DiskPatch ISO image ?

[janvdv]

Hello,

I have an older PC (from 2004) on which I have been experimenting with dual boot Windows XP/Ubuntu Linux, but unsuccesful at this moment...I have ended up by building a new partition table to start from scratch (luckily, I backed up all my data before doing this). However, when I try to reinstall Windows XP now on the first (boot) partition, initially the installation files seem to be copied from the installation CD, but after a requested reboot, all I see is a blank screen with a blinking cursor (even no DOS prompt)... So I would like to try the demo version of DiskPatch to see if it would be able to repair anything that needs to be repaired (the MBR ? the NTFS boot sector ?) But since I have no other PC on which I can install DiskPatch (I have a laptop from my work, but since I have no administrator rights on this laptop, I cannot install anything on it), I want to create an bootable CD by means of the ISO image that is contained in the DIY DataRecovery product/rescue CD. However, when I download this product/rescue CD, it seems to be an EXE file that, again, I cannot execute from my laptop without having administrator rights. Also, I have no floppy drive on my desktop PC or on my laptop, and I do not know if my desktop supports booting from a USB stick (and also, making a USB stick bootable requires a program that I can install somewhere). So can I, in one way or the other, directly download the ISO image of the product/rescue CD, or extract it from the EXE file without administrator rights ? But then there is also the problem of where I can save the support analysis logfile, since I am not using a floppy disk or a USB stick...

Thanks in advance for helping me with this !

[Tom]

We can provide the ISO image but given your situation I'm not sure it'll do you much good. You can however perform repairs even if no files can be saved, so take a look. At the very least you may be able to find out what's going on.
http://www.diydatarecovery.nl/downloads/boot.iso

[janvdv]

Hello,

I downloaded the boot.iso image, burnt it to a blank CD with Nero, and started the PC from this CD. After some messages about FreeDOS, I get 11 times an "I/O error: cylinder > 1023", followed by the massage "Bad or missing command interpreter. Enter the full shell command line: command.com /P /E:256". When I enter this command, followed by Enter, nothing happens (that is, I get again a blinking cursor...

Jan.

[Tom]

I've uploaded a different image, download again using the same link and try this one. This should work.

[janvdv]

OK, this time I have been able to start DiskPatch in trial mode (since I do not yet have a registration key). Since creating a support analysis log is not possible, I first selected my hard disk and checked the partition table, and it seemed to be OK (the partitions appear as I created them with GPardEd, that is: a first, active NTFS partition of 30 Gb on which I want to reinstall Windows XP, a second EXT4 partition of 30 Gb on which I want to install Ubuntu Linux, and a third NTFS partition of 173 Gb for data accessible by both OSs). Then I chose "MBR Tasks" and "Refresh boot code", and it said "MBR bootcode refresh complete for disk 0" (I wonder whether there has actually been written something to the MBR, since one of the previous screens said that repairs are not possible with the trial version; but since you said that even in trial mode some repairs could be made...) I restarted the PC without the CD, but the problem remained. I started DiskPatch again, this time I chose "Perform repairs" and then "Repair boot sectors". I selectred the first (NTFS) partition, chose "Check and fix boot sector", and after the test it said "All tests passed, no repairs needed". I could chose "Repair partition tables" now, but I doubt that this would help...
What other repairs or diagnostics can I perform in trial mode ? Can I determine with this trial version whether DiskPatch can fix the problem ?

[Tom]

No repairs are possible in trial mode, so the MBR write actions did not do anything.

From what I can tell you've been using a third party tool to create Windows volumes. This is almost never a good idea, it's best to use the operating system that you will be installing to create the volumes. In this case: clear the entire disk, start from the Windows install CD, and create a volume big enough to install windows. Then, when finished, you can create further volumes from windows, or by installing another operating system (you mention Linux).

Having to perform repairs this early in the install phase means you're not using the right approach, so re-examine your procedures.