Partition Magic 8 and XP Pro

[pawz]

hello all. I have recently Ghosted my files and OS (XP Pro) to a bright and shiny new 40 Gb HDD.
Somehow, although all the partitioning seemed to go just fine in FDisk, after I had ghosted I ended up with a larger C drive and the other logical drives smaller, and 78 MB free (I figured it might be because there were less logical drives on the source drive and Ghost only converted to NTFS in the drives it actually wrote to on the destination drive, which had been probably been formatted in FAT32 - but that is all speculation on my part). So, to try and sort it without having to go through the tedious process of re-partitioning and installing everything from scratch and not use Ghost at all,I bought Partition Magic 8 so that I could resize the partitions the way I want them from within the Windows environment.

All appears ok until the reboot and then, after the resizing process is begun, error message 983 comes up, which is that there are too many errors and that the process has been halted.

I have done all the usual things - checked the disk with Windows tools, checked with Partition Magics PartitionInfo, defragged. Nothing has helped. I see from the web that this was a known problem with Partition Magic 6 because - Microsoft says - that version could not handle the NTFS version 3.1 which XP Pro uses. But this is PM 8 and it is said to be compatible with XP. I am not the only one who has had this problem,; most of the hits I turned up when searching for info were from forums where people were asking for help because this same thing has happened to them.

Can anyone advise please?

 

[Marcs41]

Not that it is of much help now, but for others: why spend money on things like Partition Magic, Ghost etc., while for the same price you can buy a much larger (and faster) disk.

Marc
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[pawz]

Please explain Marcs, I don't understand what you are saying, a bit dim of me perhaps.

Buying a 'larger,faster disk' doesn't guarantee a trouble free life just because its bigger than 40 Gb does it?

Am I missing something?

 

[Marcs41]

yes, you are missing the fact that a second disk allows you to copy data, or make backups without having to mess with that dreadfull Partition Magic.

PS: Where do you get the idea that Partition Magic is going to get you a trouble free life? Quite the opposite is more then once the case!

Marc
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[pawz]

I Ghosted my old drive to the new so that I would not have to go through the tedious procedure of loading all the drivers on, re-install the apps, copy my files over etc.
This is what Ghost is for. It was a straightforward master-to-slave copy.
Partition Magic only became a necessity to buy when I realised the partition sizes were wrong. I saw thatI would need a third-party utility to resize them from within Windows; many people recommend PM - and I have used it once before, many moons ago, with no problems. So I bought a copy....

the comment was about whether one would get a trouble free life by buying the larger drive you advocate Marc, nothing to do with PM - I still don't see your line of thought in that respect.

Anyway, where would you suggest I go from here? 'Here' being that I require a third-party utility to allow me to resize partitions 'on the fly', as they say.. I can see me doing it all the hard way, but I would like to try the easier options first. I am presently wondering if it would be useful to upgrade my Norton Systemworks to 2004 as the disk doctor in 2002 cannot deal with XP very well - your comments on that would be appreciated..

 

[Marcs41]

The latest versions of Ghost do allow you to restore to a different partition size, so you don't need anything else then Ghost to do what you want.
Of course, you may need to Ghost is again to start over. Go over the custom partition part in the manual, it's all in there.

Ghost, I use and appreciate, but in my line of work, I have seen too many major catastrophies with PM and Systemworks, even Norton AV.
My (maybe biased) opinion, stay clear of those tools. You don't need them simply to move to anothe disk.

Marc
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[pawz]

ok, thanks for that input.
My copy of Ghost might not be the latest. GhostPE ?

May I ask you the question which no-one else has yet answered for me?

I partitioned the new drive in FDisk (from a Windows Millennium bootdisk) and came out of it satisfied that I had the active primary and three logical drives of roughly 10 Gb each, and no free space.

I then formatted the drives, presumably in FAT32.

Then I put in Ghost PE and did a master to slave copy on the local machine. However, there was one more logical drive on the destination than was on the source, so while three of the drives had files copied over in NTFS, the fourth drive, which had no files copied into it, presumably stayed at FAT32.

When I got into Windows on the new disk, I saw that the partition sizes were changed. C: had 28 Gb, the others had approximately 6Gb, 2Gb and 3Gb, and there was also 78 Mb free space. Why?

Help appreciated

ps. If I am going to do the whole thing again, I would appreciate to know which version of Ghost you would recommend.


Gracie

 

[Marcs41]

For Ghost, the latest of course, older versions are not that flexible with Xp and NTFS.

But, if you want to restore a Ghost partition, you do not need to partition and format your new drive first, just let Ghost handle that. Whatever is left, create the other partition, and don't make too many of them, there is no need for that.



Marc
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[pawz]

ok Marc, I will try that - thank you

Gracie

 

[pawz]

am happy to report that the problem has gone away. After looking on the web for more info and hunting for Ghost 2004 ( seems it only comes in a suite now), and then flirting briefly with an Acronis demo, I thought, what the 'eck, I will give it one more try with PM 8 - and it sailed through!

The only difference from yesterday is that then I asked it to resize this,this and this, whereas today I just asked for one partition to be resized. Once it had completed that task I asked it to resize another partition, and when that was completed, I asked it to change the third. All went without a hitch. Perhaps I should have done it that way from the start instead of wanting it all done in one go.

Anyway, thank you for your help Marc.
Your comments are not wasted

Gracie

 

[Marcs41]

Good! You're all set now.
Lesson learned: one step at the time gets you there faster ;-)

PS: is Gracie a name, or just 'Thank you' in Italiano?

Marc
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[pawz]

yes Marc,lesson learned indeed
Gracie - its a name - the one I use on the net.

 

[Marcs41]

Ah, ok Gracie!

Marc
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