screwed up setup and lost

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anonymous@discussions.microsoft.com - 25 Aug 2004 10:35 GMT

uses cd to setup and now stuck in dos??? cant even get to
desktop. comp. illiterate...help!!!!

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Dave Patrick - 25 Aug 2004 14:48 GMT

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows NT install CD-Rom or setup
disks. When you get to the point, delete the existing NTFS and or other
partitions found. After you delete the partition(s) abort the install, then
again restart the pc booting the CD-Rom or setup disks to avoid unexpected
drive letter assignments with your new install.

Depending on your drive's geometry Windows NT supports a system partition
(the first primary active partition and where the files required to start
the OS reside (boot sector)) limited to 7.8gB NTFS or 4gB Fat16, while the
boot partition (where the OS is installed) is not limited in size. You wont
be able to create a system partition greater than 4gB with Windows NT Setup;
if you need a system partition 4gB - 7.8 gB, you'll need to use Partition
Magic or use another NT machine to create the first primary active
partition. The system and boot partition can be the same partition.

If you created one large system/ boot partition > 7.8 gB and installed the
OS, it may work, but the problem is if you defragment the drive or service
pack the install and the files ntdetect.com, ntldr, boot.ini, and
ntbootdd.sys end up being relocated to a point beyond the 7.8 gB barrier,
then the bootstrap process wont be able to find them and the OS wont start.

Once the OS is installed you can use Disk Administrator to partition and
format the rest of your drive. You'll need atapi.sys from SP4 or later for
Windows NT to be able to recognize a drive larger than ~ 8 gB. See the first
article for the link and instructions.

Installing Windows NT on a Large IDE Hard Disk
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q197667

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-unsup-ed/fixes/nt40/atapi/atapi.exe

Windows NT 4.0 Supports Maximum of 7.8-GB System Partition
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q224526

Boot Partition Created During Setup Limited to 4 Gigabytes
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q119497

Windows NT Partitioning Rules During Setup
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q138364

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Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

| uses cd to setup and now stuck in dos??? cant even get to
| desktop. comp. illiterate...help!!!!

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Calvin - 25 Aug 2004 23:35 GMT

> Depending on your drive's geometry Windows NT supports a system partition
> (the first primary active partition and where the files required to start
[quoted text clipped - 10 lines]
> ntbootdd.sys end up being relocated to a point beyond the 7.8 gB barrier,
> then the bootstrap process wont be able to find them and the OS wont start.

Hi Dave,

I was under the impression, after reading the Knowledgebase article 154052 that
the ENTIRE system AND boot partitions must reside within the 7.8GB barrier. To
Quote:

"When starting an x86 based computer, Ntdetect.com retrieves and stores
Interrupt 13 information. This information is supplied by the computer's BIOS.
Only information for the first two disks in the system is saved. This
information about the drive layout is then passed to the operating system during
initialization. The amount of space that the operating system files can use to
boot the system is limited in Windows NT to the first 1,024 cylinders of disk 0.
This means that Ntldr, Boot.ini, Ntdetect.com and the Windows NT operating
system files must be within this boundary."

So the entire of the boot partition also needs to be inside the 7.8GB barrier,
otherwise the startup will fail. That is why I give the advise I do in:

http://nt4ref.zcm.com.au/bigdisk.htm

To me this makes sense - at boot ntldr calls NTOSKrnl, which in turn loads the
HAL, the System hive and any drivers/services set to 'boot'. At about this point
ATAPI.SYS would be loaded and initialised, when it takes over, the full size of
the HDD would become available, but until then, we are limited to 1024
cylinders, 255 heads and 63 sectors (ie: 7.8GB). Do you interpret the info from
Microsoft the same way, or have I missed something here?

all the best,

Calvin.

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Dave Patrick - 26 Aug 2004 00:18 GMT

Hi Calvin,

Does seem confusing. Appears, in some cases, that it may be a hardware
limitation.

Yet more reading.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q224526
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;114841

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Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

| Hi Dave,
|
[quoted text clipped - 26 lines]
|
| Calvin.

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Calvin - 26 Aug 2004 02:32 GMT

Hi Dave,

I'm convinced I am correct, both the system AND the boot partitions must FULLY
reside within the 7.8GB barrier. As KB224526 says:

"In some cases, the boot partition must be entirely within the first 7.8 GB of
the drive. If the Boot.ini file uses the multi() syntax for locating the boot
partition, NTLDR uses the INT13 interface to load the HAL, the kernel, and
boot-start device drivers. In this case, these files must reside within the 7.8
GB addresseable range of the INT13 interface." - in other words for a ATAPI
(IDE) HDD this rule applies.

another quote from KB224526:

"System partitions that are larger than 7.8 GB can be created only by using
third-party partitioning utilities. When Windows NT 4.0 starts, the operating
system can use only files that are on the first 7.8 GB of the system partition.
After Windows NT 4.0 is started, the operating system can access all files on
the volume. However, you may not be able to resolve this problem by manually
copying the Ntoskrnl.exe file to the system partition, because the file may be
written beyond the first 7.8 GB of the system partition. The only way to make
sure that the Ntoskrnl.exe file is written to the first 7.8 GB is to repartition
the drive to 7.8 GB or less."

I suspect what is not helping the lack of clarity on this issue is the fact that
the author of article 224526 has stuffed up BIG TIME, and is trying to tell us
that NTOSKrnl is on the _system_ partition - WRONG of course, it is on the
_boot_ partition ! There is the situation where the system and boot partitions
are one and the same (ie: all on drive C:) then the comments he has made are
sensible, if incomplete :-)

Bottom line, both the system AND boot partitions MUST stay inside the 7.8GB
barrier, or you risk an unbootable system. If any of the files needed before
ATAPI.sys initialises move past 7.8GB, they are out of reach during system
startup and will lead to the 'Windows NT could not start because the following
file is missing or corrupt:' error.

Calvin.

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Dave Patrick - 26 Aug 2004 04:21 GMT

I agree the articles are not clear and somewhat conflict, but with that
logic if you created a 7.8 gB system partition and choose to install Windows
NT out side of the system partition then it would (in no case) ever work.
Correct?

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Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

| Hi Dave,
|
[quoted text clipped - 34 lines]
|
| Calvin.

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Calvin - 26 Aug 2004 11:23 GMT

Hi Dave,

the way I read it - YES - if any of the OS files go past the 7.8GB barrier, the
boot process will fail because the system (NTLDR) is using standard INT13 access
until such stage as the kernel initialises and starts using ATAPI.SYS to access
the drive instead.

That is not to say that you could have a boot partition that spanned the
barrier, but then a SP or defrag may suddenly render the system unbootable :-(
when one of more files required during the 'start-up' phase are out of reach of
CHS addressing. I have heard of several instances of exactly this happening.

I've never actually deliberately tried creating a situation like this scenario
to test my theories - I don't really enjoy installing an OS at any time, and
certainly don't want to have the situation where it breaks and I have to start
from scratch !

Do you have any experiences of the scenario of the boot partition spanning or
being located past the 7.8GB barrier, and what sort of responses did you get ?

Calvin.

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Dave Patrick - 26 Aug 2004 16:51 GMT

Yes, done this or have seen it more than once. Something also to note (I
haven't had the need to try) is I've seen others post that replacing the NT
boot sector with that of Windows 2000 gets around the 7.8 gB system
partition limitation but again this is subject to any hardware limitation.

Setup Does Not Check for INT-13 Extensions Before Creating System Partition
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];240672

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Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

| Hi Dave,
|
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
|
| Calvin.

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Calvin - 26 Aug 2004 23:33 GMT

Hi Dave,

I noted the comment by somebody here a couple of weeks ago about the trick of
using the Win2k NTLDR and NTDetect.com to overcome the 7.8GB barrier. A clever
move. Provided the hardware supports INT13 Extensions it should work really well :-)

My honest opinion is a lot of this discussion is probably moot anyway - my
normal setup process involves a system partion in FAT16 of 2GB or less, and a
boot partition of 2GB or less in NTFS, so the 7.8GB barrier is never an issue.

We've actually had threads going here in past about how much space to give to
NT4.0 - I can manage to get a base OS install + SP and hotfixes down to 85MB
footprint with very little effort, if I really tried I could probably shave
another 5 to 10MB off this with no loss of functionality. I actually have a
'parallel' install here on a Syquest 270MB removable media cartridge, which I
can boot to if the need arises - the cartridge only has about 90MB total space
occupied.

Normally I set a machine up with about a 1GB boot partition, since the footprint
grows substantially when apps are added to the system and they want to pile
stuff into the Program Files\Common folder etc... Typically I find a finished
install with all the apps in place has about 300 to 500MB of the boot partition
occupied.

I have customer machines with 80GB+ IDE HDDs out there, the rest of the drive is
partitioned to suit their needs as far as application and data storage are
concerned. To me it makes sense to keep as much of the customer applications and
data away from the system and boot partitions as is humanly possible. The
multiple partition strategy I find also eases backup and restore efforts.

I'm not a big fan of the 'one big partition' option that a lot of people take,
it makes maintenance and backups more complicated, and causes a lot of problems
when it comes time to do a recovery because they managed to break the OS.

All the best,

Calvin.

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Jiri Tuma - 27 Aug 2004 19:29 GMT

These limitations are for _system_ partiton only. _boot_ partition has no
limits (do not go over 127GB, however). Situation on IDE disks is not clear,
but this really depends on hardware.

Normally, when you define _boot_ partition exceeding 7.8 GB limit on IDE
disk, NT Setup will automatically use scsi() notation and prepare
ntbootdd.sys to be used with ntldr. However, you need to have NT setup
compatible partition schema already prepared on disk (and would be _boot_
partition should be preformated) and you need to install atapi.sys SP4
version (or manufacturer provided disk controller driver) correctly first
(in 100% cases by using of F6 key trick).

On some hardware setup will fail either, probably due incompatibilities, and
you are really forced to install whole system bellow 7.8 GB limit. After
applying of SP4 (at least) you can move and/or expand _boot_ partition and
system will be fully functional, you will only lost ability to repair
registry from ERD using setup CD (so you need to use secondary OS or
indepent backup device features to do such repair).

> Hi Dave,
>
[quoted text clipped - 33 lines]
>
> Calvin.

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Calvin - 28 Aug 2004 02:01 GMT

Hi Jiri,

my comments here have been directed solely towards the IDE situation. I was
aware that a lot of the limitations do not apply in the SCSI world :-)

I'm still convinced that the only safe option in an IDE situation is to keep
everything, system and boot below the 7.8GB barrier - or be prepared for future
trouble !

Calvin.

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