Re: Beware: Installation of "Red Hat-based" Linux distributions corruptWindows HDD!

Emeric Maschino wrote:

> I have a hp workstation i2000 (stock configuration) with 3 SCSI HDDs.
> BIOS 1.17c is currently installed (I own C0 stepping processors).
> 
> On the first HDD (/dev/sda) I had Windows XP 64-Bit Edition
> installed.
> On the second HDD (/dev/sdb) I successfully installed Taroon Beta
> 2. elilo was installed on /dev/sdb1 with /dev/sdb2 being my root
> partition.
> /dev/sda was keeped untouched (manual partioning was chosen during
> the installation process and nothing was set for /dev/sda).
> Everything seems OK, but when choosing Windows in the EFI boot menu,
> I can see the Starting Windows progress bar, then the Windows screen
> with the blue K2000 activity cursor for a few seconds and finally
> the following BSOD:

> Technical information:
> *** STOP: 0x0000007B (0xE0000165CCADB630, 0xFFFFFFFFC0000034,
> 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000)

This usually means a driver problem - if the filesystem was damaged you
usually won't come that far. So let's look at the hardware first. Did
you change *anything* with the hardware after the last time your WinXP
booted successfully? Linke upgrading the BIOS, installing a different
mainboard, upgrading a firmware, installing another SCSI (maybe even any
other card if it changes the interrupt) or installing/changing a
harddrive? If so, undo any changes (get the computer into the state when
it booted WinXP successfully) and retry booting WinXP. If it still
fails, do a hardware check on the WinXP drive - it's unlikely but
possible that you got harddisk damage.

> So, I started up my system with the Windows installation CD-ROM and
> try to run the check disk utility as suggested from a repair console.
> 
> Unfortunately, running it with whatever parameters (nothing, /P or
> /R, BTW /F is not a valid parameter!) gives the following error
> message:
> 
> The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable problems.

This may be harddisk physical damage, partition damage or a hardware
conflict (new/unsupported SCSI card, wrongly jumpered harddisks (SCSI ID
allocation). Try to undo any changes you made to find out where the
problem is.

> How to repeat this problem: very easily indeed!
> Install Windows on a HDD (I'm running the original Windows XP 64-
> Bit Edition, not the Version 2003 release).
> Install a Red Hat "based" distribution (both Taroon Beta 2 and White
> Box Linux were tested) and try to boot Windows again...
> It should be noted that old Red Hat releases (at least 7.1 and 7.
> 2) don't show this problem. I don't remember for 2.1AW.
> 
> I know Taroon is beta and White Box Linux is not a Red Hat product
> but they're all using SRPMS from Red Hat. I don't have a RHEL3 to
> test (not supported in any case on first-generation Itanium systems).
> 
> I haven't tested if this problem can occurs when Windows and Linux
> are installed on the same physical HDD with distinct partitions
> and/or if this problem is IA64 specific.

Which of the two did you try first, or did you try on different
machines? Did it detect or even mount your WinXP filesystem (NTFS I
guess?)? There is a reason why Red Hat doesn't enable NTFS support -
it's still dangerous, especially if you mount read-write. I don't think
Taroon beta 2 had NTFS support, so I'm wondering if you tried it on a
new machine or if you just see the problem as created by White Box
Linux. Could you also try again with RHL7.1 or RHL7.2 on a new (or newly
installed) machine to find out if they relly don't show this behavior?
For me, based on the information you have supplied, this looks like a
hardware conflict or WinXP driver problem.

Best regards,
Martin Stricker
-- 
Homepage: http://www.martin-stricker.de/
Linux Migration Project: http://www.linux-migration.org/
Red Hat Linux 9 for low memory: http://www.rule-project.org/
Registered Linux user #210635: http://counter.li.org/


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