Boot Magic will not install

Boot Magic refuses to install, because the installer has decided there is a hidden partition with a previous installation of Boot Magic.

This is false.  What is true?  The partition with a previous installation of Boot Magic was deleted; it no longer exists.

I have done fdisk /mbr.

I also used the Revo uninstaller, which was able to remove the Boot Magic entry from the Control Panel > Add/Delete Software menu,

and also deleted information from the Windows registry.

Boot Magic still refuses to install.

Can you provide the exact text of error message when you install BootMagic?

 

--Vinod

Error message (same message appears when you attempt to uninstall Boot Magic from Control Panel)

     Boot Magic - InstallShield Wizard

     Setup cannot find the location of where Boot Magic was originally installed.

     Make sure the volume Boot Magic is installed on is visible,

     and is assigned the same drive-letter as at the time of install.

     Setup will now exit.

 

The original installation was on F: drive.  That partition was deleted.

I created a new partition to install Boot Magic on; it is also named F: drive.

I will try renaming F: to X:.  But I doubt if that will help.

Use the following Knowledge Base article to manually remove registry entries of Bootmagic:

 

http://service1.symantec.com/Support/powerquest.nsf/docid/2004016074158862

 

--Vinod

The only Boot Magic entries that still existed were in %temp%.

Deleting them did not solve the problem.

The first Norton tech support person that I talked to tried uninstalling Partition Magic, on the theory that if might have "remembered" where Boot Magic was installed.   That didn't work either, but perhaps she didn't delete the %temp% files ???

Great document – especially telling people to copy the long string, which I read as use Highlight / Copy [CTRL + C] and then Paste [CTRL + V] into the Search box on the Regedit. Saves a lot of headaches in typing!

<< The only Boot Magic entries that still existed were in %temp%. >>

 

But what about in the Registry, as per the excellent document linked to?

1. There were no entries in the registry, which did not surprise me.  The Revo uninstaller removed them.  But Revo did not remove the

%temp% entries.

 

2. You asked me to bring up my use of Linux fdisk.

I did use it, and the user interface is different -- all boundaries are specified in cylinders -- no mention of head & sector.

When fdisk converts to cylinder/head/sector, the start and end C/H/S are not on cylinder boundaries, which causes

Partition Magic to complain.  PM's recommendation -- delete everything on your hard disk [ugh!] & let me partition it.

 

But the real problem is -- the begin and end cylinder/head/sector numbers are meaningless today.

Three bytes, 2**24 sectors, times 2**9 bytes/sector, can only address 2**33 bytes = 8GB disk.

I have a 120 GB internal disk and a 500 GB external disk.

To my great surprise, PM complains about the partitions on my 120 GB, but not on my 500 GB.

Message Edited by rhmccullough on 03-26-2009 04:30 PM

I don't think you mentioned using Revo which is my tool for special cases -- one assumes that Remove Programs is normally used.

 

Nor that the partition were made with Linux, about which you know far more than I do, which is easy enough.

 

It really is important to give the full story ....

 

I'll have to leave the specialists to help you here.

Here is the full story (of my most recent attempt).

 

1. In struggling to get Partition Magic to do anything, I deleted all partitions except partition 1, which contains Windows XP Pro

    and Partition Magic.

    Partition 2, which contained Boot Magic, was deleted.

    [In my last iteration, extended partition 2 contains logical partitions 5,6,7.  Partition 5 "will contain" Boot Magic.]

    When I then tried to uninstall Boot Magic from the Control Panel menu, the uninstall failed with the same error message

           which I listed in a previous note.  The Windows installer script refused to change anything.

2. To remove the Boot Magic item from the Control Panel menu, I used Revo uninstaller.

     Revo also deleted the Boot Magic registry entries.

3. Per the special Boot Magic uninstall instructions,

     I removed the Boot Menu items from %temp%,

     and I removed the Boot Magic entries from C:/Program Files/Install...

 

4. Now, every record of Boot Magic that I know of has been removed.

    But somewhere, the Windows installer still has a record of where Boot Magic was installed.

    The Boot Magic installer executes a .msi script which finds that record,

           and refuses to "re-install" Boot Magic.

 

5. The name of the original partition 2 was "F:BOOT MAGIC" (FAT16).

    When I was ready to re-install Boot Magic, I created a new partition 5, also named "F:BOOT MAGIC" (FAT16).

 

6. In one of the iterations through this process, I deleted all partitions except partition 1, and recreated

    the partitions with Windows XP Pro Disk Management (not Linux fdisk).  PM still complained about the partitions,

    and Boot Magic still refused to install.

 

7. The only thing that gave me some control over this process was a Boot Magic rescue disk.

    Even though Boot Magic would not install, it was happy to create a rescue disk for me.

    With the rescue disk, I was able to set the active partition to 1, to boot Windows XP Pro,

     or set the active partition to 6, to boot Fedora Linux.

 

8. The GRUB Linux loader is not installed in the Master Boot Record.

    It is installed in partition 6, but the installation is not correct.

    The only consequence is -- GRUB does not read commands from its configuration file,

     and I have to manually type in four GRUB commands to complete the booting of Fedora Linux.

 

P.S. Norton priority case ID was assigned to this problem.

They kept promising me that their "research" department would call me back.

I stayed home all day for four days waiting for that call -- it never came.

 

<<Removed support case ID number from the post.>>

Message Edited by TomV on 03-27-2009 12:34 AM

I just discovered a new problem.  I checked Boot Magic documentation, and it has to be installed in a FAT partition in the first 8 GB of hard disk.  That was the way I originally configured my hard disk, about 5 years ago.  But the fact that Partition Magic now refused to do any

operations on my hard disk, eventually led to all of my partitions being deleted, and all of my operating systems being re-installed.  The 

re-installation was controlled by Linux, and has once again stuck me in a state where I cannot change the partitions.

I'm sure all that additional information will help to get you some advice on how to deal with this. I don't use PM any more since it is borderline for XP and incompatible with VISTA and subsequent created partitions (although VISTA will install inside a partition created with PM8.01).

 

If you have disk imaging software then I would have thought that the easiest and most safe procedure would be to image you partition with XP in it onto outside media and reformat the hard drive using Windows software, such as happens when you install Windows from the CD/DVD.

 

The only advantage of BootMagic that I remember from when I used it is that it hides the OS that you are not booting up to so that you can't inadvertently mess them up but if you know what you are doing then that is less important and in fact on my desktop I have 5 OS's installed and find it useful to be able to drag and drop files from one partition to another -- for example I download something on my XP partition and want it also on another so instead of having to download it twice I can just drag and drop it across to the others. But you do have to be careful if you run any utilities that scan drives and make sure they don't mess with the wrong OS -- one reason I steer clear of "registry fixers" -- I once had one fix an error in the XP OS by linking to a file on teh VISTA partition. But then I regard that kind of utility as more dangerous than helpful.

 

I use the boot menu set up by Windows itself to select between operating systems but I civilize it by using VISTABOOTPro a free utility that puts a friendly UI on BCD editing.

 

Just my POV

 

PS -- Some more information that I don't see: You have mentioned that you have XP installed in a partition but you don't mention any other operating systems. Do you have more than one OS installed? If so what are they and what order were they installed in?

 

If you don't have more than one OS installed why do you want Boot Magic?

For about 7 years, my second OS was Red Hat Linux 5.2, then Red Hat Linux 7.3.

Partition Magic and Boot Magic worked very well for me.

 

I used the Fedora 10 Live CD (downloaded .iso image) to try out Fedora, and liked it.

 

All my recent activity is an attempt to upgrade to Fedora Linux 10.

Since Partition Magic refuses to do anything on disk 1, it has been very frustrating.

I have actually re-installed Windows, Linux and some of my previous programs

several times.

 

My internal disk 1 is 120 GB.  My external disk 2 is 500 GB.

Aside from Roxio CD burner, I do not have any disk imaging software.

Copying my Windows XP partition is not trivial -- its about 15 GB used/54 GB total.

The 15 GB is a low figure -- I still haven't re-installed all the programs that I had

before I tried to update to Fedora. 

I didn't do a good job of backing up my system.

Recovering old programs amounted to copying download files from the 80 GB disk

on my laptop computer, and re-installing.

 

P.S. re Windows boot menu.

I tried that, but it failed on my system because of some problem with the hal.dll file.

My own opinion is that you are likely to take much more time trying to rescue the setup you have and end up with something that is still not right. I have not installed LINUX myself but in other places than here I read from people I respect that there are special procedures involved in setting up a mixed LINUX / Windows environment because of the way LINUX modifies the boot environment and that you have to change it back.

 

See if you get any specific suggestions but I'd suggest that your problem is not getting BootMagic to work but in getting the basic environment set up correctly after which you might find that BootMagic does install properly -- that Windows boot manager does not install must indicate something.

 

On the imaging it takes me 20 minutes to make an image of my 12GB testbeds onto an external USB connected hard drive and about 10 minutes or less to restore ....

 

I don't know about other makes of hard drive but if your main hard drive is Seagate or Maxtor (same company now) you can download free a disk management utility that actually includes Acronis TrueImage software but tailored only to work with their drives.

One step forward, two steps backward.

I got useless emails from email support people yesterday; Chat still crashes MS Internet Explorer; so I tried the phone.

 

I got a Norton tech support guy on the phone, and he solved the install problem -- yet another Windows registry uninstall record.

Ater that was removed, he (partially) installed Boot Magic.

 

But he said I should run Windows chkdsk on my hard disk, several times.

I did -- the first chkdsk appears to have changed the security descriptors on every file !!!

Now most of the Windows services cannot be started because of permission and/or dependency problems.

MIA include very crucial services, e.g., RPC, Windows Installer, Disk Management.

 

I have already re-installed Fedora.

I let GRUB install in the MBR, so I can at least boot Fedora easily.

I have to reset the active bit in MBR to boot Windows XP.

I used the Fedora installer to resize the Windows XP partition,

in hopes that I could finally get Partition Magic to "accept" the Windows XP partition. 

 

I'm still exploring the damage caused to Windows XP by changing the security descriptors. 

So far, I can't think of any reasonable alternative to re-installing Windows XP.

<< But he said I should run Windows chkdsk on my hard disk, several times.

 

I did -- the first chkdsk appears to have changed the security descriptors on every file !!! >> 

 

You don't actually say you ran chkdsk more than once. Did you? 

 

You seem to avoiding the issue that the root cause comes from the influence of LINUX on a Windows installation. I'm still not clear whether you actually have LINUX installed, this has gone on so long, or whether it is just the use of a LINUX utility to format a drive on which you are installing WIndows.

 

In my view you need to do more than reinstall WIndows. You need to back up everything you want to keep on that machine and completely clean the hard drive using Windows based utilities. Whether you need to do one of those zero out the hard drive operations I do not know but you need to do more than simply reinstall WIndows on the existing disk structure.

 

As I see it you really do not have a Norton problem at the moment but a computer problem and I can only suggest that you stop patching and get computing advice. You will find forums on Compuserve that are civilized and with helpful experienced users:

 

http://community.compuserve.com/winprohelp deals with XP Pro

 

http://community.compuserve.com/winsupport deals with XP Home

Do give full information about the system and the history of the problem including the use of LINUX

 

I'm sympathetic but I can't help more than that.

I have been dual-booting Windows XP Pro and Red Hat Linux for seven years,

using PowerQuest PartitionMagic and BootMagic.

 

All my troubles, as described on this forum, started when I decided to update

from Red Hat Linux to Fedora Linux.

 

My only "mistake" was letting Fedora adjust the partitions during installation.

(PowerQuest and Norton) PartitionMagic refuse to accept the partition table

created by Linux.

 

BootMagic, Norton Disk Doctor, Windows Disk Management, and every other

Windows  program that I know of, accept the partition table created by Linux.

Good luck -- since you say the problem was caused by something you did with LINUX then I think you have to go back to square one, without LINUX.

 

Boot Magic and Partition Magic are old and I changed from them to Acronis Disk Management because they would not be developed. Or there is Paragon too as a source.

 

But regardless of that I don't think you will get out of the situation by tinkering with one part of it.