Deleted Small Partition - Now Won't Boot

[leachim]

Have an XP which stuck on "Verifying DMI Pool Data.."

There was a partition of 5Mb which couldn't be read via a linux Live CD, so I assumed it was corrupted and deleted it in the hope of creating a new partition on the unpartitioned space

Reloaded the XP setup CD and now only see the main partition with the OS on it, so I can't replicate that 5Mb partition (which must have some Boot function?)

Now when I boot, I get DISK BOOT FAILURE....

Does XP really need an extra partition to boot from ?

I tried FIXBOOT and FIXMBR and comes back with an error
When the small partition was there - FIXBOOT would ask about drive E...

Any ideas ?

[nikkoo]

please use a started disk for boot
http://www.centplay.com/affiliate/id_139/

[leachim]

Thanks

I finally figured out that the main partition was not marked as ACTIVE

Took out HDD and plugged it in via USB and used Computer Management to change it