Partition magic or Partition tragic!

[teafortwo]

Hi, I need some advice about restoring the partitions of my hard drive please.
Situation in short

I have a 40gig HD
I had 3 partitions on it as follows
1. 15 gig : Primary boot loading up Win ME
2. 20 gig : used for data back up
3. 4.5 gig : Hidden with Windows XP on it (Option at boot up via boot
magic)

With all my valuable data backed up on disks, I Decided to format the
15 gig partition ready to install win 2000.
I used partition magic as past results have been ok.
After the format I tried to install 2000 with no luck.
Fearing a real problem had occurred during the formatting I used
partition magic and fdisk to locate the problem. Fdisk repeatedly froze
when I tried any of its options and Partition magic shut down indicating that it
could not find the name of or partition etc.
Fortunately I was still able to boot in to the 4.5gig XP drive and am now
up and running on it.

The problem is its just about full and although I still have access to
the 20gig partition for storage I can not merge the 2 partitions.
More importantly I have lost the 15gig partition which was my primary C: drive
and was fine until I tried to format it. I am at totally void of further ideas.
Fdisk which I thought was infallible freezes and When I try to use partition magic
an error message stops the process saying "Partitions drive letter can not be identified"

The partition info log states that there are disk geometry errors.
I've it added at the end of this plea for want of a better description.

Any advice will be of infinite value to me. Thank you.

-------------------------------------------------------



PowerQuest PartitionInfo 8.0

========================================================
Disk Geometry Information for Disk 1: 5005 Cylinders, 255 Heads, 63 Sectors/Track
System PartSect # Boot BCyl Head Sect FS ECyl Head Sect StartSect NumSects
========================================================
0 0 00 0 0 0 1C 0 0 0 0 0
Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Actual values are:
0 0 00 0 0 1 1C 267349 89 4 0 0
Error #109: Partition ends after end of disk.
ucEndCylinder (267349) must be less than 5005.
Error #108: Partition didn't end on cylinder boundary.
ucEndHead expected to be 254, not 89.
Error #108: Partition didn't end on cylinder boundary.
ucEndSector expected to be 63, not 4.
Error #120: Logical Drive chain extends toward start of drive.
Error #104: This partition unexpectedly contains no sectors.
WIN XP 0 1 80 1023 0 1 0C 1023 254 63 41,817,195 9,301,635
Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Actual values are:
0 1 80 2603 0 1 0C 3181 254 63 41817195 9301635
0 2 00 1023 0 1 0F 1023 254 63 51,118,830 29,286,495
Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Actual values are:
0 2 00 3182 0 1 0F 5004 254 63 51118830 29286495
MAIN 51,118,830 0 00 1023 1 1 0B 1023 254 63 51,118,893 29,286,432
Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Actual values are:
51118830 0 00 3182 1 1 0B 5004 254 63 51118893 29286432



=========================================================
Partition Information for Disk 1: 39,260.4 Megabytes
Volume PartType Status Size MB PartSect # StartSect TotalSects
=========================================================
Hid.FAT32X Pri 0.0 0 0 0 0
Unallocated Pri 20,410.7 None -- 16,065 41,801,130
C:WIN XP FAT32X Pri,Boot 4,541.8 0 1 41,817,195 9,301,635
ExtendedX Pri 14,300.0 0 2 51,118,830 29,286,495
EPBR Log 14,300.0 None -- 51,118,830 29,286,495
D:MAIN FAT32 Log 14,300.0 51,118,830 0 51,118,893 29,286,432


=========================================================
Boot Record for drive *: (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 0, Type: FAT32)
=========================================================
1. Jump: FA EB 05
2. OEM Name:
3. Bytes per Sector: 36568
4. Sectors per Cluster: 192
5. Reserved Sectors: 53390
6. Number of FAT's: 188
7. Reserved: 0x7C00
8. Reserved: 0xBEFB
9. Media Descriptor: 0x00
10. Sectors per FAT: 49020
11. Sectors per Track: 1536 (0x600)
12. Number of Heads: 185 (0xB9)
13. Hidden Sectors: 3919966977 (0xE9A5F301)
14. Big Total Sectors: 2965277184 (0xB0BE8A00)
15. Big Sectors per FAT: 1946957831
16. Extended Flags: 0xBB3C
17. FS Version: 2048
18. First Cluster of Root: 213258065 (0xCB60F51)
19. FS Info Sector: 32954
20. Backup Boot Sector: 59392
21. Reserved: CA0059722146FEC581C30002
22. Drive ID: 0x38
23. Reserved for NT: 0x0C
24. Extended Boot Sig: 0x75
25. Serial Number: 0xBEC033E8
26. Volume Name:
27. File System Type: …

28. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

========================================================
Boot Record for drive C: (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 41,817,195, Type: FAT32)
========================================================
1. Jump: EB 58 90
2. OEM Name: MSWIN4.1
3. Bytes per Sector: 512
4. Sectors per Cluster: 32
5. Reserved Sectors: 32
6. Number of FAT's: 2
7. Reserved: 0x0000
8. Reserved: 0x0000
9. Media Descriptor: 0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT: 0
11. Sectors per Track: 63 (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads: 255 (0xFF)
13. Hidden Sectors: 41817195 (0x27E146B)
14. Big Total Sectors: 9301635 (0x8DEE83)
15. Big Sectors per FAT: 2272
16. Extended Flags: 0x0000
17. FS Version: 0
18. First Cluster of Root: 434 (0x1B2)
19. FS Info Sector: 1
20. Backup Boot Sector: 6
21. Reserved: 000000000000000000000000
22. Drive ID: 0x80
23. Reserved for NT: 0x00
24. Extended Boot Sig: 0x29
25. Serial Number: 0x3DF5441D
26. Volume Name: WIN XP
27. File System Type: FAT32
28. Boot Signature: 0xAA55

=========================================================

 

[user101]

first of all, i have used partition majic before and it screwed my whole hard drive.

why dont you just backup your data, delete all partitions, re-format and start over fresh. Using FDisk I find is much more suitable tahn pm.

 

[teafortwo]

Yes, It seems there is little alternative.
However I'm a little bit stuck as to how to delete all and reformat. Fdisk and P.M. won't allow me to alter anything.
The only formatting I have done (just a couple) required me to enter a drive letter i.e. format C:
But the missing 15 gig partition (originaly C: and presumably at the beginning of the disk) has no name or letter.
My ignorance is probably being laughed at by hundreds, Please advise if I've missed a simple method/sequence to format an entire HD.

 

[edfair]

Did PM request a blank floppy for recovery? And boot magic the same?
Not familiar with the later versions, but the earlier ones had the recovery floppies to restore what got overwritten by new formats or later version bootstraps.

Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[teafortwo]

I found the solution:

From desktop of Windows XP

Start
Settings
Control panel
Administrative tools
Computer management
Disk management

Along side my 2 "healthy" 4.5 and 15 gig partitions was the 20 gigs, shown here as "unallocated" I right clicked on it, chose quick format, gave it a name (Phoenix) and pressed enter. 3 seconds later (I mean 3 wonderful, Oh I wish I could have enjoyed them for longer- seconds later) every thing was magically back to life.

I scanned the partition for errors- none.
I tried to open Partition magic to see if it would recognise the new partition- and yes it was now able run its various tasks with out shutting down or spooling out many misleading and erroneous "error messages"
I am generally reluctant to praise Microsoft, so I won't. Instead I'll note how very disappointed I am with Partition Magic's inability to do what seemed to be a simple task. I expect more from a dedicated HD utility and market leader!

"Partition Magic or Partition Tragic" ....You decide


Thanks to those of you who gave your time to advise me.

I was so looking forward to many gruelling hours of backing up, formatting, and reinstallations

 

[edfair]

Well, at least you get to back up. Twice, or thrice.
There are 2 kinds of backup, backup, and known backup. If you can't recover it, it is just backup.


Ed Fair
Any advice I give is my best judgement based on my interpretation of the facts you supply. Help increase my knowledge by providing some feedback, good or bad, on any advice I have given.

 

[Dreamland]

teafortwo -

There are steps to follow when changing/formatting partitions with Boot Magic installed.

You have to restore the original MBR ("inactivate" Boot Magic) before you change any partition information. In addition, if you're going to format the partition that the Boot Magic files themselves are on (which apparently you did), the Boot Magic custom MBR becomes useless.

At some point, either FDISK or PartitionMagic must have tried to correct what it thought was a bad partition table entry when looking for the Boot Magic files. It moved the starting sector back into cylinder 0 and produced garbage entries for the partition layout.

 

[teafortwo]

Dreamland-

I formatted the 15gig C: drive partition from floppy drive with a 2 disk set of Partition Magic (1. "bootable" & 2. "Program&quot
I assumed it would simply format the partition, leaving it empty and ready for me to load a Win 2000 O.S.

But back to the now.... It seemed my rejoicing was a little premature. I posted my success/solution before a reboot of my machine! What actualy transpired.... upon rebooting XP (before anything much had loaded)
I was shown an error message saying a system file could not be found and could I find and replace it. Well of course I had no facility to find or replace it!
So much to my reluctance I spent a great deal of last night and this morning waiting for those endless zeros and ones to be lined up in the right order as I guess happens in a complete disk format-repartition-O.S./data reinstalation epic.

I'm not sure what I can learn from the whole process in so much ...I'm unsure if I did enything wrong or out of sequence, If a simelar situation arose I would probably follow the same sequence.