Cannot boot from HDD (System Halted)

[sigi]

My son has been using LxMint12 and WinXP in a multi-boot system (two primary partitions on one hard drive) for a long time with BING 1.87 as Boot Manager (bootloader for LM12 in the root directory).

A few days ago I installed an additional LxMint17 partition (bootloader in LM17 root). My son frequently left a USB stick in its port without unmounting it between sessions. BING used to recognize it as HD-1. I mention this because I could imagine that this might be the starting point of the difficulties described hereafter(?).

After installation of LM17 my son did not boot the new OS but instead booted the familiar LM12 several times successfully from HD-0 (I do not know whether the USB stick was plugged in during these successful HDD boots). During one of those sessions I searched for the Thunderbird profile folder. Maybe I even had a look at GParted but nothing that in my opinion could have affected the partitioning scheme. Nevertheless the system was halted on reboot.

[img]http://up.picr.de/19177910kt.jpg[/img]

When rebooting with the BING 1.87 CD the only option I got was „Upgrade BootIt NG“. After some poking around in the fog (e.g. manually choosing the EMBRM partition or letting setup choose the partition, different restarts with the LM12 and 17 live DVD's with and without the USB stick in its port, resizing the EMBRM without changing the size and even deleting the EMBRM altogether) I got the additional BING options „Reactivate BootIt NG“ and „Capture MBR“. All attempts but the last to boot from the hard drive ended up in a system halt. „Capture MBR“ asked for a file name but I did not know what to put there. Whatever name I inserted led to an error. When I tried to install BIBM it even did not recognize my HDD.

[img]http://up.picr.de/19177911dt.jpg[/img]

[img]http://up.picr.de/19177912eu.jpg[/img]

At one specific time I even ended up with losing all partitions except one of the Linuxes plus the Linux Swap but succeeded in undeleting the other partitions plus some old rubbish.j

What can I do to repair the MBR and EMBRM? (unfortunately a backup of the EMBRM does not exist). The WinXP partition could be sacrificed. It is obsolete anyway and does not contain essential data.

[TeraByte Support(PP)]

Have you checked the drive cable and connections are good?

Does the drive still show up normally in the BIOS? Does it show up normally when you use Partition Work from the BING CD?

Have you checked the drive for errors (bad sectors, S.M.A.R.T. status, etc.)? Bad sectors in the wrong places can cause serious problems. Most drive manufacturers have a tool you can download and boot to run tests on the drive.

[TeraByte Support]

See http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=231


"sigi" wrote in message news:8535@public.bootitng...

My son has been using LxMint12 and WinXP in a multi-boot system (two primary
partitions on one hard drive) for a long time with BING 1.87 as Boot Manager
(bootloader for LM12 in the root directory).

A few days ago I installed an additional LxMint17 partition (bootloader in
LM17 root). My son frequently left a USB stick in its port without
unmounting it between sessions. BING used to recognize it as HD-1. I mention
this because I could imagine that this might be the starting point of the
difficulties described hereafter(?).

After installation of LM17 my son did not boot the new OS but instead booted
the familiar LM12 several times successfully from HD-0 (I do not know
whether the USB stick was plugged in during these successful HDD boots).
During one of those sessions I searched for the Thunderbird profile folder.
Maybe I even had a look at GParted but nothing that in my opinion could have
affected the partitioning scheme. Nevertheless the system was halted on
reboot.

[img]http://up.picr.de/19177910kt.jpg[/img]

When rebooting with the BING 1.87 CD the only option I got was ?Upgrade
BootIt NG". After some poking around in the fog (e.g. manually choosing the
EMBRM partition or letting setup choose the partition, different restarts
with the LM12 and 17 live DVD's with and without the USB stick in its port,
resizing the EMBRM without changing the size and even deleting the EMBRM
altogether) I got the additional BING options ?Reactivate BootIt NG" and
?Capture MBR". All attempts but the last to boot from the hard drive ended
up in a system halt. ?Capture MBR" asked for a file name but I did not know
what to put there. Whatever name I inserted led to an error. When I tried to
install BIBM it even did not recognize my HDD.

[img]http://up.picr.de/19177911dt.jpg[/img]

[img]http://up.picr.de/19177912eu.jpg[/img]

At one specific time I even ended up with losing all partitions except one
of the Linuxes plus the Linux Swap but succeeded in undeleting the other
partitions plus some old rubbish.j

What can I do to repair the MBR and EMBRM? (unfortunately a backup of the
EMBRM does not exist). The WinXP partition could be sacrificed. It is
obsolete anyway and does not contain essential data.

[sigi]

Concernig HDD:

- HD-0 shows up normally in BIOS.

- HD-0 long test through "LinuxMint Menu > accessories > disks > selftest" completed successfully (Image 1).


- Concernig (E)MBR:

- I cannot boot from HD-0. It says: "Read error loading EMBRM! System Halted!" (Image 2)
- When booting from BING-CD I can see my 3 OS's and I can open "View MBR" (Image 3) and insert/delete and move up/down items and see this reflected correctly in LM17 live session GParted (Image 4)

- I cannot see anything wrong about the EMBR properties (Image 5) except perhaps for the size of the first partition in Image 6: Is the size "< 1 MB" correct? Should this be resized to 1 MB? Is there an alignment problem?



To sum up I am uncertain whether the EMBR has also been overwritten (section 1 or section 2 of GRUB Article #3 applicable?). In fact I am pretty sure that I have installed the bootloaders of LM12 and LM17 to their respective root partitions.


-----------------------------------------------

Since I am only allowed to upload 3 attachments at a time, I had to combine the images in groups of two resulting in a poor quality for which I aplogize.

[TeraByte Support]

it may have been or the BIOS is not allowing the full size of the drive
because the geometry is off. Similar to
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=486

if all the partitions are good (doesn't say errors exist) , you could try
reinstalling BIBM.

"sigi" wrote in message news:8542@public.bootitng...

Concernig HDD:

- HD-0 shows up normally in BIOS.

- HD-0 long test through "LinuxMint Menu > accessories > disks >
selftest" completed successfully (Image 1).


- Concernig (E)MBR:

- I cannot boot from HD-0. It says: "Read error loading EMBRM! System
Halted!" (Image 2)
- When booting from BING-CD I can see my 3 OS's and I can open "View MBR"
(Image 3) and insert/delete and move up/down items and see this reflected
correctly in LM17 live session GParted (Image 4)

- I cannot see anything wrong about the EMBR properties (Image 5) except
perhaps for the size of the first partition in Image 6: Is the size "< 1 MB"
correct? Should this be resized to 1 MB? Is there an alignment problem?



To sum up I am uncertain whether the EMBR has also been overwritten (section
1 or section 2 of GRUB Article #3 applicable?). In fact I am pretty sure
that I have installed the bootloaders of LM12 and LM17 to their respective
root partitions.


-----------------------------------------------

Since I am only allowed to upload 3 attachments at a time, I had to combine
the images in groups of two resulting in a poor quality for which I
aplogize.

[sigi]

Concerning your link http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=486:


Solution 1 (BIOS to use LBA Mode)

- Type: AUTO (options: not installed, AUTO, CD/DVD, ARMD
- LBA/Large Mode: AUTO (options: disabled, AUTO)

It appears that the best option is set in both items.


Solution 2

- Applied step 3 (Fill E-CHS button) for every partition and checked for errors by pressing „Edit“ (there were none except for EMBRM)
- Resized EMBRM without changing its size and corrected an indicated error
- Omitted step 5 because I still used BING and not BIBM


Result:

The first partition (which had erroneously been named „LxMint12“ in Attachment 6 of my last posting but is in fact the newly installed LxMint17) was now at the very beginning. The former first partition (size "<1 MB") had gone.

LxMint12 and WinXP were bootable from HDD but LxMint17 was not. I tried to slide the latter downwards by 8 MB and ended up with a first partition of 7 MB. But LxMint17 remained unbootable. Resizing it without changing its size did not change anything either.

After these measures my son was busy in LxMint12, whch he had booted normally from HDD. But when starting up the next time he got again the message "Read error loading EMBRM! System Halted!"

Is it significant for the problem that the HDD is configured as Primary Slave?

How can I proceed from here? Please help.

[TeraByte Support]

you should probably upgrade to BIBM which can maintain the geometry better.
Do the fix then enable the 1MiB alignment option.



"sigi" wrote in message news:8550@public.bootitng...

Concerning your link

[
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=486
](http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=486)

:


Solution 1 (BIOS to use LBA Mode)

- Type: AUTO (options: not
installed, AUTO, CD/DVD, ARMD
- LBA/Large Mode: AUTO (options: disabled,
AUTO)

It appears that the best option is set in both items.


Solution 2

- Applied step 3 (Fill E-CHS button) for every partition and checked
for errors by pressing ?Edit" (there were none except for EMBRM)
- Resized EMBRM without changing its size and corrected an indicated
error
- Omitted step 5 because I still used BING and not BIBM


Result:

The first partition (which had erroneously been named ?LxMint12"
in Attachment 6 of my last posting but is in fact the newly installed
LxMint17) was now at the very beginning. The former first partition (size
"<1 MB") had gone.

LxMint12 and WinXP were bootable from HDD but LxMint17 was not. I tried to
slide the latter downwards by 8 MB and ended up with a first partition of 7
MB. But LxMint17 remained unbootable. Resizing it without changing its
size did not change anything either.

After these measures my son was busy in LxMint12, whch he had booted
normally from HDD. But when starting up the next time he got again the
message "Read error loading EMBRM! System Halted!"

Is it significant for the problem that the HDD is configured as Primary
Slave?

How can I proceed from here? Please help.

[sigi]

In my last posting I wrote that after clicking the Fill E-CHS button in BING, both WinXP and LM12 could be booted from HDD but LM17 could not. LM17 had then 7 MB Free Space in front.

Upon your last posting I installed the trial version of BIBM and checked the options "Use MBR Geometry" and "Align on 1 Mib Boundaries" (Align on End was already checked). However, this did not render LM17 bootable. The only change was that the Free Space in front at the beginning of HD-0 had increased from 7 MB to 8 MB.

What else can I try now to get LM17 booted? Should I additionally check "Align MBR Ending HS" and "Align MBR HS when Truncated"?

----------------

By the way - what does "HS" stand for? I have not found the meaning anywhere.

[sigi]

Hello,

can I still hope for an answer? A short provisional comment could already help me to make a decision as to whether still work on reviving the LM17 or re-install it. I would still prefer reviving it if it was possible in a timely manner.

Please indicate in your (intermediate) reply what the letters "HS" in "Align MBR Ending HS" and "Align MBR HS when Truncated" stand for?



sigi wrote:
> In my last posting I wrote that after clicking the Fill E-CHS button in
> BING, both WinXP and LM12 could be booted from HDD but LM17 could not. LM17
> had then 7 MB Free Space in front.
>
> Upon your last posting I installed the trial version of BIBM and checked
> the options "Use MBR Geometry" and "Align on 1 Mib
> Boundaries" (Align on End was already checked). However, this did not
> render LM17 bootable. The only change was that the Free Space in front at
> the beginning of HD-0 had increased from 7 MB to 8 MB.
>
> What else can I try now to get LM17 booted? Should I additionally check
> "Align MBR Ending HS" and "Align MBR HS when
> Truncated"?
>
> ----------------
>
> By the way - what does "HS" stand for? I have not found the
> meaning anywhere.

[TeraByte Support(TP)]

sigi wrote:
> Hello,
>
> can I still hope for an answer? A short provisional comment could already help me to
> make a decision as to whether still work on reviving the LM17 or re-install it. I
> would still prefer reviving it if it was possible in a timely manner.
>
> Please indicate in your (intermediate) reply what the letters "HS" in
> "Align MBR Ending HS" and "Align MBR HS when Truncated" stand
> for?
>
>
>
> sigi wrote:
> > In my last posting I wrote that after clicking the Fill E-CHS button in
> > BING, both WinXP and LM12 could be booted from HDD but LM17 could not. LM17
> > had then 7 MB Free Space in front.
> >
> > Upon your last posting I installed the trial version of BIBM and checked
> > the options "Use MBR Geometry" and "Align on 1 Mib
> > Boundaries" (Align on End was already checked). However, this did not
> > render LM17 bootable. The only change was that the Free Space in front at
> > the beginning of HD-0 had increased from 7 MB to 8 MB.
> >
> > What else can I try now to get LM17 booted? Should I additionally check
> > "Align MBR Ending HS" and "Align MBR HS when
> > Truncated"?
> >
> > ----------------
> >
> > By the way - what does "HS" stand for? I have not found the
> > meaning anywhere.

I take it that you currently have 3 operating systems installed (1 Windows, 2 Linux), and 2 of the 3 are currently booting Ok from the BING boot menu? And the third one (Linux Mint 17) is not booting when you try to boot it from the BING boot menu?

If so, what happens when you try to boot LM17 from the BING boot menu? Any error messages?
For the LM17 partition, if you look at Partition Work - Properties for that partition, what does it say for "Bootable" status in the Additional Information section? (Bootable: Yes or Bootable: No).

The "HS" stands for head and sectors - please see page 30 of the BING manual.