"Invalid partition table" error, but the system boots

[Yossu]

A couple of days ago, I cloned my main drive, deleted the partitions, did a failed reinstall of Windows, deleted the partitions again and cloned the backup back on to the same drive.

Ever since then, when I boot the machine, it gets past the BIOS stage, then I get the message "Invalid partition table" on a black screen. If I press the space bar, it continues to load Windows as if nothing had happened.

On the one hand, pressing the space bar is a mild inconvenience. On the other, an invalid partition table doesn't sound good, and if I can sort it out, I would like to.

Anyone any ideas? Thanks

 

[Trouble]

From what I can determine, that particular message / error is most often a product of having more than one partion on the system marked as "Active".

 

[Yossu]

From what I can determine, that particular message / error is most often a product of having more than one partion on the system marked as "Active".

Hmm, according to the Disk Management section of Computer Management, it looks like I only have one active partition on my main drive, which is the system reserved partition. The one that contains Windows and my program files, etc doesn't look like it's marked as active. Please see the attached picture.

Any ideas? Thanks

 

[Trouble]

That looks pretty much as it should.
Is that the complete list of drives attached to your computer?
IF it is then the problem must be elsewhere.
I think I'd probably run the native Check Disk utility and see if that produced any helpful information.
Elevated Command Prompt -> chkdsk C: /R
hit enter and answer "Y" when prompted
reboot and let it run.
It's a terabyte drive so it'll take a while.
Check event viewer after the system auto reboots when check disk completes and see if it gives you anything pertinent.

 

[Yossu]

Hello,

No, I have a second internal disk and an external disk. Please see the attached picture.

I suspect that the problem is with the main drive, as it only started after I cloned the backup back onto the drive. The other disks haven't been touched.

I'll run the check after I finish tonight. haven't time to do it during the day.

Thanks

 

[Trouble]

Still looks absolutely normal as far as I can tell.

I have a second internal disk and an external disk.

Does the system behave any differently without the external attached?

 

[Yossu]

Still looks absolutely normal as far as I can tell.

Does the system behave any differently without the external attached?

Nope

 

[Trouble]

I think I'd probably just go ahead and run Check Disk and see if that helped resolve the issue or at least provided some insight as to what is going on with that disk.

 

[ram1220]

It sounds as if the disk was cloned but was not made bootable. Go back into the program that you used to clone the disk. Make sure you select an option similar to "Clone disk and make it Bootable." It sounds as if your MBR info was not cloned.

 

[Yossu]

It sounds as if the disk was cloned but was not made bootable. Go back into the program that you used to clone the disk. Make sure you select an option similar to "Clone disk and make it Bootable." It sounds as if your MBR info was not cloned.

I used Macrium Reflect Free, and it didn't have an option to clone and make bootable. It just had an option to clone, which I did to take the backup, then I did the same thing in reverse to restore from the backup.

Not that I could restore from that backup now anyway, as it was Sunday when I restored, and a lot has changed on the disk since then.

What I don't understand is why I get the error if the disk is still bootable. As I said, all I need to do is hit the space bar and it boots as normal. I'd just like to get rid of the error.

Thanks

 

[Yossu]

Just come back up after the reboot, and I can't see anything in the event viewer that looks wrong. I can see four events from "Ntfs (Microsoft-Windows-Ntfs)" which are all of the form...

Volume C: (\Device\HarddiskVolume2) is healthy. No action is needed.
Volume D: (\Device\HarddiskVolume3) is healthy. No action is needed.
Volume \\?\Volume{bed84266-0000-0000-0000-100000000000} (\Device\HarddiskVolume1) is healthy. No action is needed.
Volume F: (\Device\HarddiskVolume5) is healthy. No action is needed.

C: is my main drive (the one I scanned), D: is the second HDD (internal) and F: is the external HDD.

Not sure if those events are anything to do with the scan, as I only asked it to scan drive C:. Can't see anyhting else in there related to drives.

Does that help? Thanks again.

 

[Trouble]

If you used the native Check Disk utility, you should be able to find the specific reference to it within
Windows Logs -> Application Log
You can use the find function from the menu "Action" item to search for chkdsk and the details should be contained there.

 

[Yossu]

If you used the native Check Disk utility, you should be able to find the specific reference to it within
Windows Logs -> Application Log
You can use the find function from the menu "Action" item to search for chkdsk and the details should be contained there.

I did what you suggested in post #3, but there's nothing in the application log for chkdsk.

Any ideas?

 

[Yossu]

Anyone able to help?

 

[Trouble]

there's nothing in the application log for chkdsk.

I'm at a loss to figure out what the problem might be.
Since I do a fair amount of computer repair work, I applied a filter to my Windows Application log for "chkdsk" which provided a list of recent events as shown in the attached file.
IF after performing a chkdsk on your drive you do not have at least one such event log entry, I cannot explain.

 

[Yossu]

How odd. I just checked again, and made sure my filters were set like yours, but nothing there. I also tried checking all of the checkboxes under the Event Level section, but it still didn't show anything.

As it happens, I ran HDTune a few weeks ago on this drive and it came up clean as a whistle, so I'm not worried about drive errors. Everything seems to work fine, it's just the annoyance of having to press the space bar every time I boot up to get past the "Invalid partition table" message.

Any ideas what I do now? Thanks

 

[Trouble]

Does the error / message look like it is being produced by Windows, or....
More like a message being produced by your system firmware BIOS??
You may have a look in your BIOS to see if there is anything you can change with respect to behavior as it relates to errors during POST.
Sometimes there is an area where you can change what causes the system to "Halt" under various circumstances.

 

[Yossu]

Looks like the error comes before Windows loads. I get the Dell logo, then some text showing a few details, including the two disks in the machine, then it briefly shows a black screen with a blinking cursor in the top-left (like in the old days before Windows, when we only had a command line interface to the machine), then it comes up with this message. I hit the space bar, and then get the pale blue Windows logo with the spinning dots while it loads Windows.

Can you clarify what you mean about the BIOS. That's not a place I go too regularly, and am not sure what I'm looking for.

Thanks

 

[Trouble]

Can you clarify what you mean about the BIOS

BIOS or Basic Input Output System is otherwise referred to as the System Setup or System Configuration Utility
On most Dells

Press the "F2" key when you see the initial screen displaying the BIOS provider information. If using the Optiplex and Dimension models, press the "DEL" key instead of the "F2" key.

Unfortunately, depending on the age, and model every BIOS is at least slightly different.
IF.... the message is being produced by some error handling by the BIOS you may have to hunt around for anything that might actually apply to your particular issue.
It may be labeled as "error handling" or maybe something a little less specific, something like "POST behavior" with some reference to "Halt On"

Armed with specific information as to your exact model number you may find some information as to how to address the problem using Google or perhaps directly from Dell using your Service Tag Number.

 

[Yossu]

OK, next time I reboot I'll have a look and see what I can find.

Do I take it that you are looking for a way to ignore the message, rather than try and work out why I'm getting it? It doesn't seem to be causing me any problems, but I would like to know why I get such a drastic sounding message!

Thanks