Partition Magic magically trashed a partition of my disk.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff W
  • Start date Start date
Jeff W said:
Well. I'd love to - but Symantec site tells me there are no upgrades
available for my program. where did you get yours?
/j
Click to expand...


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.
 
Jeff W said:
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)
Click to expand...


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?
 
The 8.01 patch (sorry about the 8.1 - I was a bit tired) was issued when the
program was still under PowerQuest.

There was a readme file on their web site that told what it
repaired/improved. That information disappeared when Symantec took over
(what else is new).

--

Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
 
Good point, though we don't know it wasn't; the OP simply said
"8".


message | 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 :-)
|
|
| | > Guess I used my blind eye; it says PM8 very clearly. D'oh!
| >
| > Pop
| >
| >
| > | > | What version of PM do you have?
| > |
| > | Pop
| > |
| > | | > || 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
| > |
| > |
| >
| >
|
|
 
Actually, it's 8.01, but ... have you checked to be sure you
don't already have it? Help, About?


| 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.
| >
| >
| >
 
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
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
no other changes made. ALL i did was resize D (generated 2 operations.
One for the partition, one for the logical dirve)
 
guys. I'm running 8.05 (5/5/04)
/j
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.
Click to expand...
 
Jeff W said:
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.
Click to expand...


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