Partition Magic magically trashed a partition of my disk.

[pop]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Sorry; think we're just trapped in a syntax loop of some kind.
By XP drives, all I meant was NTFS, really.
"Partiton (drive)" just meant a drive letter on the drive. Not
clear I suppose.
....
| > 2. Why would upgrading the BIOS have any impact on XP
drives?

| > The primary boot partition is on a different partition
(drive),

| > assume C:, and **all the problems are on D:,** a second
partition,
| > which may be trashed, I guess. I can see the second
partition
| > being screwed, but not the bootable partition?
| > What am I missing?
So, I didn't indicate anything about C: either.
|
| Maybe I missed something else. The OP said they increased D:
and it was
| D: that became unusable. Where did they mention that C:
disappeared or
| became unusable? Where did you see the OP say the D: partition
was on
| another drive? He lists only 1 drive which presumably has 2
partitions
| on it, the primary partition (first one) for C: - and which
still
| works - and an extended partition with the logical D: drive in
it - and
| that's the one that is screwed up.
|
| I never discussed the C: partition. I discussed what might
work for the
| partition that got changed and then didn't function for the OP
under
| their current hardware setup. The C: drive (probably the first
| partition and a primary partition) sounds like it is still
working for
| the OP; otherwise, they wouldn't be booting into Windows to
notice the
| difficulties with the D: drive (on the SAME hard disk but in an
extended
| partition with a logical drive defined within it; I assumed the
OP is
| using basic volumes and not dynamic volumes).
....
Me neither; Since I also use PM 8.01 (aka 8.1 elsewhere in the
thread) , I was interested in what the implications for my own
system might be, nothing more. I have two 80Gig and a 160Gig,
all fine, all accessible, and I've updated BIOS's more than once,
meaning, the "problem" is contrary to my experience so how do I
watch for it? The 160 Gig is nothing but a backup archive disk,
capable of being booted if it were set up to be C:.

From the rest of the thread, I suspect his BIOS did have had
something to do with it but I also get the idea he did a lot of
fiddling along the way; wish the OP would come back and let us
know for sure. Maybe he will yet.

At any rate, it's a great example of why backup/archive is so
important, especially when one is going to mess with a disk
structure and move lower level marks around the platters.

Regards,

Pop

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

no overlay manager - it's an Biostar TA64 and I have searched high and
low for a bios update. Not ever the evil people at esupport could help me.


Vanguard wrote:

>"Jeff W" <ms-newsRemoveForSpam@kwcpa.com> wrote in message
>news:OSM6bG5zEHA.3408@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>> vanguard - you're on point as usual.
>>
>> C was fine. D got messed up.
>>
>> I don't think the 137Gb limit had anything to do with it.
>>
>> There are no upgrades for my BIOS.
>>
>> I'm not using an ATA card.
>>
>> It just seems like PM8 can't properly re-size partitions in XP (SP2)
>
>
>You never mention which brand and model you have for a motherboard so
>there is no way anyone can check for you to verify that there is no BIOS
>update for it. If it is some name-brand jobber, like Dell or Gateway,
>that slaps in whatever motherboard meets the specs and is cheapest the
>week when the box got slapped together, you would have to open it up and
>look inside to see whose motherboard they happened to use. If it is
>their branded motherboard then you are stuck looking for BIOS updates at
>their web site.
>
>Here's a thought: you didn't load some overlay manager into the
>bootstrap area of the MBR, did you, like Ontrack's or Maxtor's drive
>manager?
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Pop- the bios had nothing to do with it. No fiddling. I sat down at
my XP machine with FAT32 partitions. ram PM8 (no updates available at
the website), and told it to extend. It did. but poof, from that point
on XP concluded there was no file system on that partition.

It's possible that because the disk was formatted for WIN98SE, PM did a
bad job revising the partition table for XP
/j

Pop wrote:

>Sorry; think we're just trapped in a syntax loop of some kind.
>By XP drives, all I meant was NTFS, really.
>"Partiton (drive)" just meant a drive letter on the drive. Not
>clear I suppose.
>...
>| > 2. Why would upgrading the BIOS have any impact on XP
>drives?
>
>| > The primary boot partition is on a different partition
>(drive),
>
>| > assume C:, and **all the problems are on D:,** a second
>partition,
>| > which may be trashed, I guess. I can see the second
>partition
>| > being screwed, but not the bootable partition?
>| > What am I missing?
>So, I didn't indicate anything about C: either.
>|
>| Maybe I missed something else. The OP said they increased D:
>and it was
>| D: that became unusable. Where did they mention that C:
>disappeared or
>| became unusable? Where did you see the OP say the D: partition
>was on
>| another drive? He lists only 1 drive which presumably has 2
>partitions
>| on it, the primary partition (first one) for C: - and which
>still
>| works - and an extended partition with the logical D: drive in
>it - and
>| that's the one that is screwed up.
>|
>| I never discussed the C: partition. I discussed what might
>work for the
>| partition that got changed and then didn't function for the OP
>under
>| their current hardware setup. The C: drive (probably the first
>| partition and a primary partition) sounds like it is still
>working for
>| the OP; otherwise, they wouldn't be booting into Windows to
>notice the
>| difficulties with the D: drive (on the SAME hard disk but in an
>extended
>| partition with a logical drive defined within it; I assumed the
>OP is
>| using basic volumes and not dynamic volumes).
>...
>Me neither; Since I also use PM 8.01 (aka 8.1 elsewhere in the
>thread) , I was interested in what the implications for my own
>system might be, nothing more. I have two 80Gig and a 160Gig,
>all fine, all accessible, and I've updated BIOS's more than once,
>meaning, the "problem" is contrary to my experience so how do I
>watch for it? The 160 Gig is nothing but a backup archive disk,
>capable of being booted if it were set up to be C:.
>
>From the rest of the thread, I suspect his BIOS did have had
>something to do with it but I also get the idea he did a lot of
>fiddling along the way; wish the OP would come back and let us
>know for sure. Maybe he will yet.
>
>At any rate, it's a great example of why backup/archive is so
>important, especially when one is going to mess with a disk
>structure and move lower level marks around the platters.
>
>Regards,
>
>Pop
>
>
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

>
>How big is the first partition (presumably for C?
>
16GB

> Does the extended
>partition (containing the logical drive for D start immediately after
>the first partition (i.e., is there any unallocated space between the
>primary and extended partitions)?
>
YES

>It is not the *sum* of the partition
>sizes that imposes the 128GB addressing limit. That is a limit *per*
>partition.
>
The BIOS limitation is the SUM. We're not talking about per-partition
limitations here.

> However, you might run into a problem if a partition starts
>too far back. With your current hard disk, you should be able to make
>D: just shy of 128GB (137GB decimal) and C: occupy the rest up front.
>
>
no- then I run afoul of the BIOS limitation, which is on the whole DISK

>As long as the bootstrap loader in the MBR can reach the partition
>offset specified in the partition table (so it can load the boot sector
>of that partition) then each an every partition could be 128GB in size
>(if you had a really huge hard disk). With a 400GB Barracuda drive, you
>could have two 137GB partitions with a remaining 126GB partition (these
>are all decimal values). That's with basic volumes. Windows 2000/XP
>supports dynamic volumes (but I don't recall that the OS partition can
>be included) which will let you far exceed the 128GB addressing
>limitation but I suspect that is not something you want to get into
>right now.
>
>PartitionMagic will warn you if you create a partition at a cylinder
>count greater than 1023. I haven't had a problem with a partition at
>the end of the disk and of ignoring this PM warning because my BIOS
>supports LBA mode which performs geometry translation so there is always
>a max of 1024 cylinders (0 to 1023, inclusive). If you ever turned off
>LBA mode in the BIOS then a partition past cylinder 1023 would be
>unreached by the standard bootstrap loader in the MBR (although 3rd
>party boot managers might not have this limitation). However, I would
>think turning off LBA mode would have other consequences since you are
>changing the geometry translation used for the drive (i.e., you might
>have to delete all partitions and recreate them to build a new partition
>table). I've never turned off LBA mode (since I always want the full
>size available for my hard disk).
>
>http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/bios/modesLBA-c.html
>
>
I haven't touched or turned off LBA mode

>Note that I have seen PartitionMagic screw up if you have it commit LOTS
>of changes all at once.
>
no other changes made. ALL i did was resize D (generated 2 operations.
One for the partition, one for the logical dirve)

> Sometimes it reports an error but it can be
>ignored (it really was warning rather than an error). However, I have
>had it pend around a dozen operations and it screwed up and rendered one
>of my partitions in an somewhat unknown state (but the partition table
>was okay both for offset, size, and partition type so I just had to redo
>the formatting). If, say, you were going to reduce C: (primary active
>partition #1) so you could enlarge D: (logical drive in an extended
>partition #2), I would have PM just reduce the size of C: by itself,
>reboot, and then use PM to resize the extended partition (to move the
>front of it to abut against the primary partition for C and also
>resize the logical drive D: (i.e., just those 2 operations to resize
>D, reboot, and then have it format the partitions if needed. However,
>before ever using PM, I always run CHKDSK. PM does its integrity check
>of the file system but I'd rather use the OS that defined the file
>system so it checks itself and uses its own methods to fix any problems
>before letting PM have at it.
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

guys. I'm running 8.05 (5/5/04)
/j

Vanguard wrote:

>"Jeff W" <ms-newsRemoveForSpam@kwcpa.com> wrote in message
>news:Oj30Ft4zEHA.2568@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
>> Well. I'd love to - but Symantec site tells me there are no upgrades
>> available for my program. where did you get yours?
>> /j
>>
>> Richard Urban wrote:
>>
>>>Why not Partition Magic version 8.1?
>>>
>>>It has been available as an update for over a year now and solves some
>>>problems that were present in 8.0.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>
>
>Powerquest got eaten up by Symantec. Within 3 months thereafter,
>Symantec also ate up Powerquest's FTP site so ftp://ftp.powerquest.com
>disappeared and got merged into ftp://ftp.symantec.com. This is a guess
>but you might look at the files under:
>
>ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/pmagic/pmagic_8/updates/
>
>There is a pm801_patch.zip file under that directory which looks to be
>the 8.01 patch. I haven't heard of a 8.1 patch. Symantec's web page at
>http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/files/pmagic/pmagic_8_files.html lists
>the same file that I show under their FTP server.
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

8.05 5/5/04

thats what was on the CD

Pop wrote:

>Good point, though we don't know it wasn't; the OP simply said
>"8".
>
>
>"Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS@hotmail.com> wrote in
>message news:edd9Pl4zEHA.3840@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
>| Why not Partition Magic version 8.1?
>|
>| It has been available as an update for over a year now and
>solves some
>| problems that were present in 8.0.
>|
>| --
>|
>| Regards:
>|
>| Richard Urban
>|
>| aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard
>|
>|
>| "Pop" <nobody@spamcop.net> wrote in message
>| news:eyIKlo1zEHA.3656@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
>| > Guess I used my blind eye; it says PM8 very clearly. D'oh!
>| >
>| > Pop
>| >
>| >
>| > "Pop" <nobody@spamcop.net> wrote in message
>| > news:%230WPVh1zEHA.3236@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>| > | What version of PM do you have?
>| > |
>| > | Pop
>| > |
>| > | "Jeff W" <ms-newsRemoveForSpam@kwcpa.com> wrote in message
>| > | news:%23IymmfyzEHA.1400@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
>| > || This is so simple, it's tragic.
>| > ||
>| > || OS: WINXP HOME SP2
>| > || Pentium III, 733MHz, 384MB. No ATA card or other
>weirdness.
>| > || My hard disk (before): 160GB total. FAT32. (MAXTOR IDE)
>| > || Partitions: C: (system) 16GB D: 102GB
>| > ||
>| > || The D partition is used to hold backups and 'scratch'
>data,
>| > and
>| > || installations of kids games. Nothing I can't afford to
>lose,
>| > | but too
>| > || much to backup elsewhere, and a bit of a time hit to
>rebuild
>| > | it.
>| > ||
>| > || I directed PM 8 to extend the D partition from 102GB to
>120GB
>| > | (allowing
>| > || me to use 136GB of the disk, as my BIOS has a 137GB
>| > | limitation).
>| > ||
>| > || PartitionMagic did the operation totally successfully.
>| > | However, now I
>| > || cannot access any files on my D partition.
>| > ||
>| > || Windows XP believes the partition needs formatting. I
>tried a
>| > | convert
>| > || to NTFS and it says it can't convert RAW partitions.
>| > ||
>| > || PartitionMagic can see the correct amount of usage on the
>| > | partition, but
>| > || it can't convert to NTFS or browse (I think it calls
>windows
>| > | utilities
>| > || for both function).
>| > ||
>| > || I successfully used PM8 to reduce the partition back to
>its
>| > old
>| > | size,
>| > || and used system recovery to roll my registry back to
>before I
>| > | did the
>| > || extend.
>| > ||
>| > || Nothing helped. I'd really like to get this back. I'm
>peeved
>| > | that PM8
>| > || can trash a partition so shamelessly.
>| > ||
>| > || Any ideas?
>| > ||
>| > || thanks!
>| > || /j
>| > |
>| > |
>| >
>| >
>|
>|
>
>
>
>

 

[vanguard]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

"Jeff W" <ms-newsRemoveForSpam@kwcpa.com> wrote in message
news:OdmlyF%23zEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> no overlay manager - it's an Biostar TA64 and I have searched high and
> low for a bios update. Not ever the evil people at esupport could
> help me.


I could not find a model "TA64" at http://www.biostar-usa.com/. Their
listed models begin with "K", "M", "P", or "U". None start with "T".
Maybe it's too old for them to list anymore. The only BIOS utility that
I found there was at
http://www.biostar-usa.com/downloadcatsearch.asp?cat=utility. I didn't
find any .bin files that contain the BIOS update data, so maybe this
utility logs on and looks for you. I don't know how their BIOS-embedded
flash utility works but I suspect you still need to get a .bin file.

--
_________________________________________________________________
******** Post replies to newsgroup - Share with others ********
Email: lh_811newsATyahooDOTcom and append "=NEWS=" to Subject.
_________________________________________________________________

 

[vanguard]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

Without a BIOS update to add support for 48-bit addressing (and since
the underlying geometry translation provided by your BIOS for LBA mode
won't address the full span of the drive), it looks like you will get
stuck with having to use an overlay manager to get at the rest of your
hard drive. I think for Maxtor, it is their Maxblast 3 utility that
will install their disk overlay manager into the bootstrap program area
of the MBR. Since their overlay manager is usurping the MBR bootstrap
area, you won't be able to use multiboot managers, Goback, some security
products, or other tools that also want to usurp the MBR's bootstrap
area. Running FIXMBR or "FDISK /MBR" will also overwrite the MBR
bootstrap area and wipe out the disk overlay manager. I suspect the
Maxblast utility is destructive as it changes the translation geometry
used to access the drive.

--
_________________________________________________________________
******** Post replies to newsgroup - Share with others ********
Email: lh_811newsATyahooDOTcom and append "=NEWS=" to Subject.
_________________________________________________________________

 

[vanguard]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

"Jeff W" <ms-newsRemoveForSpam@kwcpa.com> wrote in message
news:%23sOSVJ%23zEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> guys. I'm running 8.05 (5/5/04)


I'm jealous.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

shoot - I'm sorry - it's a DFI motherboard (my bad). You won't find an
update there either though, I've looked
/j

Vanguard wrote:

>"Jeff W" <ms-newsRemoveForSpam@kwcpa.com> wrote in message
>news:OdmlyF%23zEHA.3808@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>> no overlay manager - it's an Biostar TA64 and I have searched high and
>> low for a bios update. Not ever the evil people at esupport could
>> help me.
>
>
>I could not find a model "TA64" at http://www.biostar-usa.com/. Their
>listed models begin with "K", "M", "P", or "U". None start with "T".
>Maybe it's too old for them to list anymore. The only BIOS utility that
>I found there was at
>http://www.biostar-usa.com/downloadcatsearch.asp?cat=utility. I didn't
>find any .bin files that contain the BIOS update data, so maybe this
>utility logs on and looks for you. I don't know how their BIOS-embedded
>flash utility works but I suspect you still need to get a .bin file.
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.newusers (More info?)

I'm no fan of overlay managers -Id' rather give up the last 38GB (i
actually went out to buy a 120GB, but this 160GB was cheaper 8-])
/j

Vanguard wrote:

>Without a BIOS update to add support for 48-bit addressing (and since
>the underlying geometry translation provided by your BIOS for LBA mode
>won't address the full span of the drive), it looks like you will get
>stuck with having to use an overlay manager to get at the rest of your
>hard drive. I think for Maxtor, it is their Maxblast 3 utility that
>will install their disk overlay manager into the bootstrap program area
>of the MBR. Since their overlay manager is usurping the MBR bootstrap
>area, you won't be able to use multiboot managers, Goback, some security
>products, or other tools that also want to usurp the MBR's bootstrap
>area. Running FIXMBR or "FDISK /MBR" will also overwrite the MBR
>bootstrap area and wipe out the disk overlay manager. I suspect the
>Maxblast utility is destructive as it changes the translation geometry
>used to access the drive.
>
>
>