Different partitions managers use different terms and even handle/allow/make certain types differently, but what I have is all consistent with MS-DOS fdisk and its maximum of either four primaries or three primaries plus an extended with multiple logical drives (even though fdisk, itself, will only make one primary before insisting upon extended with logical drives after that).
Update: I have used bootsect both in XP and in Win7 to write and/or re-write /nt52 at the beginning of (each first partition of) each of my four hard drives, and bootsect reported success in each case. However, my first SATA (drive #3 of 4) still does not even try to boot anything and there is where I had previously received this error message:
I had no idea whether bootsect might be able to fix that, but now I know it cannot. Win7 has written something there to bring about that error message, and I am still looking for a way to fix that.BPD hidden sectors should not be zero for a hard-disk partition boot sector.
My other issue still remains also, and that is that ntldr and boot.ini from any drive cannot bring XP up and get it running on any first attempt. Windows gives a "Disk Configuration Error" message, but then a machine restart will result in XP coming up and running on every second try. That matter is also related to whatever Win7 has done, and in the past I have fixed that by going back to 'fdisk /mbr' to put the Win98se loader back into first place and then again adding the /nt52. However, right now I am settling for having to restart my machine to get into XP since the next Win7 update would likely again break that just as it has done in the past.
Somebody somewhere knows about the matter of fixing BPD hidden sectors after Win7 has done whatever it has done, and so my search continues!
...and I have found him:
I will post an update after I have complete repairs.Here is what an expert has said: "Having more than 1 drive connected at the time you did the SP1 upgrade...likely did allow Windows to overwrite all sorts of code on every drive and even in the partitions of any of those with a Windows OS in them...pointing to the Win 7 install partition in an effort to make it always boot-up first."
That is exactly what has happened, and it had even broken the boot of my Win98se Startup floppy and I had to make a new one. Unless there is something somewhere in the Win7 EULA about Windows completely taking over like that, I should have been given an option just as with any non-Windows OS.
How to return drive MBRs and FATs to their pre-Win7 states | Windows Secrets Lounge
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