HELP!plzz Cannot locate hard drive. Partition Magic error#110,105

**Nodame** · 24 Jan 2009

I just got my Dell Vostro and the first thing I do is running Partition Magic 8.0 to try to do a partition on my hard drive. The computer originally has three partitions: Dell Utility Partition(32MB), Recovery Partition (40G)and Vista Partition(200G). When I run Partition Magic it gave error #110 "table number of sectors is inconsistent", and it offered a 'fix' by resetting the table number of sectors of the drive. I clicked OK, but then after that, it then have error #105 "Partition starts on wrong boundary" and it could not detect any hard drive available to partition.

Even worse, after I left Partition Magic 8.0 I cannot start Windows Vista anymore and I cannot run any Recovery options provided. I cannot run the Restore to Factory. The computer is no longer able to locate the hard drive after Partition Magic do that 'fix', I sincerely do not know how to solve this problem.

Any suggestions and help will be greatly appreciated.

**SIW2** · 24 Jan 2009

Hi Nodame,

Do you have a recovery disc which you can boot from the dvd drive and gives you repair options ?

If not, download the .iso file from here ( make sure you get the right one - i.e. 32 bit or 64bit )

Download: Windows Vista x64 Recovery Disc — The NeoSmart Files

and burn it to a cd using this free iso burner. Do not format the cd - if Autoplay pops up, just close it.

http://www.ntfs.com/downloads/Iso-burner.zip

Start your pc and watch the black screen with white writing.

One of the first things it says is something like :

F2 for setup
F11 for boot menu (your F numbers may be different )

Press F11 ( or whatever yours is) and a menu will appear. Arrow to CDromdrive, put the cd in, press Enter.

It will ask again, Press any key to boot from cd - Press Enter.

Select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click Next.

When the window appears that says Install now in the middle, and Repair my Computer at the bottom - click on Repair my Computer then click on Startup Repair. ( see this tutorial )

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBC...r+from+the+DVD

If that does not work, use the command prompts as described - I think you may need the fixmbr and fixboot commands.

Hope it helps

SIW2

**Nodame** · 25 Jan 2009

Thank you for your advice!

I used the Recovery program to restore it back to factory setting. It still keep the partition I created earlier but it helped renaming the table sector number so it seems to work fine now.

What I was trying to do is partition the hard drive into two parts, one running xp and one running vista. I need to install xp as many of my music software are not compatible with vista. However, now I encountered another problem as it does not allow me to install XP in the active drive. However, Vista seems to require itself to be the primary active drive. Whenever I tried installing XP from boot CD, it said "SHSUCDX can't be installed" and stopped.

Do you have any ideas of what the problems are? Or do you know of any easy way to set up a dual OS with vista and XP?

Thx in advance.

**SIW2** · 25 Jan 2009

Hi Nodame,

Here is the tutorial.

You are probably best using Vista Disk Management , (Step 3 rather than gparted or DiskPart ).

You have already shrunk the Vista partition to make space for XP - what you should do now is delete the new (non Vista) partition to make it unallocated space. In Disk Management, just right click it and delete. That is the unallocated space on which you will install XP.

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

Hope it helps

SIW2

**Nodame** · 26 Jan 2009

Thanks for the guide. However, at the moment I am still having no luck installing XP. The XP installation cannot initiate.

I now have a Vista OS drive (C drive, 125G) and a XP drive (F drive, 100G), but from what I read in the guide, is it saying that I should delete the XP drive making it an unallocated space. And then I run XP installation to have it installed in the unallocaed space?

I apologize if I am asking trivial question.

Thx for the help

**SIW2** · 26 Jan 2009

If I understand your situation correctly, yes that is what I would do.

SIW2

**redmatrix** · 14 Mar 2009

Nodame,
if you want to boot the system with both XP and Vista ..
-First you should divide the the partition first
-next is to clean install xp first.
-then reboot from the Vista dvd to install it on the second partition.

thats one general rule for Vista.

Hope it Helps

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