 partition of my 160gb Drive (Vista was running fine in the other 130 gb partition after this I did it a few days ago)

2 - From cmd line diskpart > list disk > select disk 0 > list partition > select partition 1 > active

3 - Reboot with Leopard DVD

4 - A count down appeared so I hit Enter (if I let the count down ends it loads the error of some /../.plist not found).

5 - Some files loading

6 - Reboot... again to step 4

 

7 - Deep breath

8 - Insert Vista CD

9 - Repair my computer

10 - Window asking for drivers and surprise! no vista system only a 30 gb Boot X: disk (note there are only 30 gb)

 

11 - Open the cmmd and type diskpart > list disk

12 - Message: No fixed disks found... or something.

13 - I realize that I screwed up my PC and deleted 130 gb of work...

14 - Ask for help.

 

My SATA Drive was set to default in the Bios.

[Dream Academy]

Thaks for your replays.

 

Here is what I did:

 

1 - Crate a 30 gb Fat32 partition of my 160gb Drive (Vista was running fine in the other 130 gb partition after this I did it a few days ago)

2 - From cmd line diskpart > list disk > select disk 0 > list partition > select partition 1 > active

3 - Reboot with Leopard DVD

4 - A count down appeared so I hit Enter (if I let the count down ends it loads the error of some /../.plist not found).

5 - Some files loading

6 - Reboot... again to step 4

 

7 - Deep breath

8 - Insert Vista CD

9 - Repair my computer

10 - Window asking for drivers and surprise! no vista system only a 30 gb Boot X: disk (note there are only 30 gb)

 

11 - Open the cmmd and type diskpart > list disk

12 - Message: No fixed disks found... or something.

13 - I realize that I screwed up my PC and deleted 130 gb of work...

14 - Ask for help.

 

My SATA Drive was set to default in the Bios.

 

I'm assuming that you used shrink to aquire the 30g you needed for partition 1. However, if I remember right, your new partition using that unformatted space should be partition 2 and not partition 1.

 

When you set partition 1 to active and then inserted your osx disk for an install, that's likely where your partition error occured.

[Escalibur]

If he is able to run diskpart in the Vista repair cd by using the command prompt action and it shows nothing..most likely seems like the whole partition was formated as fat32. The reason leo kept rebooting also was prolly cuz it was not a Mac OSx extended partition. Did you use Disk utility on the cd once booted to the OSX install and looked for the 2nd partition that you wanted OSX on? That was the one that you should have clicked on and then erase as a Mac OS extended. But no fixed disks seems like it cant located the hard drive. Because on mine even if i had 2 partitions, one fat and one ntfs, it would show the hard drive and those partitions as long as they were seperate. Did you prepare your hard drive for an OSX install before you popped in the Leo dvd and formated the drive using disk utility? What guide did you use. I sure do hope you did not have any important files that you may recently need...I learned that the hard way A whole set of my semester's projects was gone..(tear)

I just insert the Leo DVD and reboot, then press Enter on a count down screen and then after some text loads (about 15 seconds) the system reboots itself normaly to the same count down screen.I reed that after pressing F8 on the count down screen typing -s or -v or -x could help so I did it with the same results.Thanks!

I'm assuming that you used shrink to aquire the 30g you needed for partition 1. However, if I remember right, your new partition using that unformatted space should be partition 2 and not partition 1.When you set partition 1 to active and then inserted your osx disk for an install, that's likely where your partition error occured.

Sorry, I dont remember if it was 0, 1 or 2 but I know it was the 30 gb not the one with the vista system.

[Selayan]

Well if you start out with one 130gb drive..you should have one partition and that should be C: with vista in it (depending on your computer's manufacturer).

 

Now where you went wrong is where you just formated the partition as fat32 and then activated partition 1, your Vista drive, not the second partition FAt32. Also, the reason ur Leo is not booting and installing is because you needed to prepare the disk with the disk utility and format that partition that you created as Mac OSX extended. Then you would install Leo there and still have your vista partition. It sounds like the Leo DVD is missing some system files or your cpu is not supported. When I tried to install the SSE3 Leo dvd on my laptop, it did the same rebooting loop that you talk about. Then I found out that my laptop only supports SSE2.

 

So if you really did format everything to FAT32 then I would suggest using something called Ultimate Boot Cd and format the whole drive clean so you can install vista again. When you create partitions you have to make sure that you type list partition and see the partition you just created. Then select it as active before you pop in OSX disc to install.

[Escalibur]

Well if you start out with one 130gb drive..you should have one partition and that should be C: with vista in it (depending on your computer's manufacturer).

 

Now where you went wrong is where you just formated the partition as fat32 and then activated partition 1, your Vista drive, not the second partition FAt32. Also, the reason ur Leo is not booting and installing is because you needed to prepare the disk with the disk utility and format that partition that you created as Mac OSX extended. Then you would install Leo there and still have your vista partition. It sounds like the Leo DVD is missing some system files or your cpu is not supported. When I tried to install the SSE3 Leo dvd on my laptop, it did the same rebooting loop that you talk about. Then I found out that my laptop only supports SSE2.

 

So if you really did format everything to FAT32 then I would suggest using something called Ultimate Boot Cd and format the whole drive clean so you can install vista again. When you create partitions you have to make sure that you type list partition and see the partition you just created. Then select it as active before you pop in OSX disc to install.

I dont have the option Mac OSX extended on the vista disk utility only FAT32 and NTFS. I think that option is under the OS X system when it boots as OSX right? anyway the dvd is for SSE2 / SSE3 im on SSE2 so I dont know if I have the right disk. Any suggestions for names I could look for??

 

Do you think I could plug the hard drive to other pc to recover my files??

[Selayan]

The option for Mac OSx extended is when you boot off the Leo Cd and and go to utilities, yes. If you are on SSE2 then it should work but it depends on the release. There were 2 of them, Brazilmac and ToH. But either of them had problems with various people. I could never get past the no root device message.

If you can see the htfs partition in the vista recovery cd utility, set it as active and try to boot from it. If you cant see any partition in the vista drive utility then its likely that you tried to install Leo on the first partition and things got screwed up so the whole partition got wiped. You can try and stick the hd in another pc and see if it boots up and then use another boot cd to try and recover the partitions or MBR.

As far as I can tell, I would start clean all over again and give it a break until Kalyway and iAtkos releases are fully downloadable.

[Escalibur]

The option for Mac OSx extended is when you boot off the Leo Cd and and go to utilities, yes. If you are on SSE2 then it should work but it depends on the release. There were 2 of them, Brazilmac and ToH. But either of them had problems with various people. I could never get past the no root device message.

If you can see the htfs partition in the vista recovery cd utility, set it as active and try to boot from it. If you cant see any partition in the vista drive utility then its likely that you tried to install Leo on the first partition and things got screwed up so the whole partition got wiped. You can try and stick the hd in another pc and see if it boots up and then use another boot cd to try and recover the partitions or MBR.

As far as I can tell, I would start clean all over again and give it a break until Kalyway and iAtkos releases are fully downloadable.

 

No, I can see only a 30 gb Boot X: partition. I'll try to stick the hd in another pc. I was wating for the iAtakos release but its only for SSE3 mabe with Kalyway.

 

Thank you very much!

[Selayan]

Kalyway should work with all SATA hard drives and its suppose to find the hard drives that will boot for you so i need to get taht too when it comes out. IF stickin the drive in another pc has no good news, then you formated the whole thing as fat32 and you mind as well start fresh. Your welcome too.