Partition Lost...again...

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Whitworth
  • Start date Start date
J

John Whitworth

OK...I've learnt my lesson with this now, but I'm keen to know the reason
why this is possible...

I have a valid Windows XP Pro SP2 installation, with all updates. Installed
Vista RC1 as a dual-boot. Updated everything...all running just perfectly.

I then decided to add a new partition using XP's disk management. Suddenly,
my Vista partition disappeared, and the new partition I'd just created
started at a point just after the absent Vista partition finished.

Is this something that has been fixed for RTM? Or will quite a few people be
getting a shock here? At a guess, I imagine that I need to create any new
partitions using Vista, once Vista has been installed...but that it is a
real pain!

Cheers

JW
 
Neither XP or Vista have the ability to extra partitions in addition to what
you already have unless there is a sizeable amount of unallocated space on
your drive..

You have to use a program such as Acronis Disk Director or Partition Magic
in order to add partitions in the way that you want..
 
Were you trying to add a new partition in unallocated available space.? How
large is the drive? How much unallocated space was available when you began
the process? What was the size of the partition you were trying to create?

You really give no information other than it didn't work.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User said:
Neither XP or Vista have the ability to extra partitions in addition to
what you already have unless there is a sizeable amount of unallocated
space on your drive..
Click to expand...

Hi Mike,

It was unallocated space.

John
 
Richard Urban said:
Were you trying to add a new partition in unallocated available space.?
How large is the drive? How much unallocated space was available when you
began the process? What was the size of the partition you were trying to
create?

You really give no information other than it didn't work.
Click to expand...

Sorry.

My disk (Disk 0) (232.88GB) was set up like this:

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
86.40GB Free Space

I then installed Vista into 40GB of the free, unallocated space. All was
well, and I had another 46GB of free space remaining. So that my Disk 0
looked somewhat like this...

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
Vista (O:) 40GB [approx]
46.5GB [approx] Free Space

Both Vista and XP booted perfectly, and all was well, until I tried to
create a new 5GB partition for some application specific data, using Disk
Management in XP. Instead of the 5GB drive appearing after the Vista drive,
the Vista drive became "free space", whilst the new drive sat in between
that space, and the free space at the end of the disk. So it looked
something like this...

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
40GB [approx] Free Space
Memory Map (M:) 5GB NTFS Healthy
41.5GB [approx] Free Space

Thanks for looking!

JW
 
Ahh.. looks like XP doesn't recognize Vista's partition table formatting
100%. It sees the barriers but when you create a partition it will take
the "invalid" partition and mark it free. Just a note here but I
believe Partition Magic gave an error for the drive I installed Vista
onto complaining about the table format. This was after installing Vista.
 
Mike said:
Neither XP or Vista have the ability to extra partitions in addition to
what you already have unless there is a sizeable amount of unallocated
space on your drive..

You have to use a program such as Acronis Disk Director or Partition
Magic in order to add partitions in the way that you want..
Click to expand...

Does Partition Magic see a drive that has an XP/Vista dual-boot
properly? The last time I checked (it was with PowerQuest Partiton
Magic 8) the application gave an error about the partition tables.
 
When you booted up into Windows XP, do you remember how disk manager stated
the Vista partition was categorized? Did it have a partition letter? Was it
listed as unknown? Was it listed as RAW.

Usually when you are setting up a dual boot situation you should do
partition work from within the new operating system. The new O/S is very
likely to be backward compatible to work with partitions that the older O/S
can see. But the old O/S may not be able to correctly see, or create, viable
partitions for the new O/S to work with.

I have experienced a great many errors using Partition Magic 8.01 when
trying to start the program. It just doesn't like partitions created by
Vista and shows the drive as corrupted, even though I can boot into both
Vista and XP.

Using Acronis Disk Director, from the boot CD, all the drives are seen
correctly.

That being said, I do ALL of my partition work booting up with the Disk
Director CD. After the partitions are created and formatted, I install the
operating systems to the intended partitions.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!



John Whitworth said:
Richard Urban said:
Were you trying to add a new partition in unallocated available space.?
How large is the drive? How much unallocated space was available when you
began the process? What was the size of the partition you were trying to
create?

You really give no information other than it didn't work.
Click to expand...

Sorry.

My disk (Disk 0) (232.88GB) was set up like this:

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
86.40GB Free Space

I then installed Vista into 40GB of the free, unallocated space. All was
well, and I had another 46GB of free space remaining. So that my Disk 0
looked somewhat like this...

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
Vista (O:) 40GB [approx]
46.5GB [approx] Free Space

Both Vista and XP booted perfectly, and all was well, until I tried to
create a new 5GB partition for some application specific data, using Disk
Management in XP. Instead of the 5GB drive appearing after the Vista
drive, the Vista drive became "free space", whilst the new drive sat in
between that space, and the free space at the end of the disk. So it
looked something like this...

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
40GB [approx] Free Space
Memory Map (M:) 5GB NTFS Healthy
41.5GB [approx] Free Space

Thanks for looking!

JW
Click to expand...
 
Richard Urban said:
When you booted up into Windows XP, do you remember how disk manager
stated the Vista partition was categorized? Did it have a partition
letter? Was it listed as unknown? Was it listed as RAW.
Click to expand...

It was listed as a valid partition, with letter "O" (my choice from within
XP).
Usually when you are setting up a dual boot situation you should do
partition work from within the new operating system. The new O/S is very
likely to be backward compatible to work with partitions that the older
O/S can see. But the old O/S may not be able to correctly see, or create,
viable partitions for the new O/S to work with.
Click to expand...

That makes sense, but it's not something I've had problems with before.
Surely if XP is reporting that it understands the partition, it should be
able to do something with it...and if not, then shouldn't MS release an
update to the XP Disk Manager, to ensure that it at least warns users of the
issue?
I have experienced a great many errors using Partition Magic 8.01 when
trying to start the program. It just doesn't like partitions created by
Vista and shows the drive as corrupted, even though I can boot into both
Vista and XP.
Click to expand...

I had all sorts of issues with Partition Magic on my old install too...it
said my tables were all messed up, and continually offered to 'fix' them for
me. I've not used it on this new drive.
Using Acronis Disk Director, from the boot CD, all the drives are seen
correctly.

That being said, I do ALL of my partition work booting up with the Disk
Director CD. After the partitions are created and formatted, I install the
operating systems to the intended partitions.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your help in confirming my suspicions!

Cheers

JW
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!



John Whitworth said:
Richard Urban said:
Were you trying to add a new partition in unallocated available space.?
How large is the drive? How much unallocated space was available when
you began the process? What was the size of the partition you were
trying to create?

You really give no information other than it didn't work.
Click to expand...

Sorry.

My disk (Disk 0) (232.88GB) was set up like this:

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
86.40GB Free Space

I then installed Vista into 40GB of the free, unallocated space. All was
well, and I had another 46GB of free space remaining. So that my Disk 0
looked somewhat like this...

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
Vista (O:) 40GB [approx]
46.5GB [approx] Free Space

Both Vista and XP booted perfectly, and all was well, until I tried to
create a new 5GB partition for some application specific data, using Disk
Management in XP. Instead of the 5GB drive appearing after the Vista
drive, the Vista drive became "free space", whilst the new drive sat in
between that space, and the free space at the end of the disk. So it
looked something like this...

Primary Partition
===========
Windows XP (C:) 34.18 GB NTFS Healthy (System)

Extended Partition containing...
=====================
Downloads (D:) 9.77GB NTFS Healthy
Programs (E:) 39.06GB NTFS Healthy
Games (I:) 34.18GB NTFS Healthy
Old Drive (H:) 29.29GB NTFS Healthy
40GB [approx] Free Space
Memory Map (M:) 5GB NTFS Healthy
41.5GB [approx] Free Space

Thanks for looking!

JW
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
John Whitworth said:
That makes sense, but it's not something I've had problems with before.
Surely if XP is reporting that it understands the partition, it should be
able to do something with it...and if not, then shouldn't MS release an
update to the XP Disk Manager, to ensure that it at least warns users of
the issue?
Click to expand...

Vista uses a new scheme for booting. It is possible to hoodwink it into
booting from an upper partition - I have done so - however normally it
will look to the bootmgr file and \boot directory in XP's C:\ root folder
when it is configured to control multi-booting.

boot.ini and ntldr are replaced by bootmgr and \boot in Vista.
XP doesn't understand. It's best to doubt dubious information,
so when you get a retarded uninformed report be skeptical.
 
boot.ini and ntldr are replaced by bootmgr and \boot in Vista.
XP doesn't understand.

Mike:

In my MS native Vista dual boot setup, both ntldr and boot.ini are still
used.
As a test, I have renamed the boot.ini file and I could not access XP until
I renamed it back to boot.ini.

Also note my post in another thread:
My understanding of the native MS dual boot process:
The MBR queries the partition table for the active primary partition, and
passes control to the bootcode of that partition.
In a Vista setup the active primary partition bootcode has been modified to
call the Vista bootmgr.
If you select the previous op sys line from the Vista bootmgr menu, then
control is passed to ntldr, which loads the normal XP boot.ini file.
 
CZ said:
XP doesn't understand.

Mike:

In my MS native Vista dual boot setup, both ntldr and boot.ini are still
used.
As a test, I have renamed the boot.ini file and I could not access XP until
I renamed it back to boot.ini.

Also note my post in another thread:
My understanding of the native MS dual boot process:
The MBR queries the partition table for the active primary partition, and
passes control to the bootcode of that partition.
In a Vista setup the active primary partition bootcode has been modified to
call the Vista bootmgr.
If you select the previous op sys line from the Vista bootmgr menu, then
control is passed to ntldr, which loads the normal XP boot.ini file.
Click to expand...

I suppose that Vista booted fine without ntldr and boot.ini down there
in C:\ - XP needs them, Vista doesn't. Vista uses a new system, and
it needs \boot as well as bootmgr. XP uses the old system.
 
We are going to try to reproduce this here. In the meantime, I would
recommend against using XP to create partitions on your Vista dual-boot
system.
 
Thanks Jill. Hopefully you will be able to reproduce it, as if it is a
common problem, I think a lot of people are going to get burnt by it! I
won't be using XP to manage partitions for the meantime! ;-)

John
 
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