[kalidasa]

Hi,
I was brought here googling "bootmagic error 8050" and landed on the thread http://forums.techguy.org/all-other-software/304603-solved-bootmagic-serious-problem.html
which has been closed

Yesterday evening, I installed 2 updates(microsoft) and tried to reboot the laptop. It came upto the point where bootmagic prompts me with WIN XP or WIN 2K and printed the 8050 error citing "no menu item to choose".

Earlier in the day, I ran the program "eraser" to erase unused space and had used the "disk free space utility" to see if I could recover free space. I also, in utter naievete, started to "compress the disk" and when I saw a dialog box pop-up saying "14 days to complete", i killed it immediately.


I inserted ERD commander and tried to boot and much to my horror found that it couldnt find the WINXP OS to attach to. The laptop had 2 partitions, C: and Erecovery). The E: partiton showed up and I was able to get to the BootMagic directory. I saw the boot32.cfg had entries for both WINXP and WIN2K. I ran the win32cfg.exe to see what options it will show and to my surprise, found a dialog box which said WINXP not found, removing it from the menu list and only WIN2k remained.

I got out of this utility and rebooted with WIN2K and it went through the checkdisk motions and was able to load win2k fine...

Here is the rub, I am back to an image which is nearly 3-4 years ago, C:\ which housed WINXP is no longer there and is replaced with the directory structure prior to the booting WINXP(ie WIN2K).

The bootmagic directory has a "rescueme" directory and I dont know what to do with it. Could anybody give me any idea on how to recover from this, is there any hope?

Thanks
Kalidasa

[kalidasa]

I am desperate :-(, anyone, help pease!

[vicks]

Welcome to TSG forums!!
Have you tried starting the computer in safe mode? Don't know if it will work but I think it can't hurt anymore.....
continously, gently tap the F8 key while computer is booting. IF the safe mode window opens, use the arrow keys to move up to "Last know good configuration" click enter.
Let the computer do it's thing.
Let us know how it goes.
Vicks

[kalidasa]

Hello Vicks,

Thanks for the message. It is too late by the time I get to the screen where I am displayed the F8 option - bootmagic window to select OS had already been displayed and the only option I saw was WIN2K PRO. I selected this option and I saw the F8 option.

Earlier, I wasnt even getting the bootmagic screen to select WIN2k PRO. So, I downloaded ERD(emergency recovery disk) Commander and burnt an iso image and was able to boot from it and found that I was able to land on the "recovery partition".


on the recovery partition(which is FAT32), In the BTMAGIC.PQ directory, bootmagic was installed with a bunch of configuration files/applications/ and rescueme directory. I did a stupid thing to run BMCFG32.exe which read the BMCFG.cfg file(which later I learnt contained the options flashed to you during bootup) and it wiped the entry about WINXP and set WIN2K as the default. Not knowing any better, I clicked OK and got out of ERD commander and rebooted the laptop, lo and behold, the bootmagic screen splashed and only one OS(ie WIN2K PRO) was presented, I selected and it took me to a screen where it forced chkdsk and after that booted fine.

Now, after googling some more, I found out ControlPanel->administrative tools->comptuer management->disk management and brought it up
and find that there is one partition worth 30GB that doesnt have a label and not marked what type of partition it is, there is another NTFS with WIN2K on it(25gb), and another is the recovery partition with FAT32(15gb) and another small partition says IBM_SERVICE, EISA (5GB).

I hope it wasnt too much information, can you let me know how to proceed?

Thanks
Kalidasa

[DoubleHelix]

Partition Magic didn't cause the problem. The disk compression did. Aborting it in the middle made the problem worse. A full system recovery is likely the only option.

[kalidasa]

hello doublehelix,

can you please elaborate more on the full system recovery? How should I go about it?

I was able to view the list of partitons using one of the utilities and only one of the partitions shows up as NTFS(which is running WIN2K PRO), there is another partition which is shown as "Hidden IFS" by partition magic and QNX by disk commander...I dont know if this is the partition housing WINXP...does this ring a bell at all?

thanks

thanks

[DoubleHelix]

A full system recovery means restoring your entire system from backup or from the recovery disks or partition that came with your computer.

[vicks]

To use the safe mode, you must start tapping the F8 key when you turn the computer on. Do not wait for anything to start showing.
Vicks

[kalidasa]

thanks Vicks, I will try that and report back here.

[kalidasa]

hi vicks,


I kept hitting the F8 key the moment the laptop powered up.

Then, the next thing flashed on the screen is the BOOTMAGIC option to select WIN2K. The F8 key is active after win2k starts booting up


I am able to successfully boot WIN2K(although it is not of much use to me).
The option to boot WINXP is not there which I am at a loss to understand, why and how it happened

[vicks]

Originally Posted by DoubleHelix

Partition Magic didn't cause the problem. The disk compression did. Aborting it in the middle made the problem worse. A full system recovery is likely the only option.

At this point, I think I will have to agree with DoubleHelix that a full system recovery is likely the only option....
Sure do wish you luck!!!
Keep us posted on your progress.
Vicks

[new tech guy]

Hm, what you could try is rebuilding the xp mbr. Shot in the dark but may help. It will erase bootmagic and the system will probably only boot in xp. But maybe from there, you could reinstall your boot system and go back into the menus and have it just as before. Besides, win2k is just a stripped down version of xp in reality.

[TheOutcaste]

Originally Posted by kalidasa

I was able to view the list of partitons using one of the utilities and only one of the partitions shows up as NTFS(which is running WIN2K PRO), there is another partition which is shown as "Hidden IFS" by partition magic and QNX by disk commander

The 30 GB Hidden IFS partition is likely the XP partition. I believe Boot Magic boots different partitions by setting the one you want to boot from active, and hiding the others.
The Hidden IFS partition is Type 0x17. You can use Test Disk to set that back to NTFS, Type 0x07, which would let you access the partition from Win2K to recover any files (assuming the aborted Disk Compression didn't trash the file system).

I don't know if Boot Magic would then be able to see the partition and add it back, I've never used it so don't know much about how it works.

You might be able to choose which OS to boot by using Disk Management to set the other partition active just before restarting. If the other partition is unbootable though, you'd need a bootdisk to change the active partition back, or to let you boot to the other OS and use Disk Management to change it back.

It might be possible to add it to the Win2K boot menu, but they would then share the boot files, and wouldn't be completely independent. Each would be visible as a drive in My Computer from the other OS.
You would need to edit the boot.ini file on the Win2K partition to add an entry for the XP Partition, and copy ntldr and ntdetect.com (and ntbootdd.sys if it exists) from the XP partition, replacing the Win2K versions (which should be backed up first of course)

[kalidasa]

Hello Outcaste,

"testdisk" rocks! thanks for sending the link.

Among other things, so far, ERD commander has been a godsend...I have been able to successfully boot to WIN 2K PRO.

Now, using testdisk, I was able to see the hidden NTFS partition and made it bootable and now I see both the WIN2K and WINXP partitions(atleast, it appears to me the filesystem is intact and I could see all my directories there as is).

I reran boot magic and correctly saw a new NTFS partition(rightly XP) and selected it to be the default OS...and save and exited and rebooted the laptop.

The laptop showed the bootmagic menu selection for both OS's and I selected WINXP and I saw a message "preparing the machine to load winnt/xp and it got stuck there.

If I selected WIN2K, I do see the same message above(it says WIN2K instead) and goes ahead and loads WIN2k.

If you have any ideas on how to proceed from this point, it is much appreciated...

Thanks
kalidasa

[TheOutcaste]

I'd boot with the XP CD and go into the Recovery Console. Log into the XP partition, and run FIXBOOT X:. Just make sure to use the correct drive letter for the XP partition.

Running FIXMBR will probably overwrite boot magic.

You may want to uninstall boot magic and see if you can boot to both partitions by setting them each active one at a time using a Win9x boot disk, or gparted, to switch active partitions.
Once both partitions can boot this way, then re-install Boot Magic if you want to use it.