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Thread ID: 60213	2005-07-26 03:57:00	Autochk program not found	Kiwi-Wombat (8426)	Press F1

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
375411	2005-07-26 03:57:00	I previously posted a similar post but that resolved itself. It has now reappereared in a different format I have an 80GB SATA drive partitioned into two NTFS partitions. I use Partition Magic to do the partitioning and Acronis as my backup software. Partition 1 is C: drive - XP Home. Partition 2 contains a duplicate of C: (to be able to test new programs and drivers etc.). The duplicate is created by restoring a backup to the unallocated partition. Partition 2 becomes G: drive (I have a data drive with 3 partitions D, E & F) and if I make it visible and use XP's own boot.ini file to switch between the partitions, everything works fine. However I don't want the two partitions visible. I could go into detail if you really want, but essentially if the two drives see each other, other software clashes. So I make partition 2 hidden, remove the drive letter and alter the boot.ini file so that it thinks that there is only one drive. Now if I use a 3rd party boot program (in this case PQ boot) it makes partition 2 active and hides partition 1. Partition 2 is now effectively C: drive. This worked for a while but if I then wipe the 2nd partition and install a new copy (from a backup), when the reboot takes place I get an error message "autochk program not found, Skipping Auto Check". It reboots and tries again always with the same result. It loops contiuously until I use a rescue disk to make partition 1 active again. FSISK tells me that the 2nd partition is active but I think it is seeing the first partition. I have looked at the registry and yes there is an entry with autochk * at the appropriate place. I asked Acronis who say it is a problem withPQboot and Norton's say that it is a driver issue and to contact Microsoft. Does anyone have an answer?	Kiwi-Wombat (8426)
375412	2005-07-26 04:10:00	I think you are playing with fire with this sort of thing . Possibly reinstalling the boot manager after any major alteration (like "wipe[ing] the 2nd partition and install[ing] a new copy") would help . But it's likely to be flakey anyway . Some people like living dangerously . :)	Graham L (2)
375413	2005-07-26 09:15:00	Nothing like a bit of danger lol Trouble is it worked perfectly for years with WIN 98. It is only since the change to WIN XP it hasn't worked. I know other people have 2nd aprtitions for testing software etc, how do they do it??	Kiwi-Wombat (8426)
375414	2005-07-26 09:36:00	They usually do a clean install XP and partition the hdd thru the XP setup screen. Check out this forum www.techspot.com	Speedy Gonzales (78)
375415	2005-07-27 11:31:00	This is a new install of XP on a new computer . The partions were set up using PArtition Magic and a copy of XP installed on both . The boot swapping worked well until I wiped the second partition and put a new one on . I read the thread you gave . There are two fixes mentioned - deleting a Microsoft hotfix but, I don't have that on my PC anyway . The other is using ptedit . exe to change the partition type from hex 0x17 to hex 0x07 . I ran this and although I wasn't sure what I was looking at, I certainly found a box which said '17' . I changed this to 07 but still didn't fix the problem . When I think about ptedit some more, I could be mistaken but I think '17' means hidden and '07' means visible . As I mentioned before when both partitions are visible there is no difficulty . However with both partitions visible, Zone Alarm doesn't work properly . It loses its program permissions (see another post of mine) . Therefore one partition must be hidden at all times . PQBoot is designed to do this . If you are in the first partition and you run it, you can set the second partition active and it automatically hides the first partition and vice versa . So back to square one and not knowing what is causing it	Kiwi-Wombat (8426)
375416	2005-08-02 03:44:00	Go figure this one I found I already had ptedit and a windows based version, because I have Partition Magic. I spent hours playing around and eventually decided to restore an earlier backup (probably a month old). I restored the same copy to both Partition 1 and Partition 2 and booted between them without any problems. I then slowly reinstalled everything that I had done over the previous month, continually taking backups of Partition 1 and restoring them to Partition 2. Every time it booted to the second drive OK. Now I am up to date and it works fine. So what caused it? I don't know but thanks for those that offered help	Kiwi-Wombat (8426)
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