Restoring Vista HOWTO

From Genunix

Recognizing the Problem

---

Symptom 1

   Install may fail with the following error message
       'Not enough free space'

Symptom 2

   fdisk will fail with the following error message
       'fdisk: Cannot Create partition table'

Run 'fdisk -d <device>' to confirm this problem:

   *If Solaris is not installed on this system, you can boot using the

install CD/DVD

   and early in the install process select the option to exit to shell.

   Example:
       # fdisk -d c0d0p0
       Physical Geometry:
         cylinders[30400] heads[255] sectors[63]
         sector size[512] blocks[488376000] mbytes[896]
       Virtual (HBA) Geometry:
         cylinders[30400] heads[255] sectors[63]
         sector size[512] blocks[488376000] mbytes[896]
       Partition Table Entry Values:
         SYSID ACT BHEAD BSECT BEGCYL   EHEAD ESECT ENDCYL   RELSECT

NUMSECT

         191   128 0     1     1        254   63    1023     16065

488359935

         100   0   0     0     0        0     0     0        100

100

         100   0   0     0     0        0     0     0        100

100

         100   0   0     0     0        0     0     0        100

100

   The maximum disk capacity is shown in the blocks  as 488376000
   The highest sector allocated is calculated from the partition table
       16065 + 488359935   which is 488376000

  If the highest sector allocated is greater than the disk capacity we

have the problem.

Workaround

---

   At present we are only likely to experience this problem with

Windows Vista.

   The simplest workaround is to boot Windows Vista and shrink the last

partition.

   Windows -> Control Panel
   System Maintenance
   Administrative Tools -> Create and format hard disk partitions
   Right Clock on the rightmost partition and choose Shrink Volume

   Shrink the volume by 9 MB

   Complete the Windows operations and reboot to install Solaris

If you dual boot a system with Solaris Express Developer Edition on Windows Vista:

• Two partitions on the same disk, one has Vista, one has Solaris
• BIOS boot to MBR

If the MBR finds GRUB from its table, then GRUB finds the Solaris OS from the Solaris partition, but CAN NOT recognize Vista and Vista can not be reached anymore, even though its partition is intact. Here is how to fix it, bypassing GRUB.

1. Change boot order to boot from CD/DVD.

2. Use the Vista Anytime Upgrade DVD to boot the system.

3. Enter the Vista recover environment (RE), selected the language and wanted to repair the system option.

4. If you don't see any operating system listed in the window, just click next.

5. Use the first choice to fix the windows boot problem automatically.

If after a few seconds it reports that it fails, try the following.

6. Select the command line option and start DOS to view C: and verify that all the files are still there.

7. Type

diskpart

then select the Vista partition, and type

active

(if the partition is not already active). This is very important, because by doing this the MBR table changes its active partition entry from the Solaris partition to the Vista partition. Then, when the BIOS boots to the MBR, the MBR directly points to the Vista partition. Thus GRUB will not be touched at this point.

8. Then type

bootrec /fixboot

bootrec fixMBR

to get a report showing whether the problem is fixed.

9. Reboot the system and enter the Vista recovery environment. If the fix applied correctly, Vista will show up in the list.

10. Select Vista from the list and click next. Vista automatically detects that there is a booting problem and asks if you want to allow Vista to fix the problem. Say 'yes'. Vista will report that the problem is fixed. Reboot the system and Vista should once again be bootable OS.