help restoring partitions

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wally
  • Start date Start date
W

Wally

i tried to install vista on my old desktop machine today, and it seems
although my partitions are messed up. any ideas how I can cover these
partitions back?
 
Hi, Wally.

We'd like to help you, but you haven't given us nearly enough information.
:>(

Could you tell us at least what make and model computer you are using and
which operating system was on it before? HOW did you try to install Vista:
Upgrade or clean install? Were you using a Retail Vista DVD-ROM or OEM or
one you burned from an MSDN download? About your partitions: How many hard
drives, which interface (PATA, SATA, or ?) and how big? How were they
partitioned and formatted?

And, most important: HOW are they "messed up"?

RC
 
its an old computer, athlon xp, asus a7nx-e board on windows xp. I
have a retail copy vista ultimate and was doing a clean install.

I've now fixed it with partition table doctor.

my asus board is rather old. to install xp successfully, I have to use
third party sata drivers. so you could imagine I had to do the same
thing with vista, using the same drivers. my first problem was the
limited space had I created, being 8 gig for xp. vista would deny any
installation request into that drive. I had no way of creating extra
space for c: because I had other data in my other partitions. I
reinstalled xp again and moved some of those data out of d: and tried
to extend c:. I didn't take note that d: was a logical partition, so
again that attempt failed. however, since d: was large, I thought,
what the heck lets try to install it in that partition anyway. vista
then spat the dummy. placing my xp disk back in, I discovered that
vista altared my partition information somewhat. at that moment, I
thought I lost everything.. luckly I didn't try anything else stupid.
phew.. I later discovered that I haven't being making regular backups
of my emails!
 
Hi, Wally.

I'm glad you got it worked out. Thanks for the report back.

During the Vista beta, testers gradually figured out how large our Vista
partition should be. Setup kept aborting, saying that it needed more space,
but never saying how much more - maybe just 1 byte more? My conclusion is
that we can install Vista in 15 GB, but it's going to grow rapidly as we
install software and the Indexing service builds its index, in addition to
the space taken by hiberfil.sys and the paging file. I now use 20 GB as a
minimum for a new Vista volume, and try to keep as much as reasonably
possible out of Drive C: and into my apps and data volumes.

One subject that trips up many users, especially those of us who dual-boot,
is the meaning of System Partition and Boot Volume. As you probably know,
the computer starts in the System Partition, then branches to the Boot
Volume based on the contents of Boot.ini (in WinXP) or the BCD (Boot
Configuration Data, in Vista). The System Partition must be a primary
partition and set Active (bootable), and it must be on the hard drive
designated in the BIOS as the Boot Device. Traditionally, this has been
assigned the drive letter C:. In WinXP and prior, the Boot Volume (where
the giant \Windows folder was installed) can be any primary partition or
logical drive on any HD in the computer, but usually shares C: with the
startup files in the System Partition. We can use Disk Management to assign
any drive letters we want to other volumes and devices, but the System
Partition and Boot Volume letters are fixed by Setup and can not (easily) be
changed after that. Also, when we install a second Windows to dual-boot,
the two different systems might assign different letters to the same volume.
What is Drive D: in WinXP might be Drive X: when we are booted into Vista.

When we boot into WinXP and run Vista Setup from there, Vista "inherits" the
drive letters that WinXP has assigned. But when we boot from the Vista DVD
to run Setup, it can't see the WinXP Registry so it uses its own rules to
assign drive letters from scratch - and it assigns C: to its own Boot
Volume, which may be different from the System Partition. Many Vista users
are then startled to find that the first partition on their first hard drive
is now Drive D:, rather than C:, as it has always been before! And Drive C:
may be the third logical drive on their second HD - or wherever they decided
to install Vista. But, of course, when they boot into WinXP again, the
drive letters are still as they were before. Partition numbers don't
change, but "drive" letters do.

Vista has brought some big improvements to Disk Management. We can now
extend and shrink volumes with DM. We can even extend the System and Boot
volumes, in many cases, provided we have unallocated space. DM in WinXP
could not do this.

When Vista is added to a WinXP system, it does alter the contents of the
System Partition, but not WinXP's Boot Volume, if that is separate. Vista
Setup first copies the WinXP boot sector to a new file (bootsect.dat, 512
bytes) in the System Partition. Then it writes its own code into the boot
sector and adds its bootmgr.exe and a new \Boot folder containing its BCD.
Thereafter, when the computer boots, the boot sector loads the BCD and
presents the opening OS menu. If we choose the "previous" version of
Windows, bootmgr loads the saved WinXP boot sector and turns control over to
it, which then loads NTLDR and continues as though Vista did not exist.

It's easy to become confused when we see that what used to be Drive C: is
now Drive D: in Vista! And that our Vista volume, which we expected to be
E: or V:, is now Drive C: in Vista! But it is still V: - or whatever - when
we boot into WinXP. We may very well think that our partitions are "messed
up". But it should take only a day or two to get familiar with the new
arrangement. And the computer won't be confused at all; just us humans. We
can cut down on the confusion somewhat by using DM in each OS to assign
consistent letters to all volumes except the System Partition and each
system's Boot Volume.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Mail in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
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