I think I am screwed

Well, here's what happened to me...

I am planning on giving an old computer of mine to a friend at work since his is quite old. This old computer was dual booting Ubuntu and Windows XP. Since my friend has no knowledge of computers I felt it would be best to clear out Ubuntu and XP and then do a fresh XP install so it would be like new.

Now, here's where things got interesting. I had a live CD of GParted and deleted the Linux partitions and XP partitions and grew a new partition to the full size of the hard drive. Well, while it was working GParted froze. Currently GParted is showing that my new partition has 232 GB total space, 71 GB used, and 232 GB free space. Now, this is not possible and I fear the file system must be damaged. The amount of used space should be 0. I have already even tried writing the whole disk with 0's.

Problem number 2: When I try and use the Windows installation CD I cannot get to the recovery console. After the blue setup screen appears where it's loading all the drivers and says "Starting Windows" at the bottom it will crash right away with error message "PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED". This leaves me NO opportunity to run the chkdsk utility. My question is, does this sound like a damaged file system and how can I go about repairing this? The computer was working perfectly before GParted died during it's partitioning process. Suggestion of Linux utilities is welcomed as well. I have already tried ntfsfix utility in Linux. Thanks!

 

I would try a low-level disk wipe utility like the one usually available from the HD manufacturer, or try using Dariks Boot-n-Nuke. It's a bootable program that will completely zeroes the drive. It will take some time, but just let it run and it should be OK. You might also want to run a full diagnostic using the drive maker's diagnostic tool and run the extended/advanced tests.... good luck!

 

It sounds to me like this might have been caused by the G-parted disc being defective, i would bin it and burn a new one for future use.

And i +1 dlb's suggestion, boot 'n' nuke will do the job.

Q

 

Consider this a +2. The hard drive manufacturer's tools and utilities are where I usually start.

 

Thank you very much to everyone who has answered. I appreciate everything and will be trying these suggestions out tonight.

 

If you have an Ubuntu CD you could also use the partition editor to resize the disk in a NTFS format then throw XP back on it
On a side note if he is new to computers it would not be a bad idea to have both on their XP/Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is pretty user friendly and has a great community that is not jerks to noobs like other distros and is a great start point in the linux world

 

Well, I wish it were that easy. When I delete all partitions completely and create a new NTFS partition it is still showing that over 70 GB is being used, yet the entire drive is free space. This is why I cannot simply create a new partition and install XP. When I have tried that I always get the PROCESS1_INITIALIZATION_FAILED BSOD right after Windows XP tries to begin installing. Sadly, this also blocks me from pressing F8 and getting into command prompt to do a chkdsk /r.

As for Ubuntu, I do agree that it's great and very user friendly. However, I do not believe that it's for an intermediate user. My friend has many kids and I'm sure that they'll be trying to install some games, which is another reason why I wanted XP on there. I know they could always use WINE but I want to keep things as simple as possible and give them something that they are used to. I have talked to my friend and if I cannot get XP on there he said he will be happy with having Ubuntu.

Tonight I will be trying all of the advice that has been given to me and will keep this post updated. Thanks guys.

 

If I was setting something up for a computer illiterate friend I would do the same, because Windows is familiar. It is what they use at work and in school, and because it's more common it's easier to find help with it.

I'd suggest giving your friend a quick summary of Safe Computing 101 though, and especially emphasize that under no circumstances should the kids be allowed to install games they find online without those games being checked and approved by your friend first. We have lots of people posting the the Malware Forum who skipped that part of the class.

And please, report back with how you solved it! I'm curious, and it's going to help others with the same problem.

 

Attach the drive to another computer and use Admin Tools, Computer Management and Disk Management to have a look at the old hard drive. It will appear as Disk 1 and you should be able to format the 70GB partition, it was probably formatted as ext 2 or ext 3 for Ubuntu. My linux slave drive shows unknown file system (windows 2000). After you have it formatted NTFS, maybe you can extend the partitions so you have the one large hd again.
What SP is on the XP disk? I ask because I think XP and XP SP1 had restrictions on the size of hd that could be seen.

 

I'm not sure if you have a copy of Ultimate Boot CD it has a lot of tools for recovery and rescue and worth having it. A stab in the dark but maybe the MBR needs to be rebuilt and or reformatted on the HDD and you will find a tool for that on UBCD which may help. Either way it contains a lot of the main HDD makers tools so you can analyse the disk pre-OS. Potentially also of interest HOWTO: Use DBAN on UBCD to Wipe a Hard Drive, woops just realised this is the same app as suggested by dbl