Cannot boot second partition ("the bootsector is the mbr" message)

[janjoker]

I followed the instructions to install XP and Vista, not knowing of each other. Instead of Vista I installed Windows 2003, because I want to have a dual boot XP and Win2003 system with a shared Data partition.
The XP partition still works fine, and the Win2003 partition is seen as unallocated space.
The Win2003 setup ran fine, and after installation the Plop menu was gone, just as described, so I used the cd to "write to MBR only".
The Plop menu is back now. But if I choose to boot Windows 2003 it says: the bootsector is the mbr".
What did I miss?

[Elmar]

hi,
which instructions do you mean, the first one with both os on the first harddisk, or the second with one os on both harddisks?

regards
elmar

[janjoker]

The first one, with both partition one the first (and only) disk

[Elmar]

it looks like you did something wrong with the profiles and cleared partitions. look if your profile for 2003 has the partition for win 2003 activated and not dont touched

[janjoker]

None of the partition are 'don't touched'.

Booted from WinXP I used PartitionMagic to undelete the cleared partition, and then I could see all files on it. So the file structure should be still in place.

This might be a good starting point to just boot from the Plop CD and install it again. Or not?

[Elmar]

what do you see under partitions in the boot manager. i mean hda1, hda2, ...
how does your profiles look like?

[janjoker]

I had 3 partitions: C,D,E. C=WinXP, D & E contain just data.
Using partition magic I created an empty space between C and D and created a fourth partition there.

After installing Plop the partitions were: hda1 (C), hda2 (D), hda3 (E) and hda4, the last one being the physical 2nd partition.

Profile WinXP: hda1 (boot), hda2, hda3, cleared
Profile WIn2003: cleared, hda2, hda3, hda4 (boot)

As I said, firstly this worked like a charm, until I wrote the MBR back after the Win2003 setup....

[Elmar]

did you set the boot partition for the win 2003 profile correct to hda2?

[janjoker]

No, the win2003 setup was on hda4, which is actually the second partition physically, but got number 4 because it is the last entry in the partition table.

I think I will start from the beginning, using XP recovery mode to run fixmbr and then try to get the had numbers in sync with the physical order of the partitions on disk.

[Elmar]

windows resorts the partitions, if you set the boot flag to hda2, i think it will work. however restart if it does not work. follow the instructitions exactly. that means to set the win 2003 partition to the place of hda1 too. there are a lot of reasons, but to difficult for explaining now.

[janjoker]

Now I have the partition table as I want it to be. I did that from my working XP with Partition Magic.
I have Plop still installed, but the partition info is no longer synchronized with the Plop settings.
If I now choose Full Boot Manager install from the CD, will it then re-read the current partition table?
This might solve my problem, because the Win2003 setup is still on that other partition.

[Elmar]

yes, a new installation will reread all partitions from your mbr. however, i am sure if i would sit before your pc, it would take less than a few minutes to make both systems bootable. booting multiple os is a challange  with lots of ways and solutions and that makes it some kind of difficult to give a simple solution. booting need some kind of experience. however tell me your results

[janjoker]

   Yeah.... only you're not sitting before my pc....

But I like these sort of challenges... so I will go on and try until it's working...

[janjoker]

Fixed it!!!   

Re-installation of PLoP with the repaired partition table was the solution. Now I can boot both systems.
I must have done something wrong that caused by partition table to be corrupted.
But now it is okay.

The second partition on my disk is still called hda4. I think this is because it was created after the other three. Anyway.... it's working!

[Elmar]

  PLoP ruleZ, or?  harrr, prost cheers

I am always happy about good news and if I hear that my software works fine