Need Help Partitioning a Drive in XP

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I’m trying to follow MSoft’s instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/. For some reason, when it gets to the part about right clicking on the basic disk, I don’t see what they are talking about.

Screenshots:

Am I missing something? I tried using Partition Magic, thinking a 3rd party program could help. Upon opening the program, it said that there was an error and asked me if I wanted it to fix it. I said yes and didn’t really think much of it. Once I started messing around with the program, it kept giving me an error saying the drive couldn’t be partitioned. I closed it out and then went back to the “official” partition manager (pictured above) and got a blue screen of death.

What now? All of my google results have been rather lackluster. Any help?

By the way, I’m doing this to install Windows 7, if that is needed information.

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I’m trying to follow MSoft’s instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/. For some reason, when it gets to the part about right clicking on the basic disk, I don’t see what they are talking about.

Am I missing something? I tried using Partition Magic, thinking a 3rd party program could help. Upon opening the program, it said that there was an error and asked me if I wanted it to fix it. I said yes and didn’t really think much of it. Once I started messing around with the program, it kept giving me an error saying the drive couldn’t be partitioned. I closed it out and then went back to the “official” partition manager (pictured above) and got a blue screen of death.

I moved this post to the XP forum since you are working with XP.

Did you get a BSOD before you instaled Partition Magic?

See if MC MCSE: Disk Management in Windows XP Professional or Disk Management or How to work with partitions in Windows Vista / XP when Disk Management doesn’t work | Vista Rewired helps.

Joe

--Joe

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I’m trying to follow MSoft’s instructions here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/. For some reason, when it gets to the part about right clicking on the basic disk, I don’t see what they are talking about.

Well, you didn’t say what you are trying to do and the MS article is about a LOT of procedures. Some of the spots they tell you to right-click are free space which you don’t seem to have. You will probably NOT get much if you right click on the manufacturer’s partition on Drive 0. In some instances, you have to right-click the gray area at the left in my example.

So, it comes down to – what do you want to do and we can walk through it together.

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By the way, I’m doing this to install Windows 7, if that is needed information.

Although this does not exactly match your situation, I used the free bootable* GParted Live Linux distribution to reallocate partitions on a new XP laptop from a single 186 GB XP partition to three partitions: XP (40 GB), User Data (80 GB) and Windows-7-to-be (66 GB). I was amazed how straightforward and quick it was, provided you hold your nerve! Your first boot from XP after the repartitioning causes a CHKDSK to take place, and you have to mess about with disk letters, both when booting from XP and (when installed) from Windows 7 RC, but that is quite straightforward.

Of course YMMV!

* The important part of this is that you are booting from the GParted CD, so there is no problem with the C: drive being ‘in use’…

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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Thinking some more about it AND reading BATcher’s post, if in fact I didn’t read your post correctly and you ARE trying to create a new partition, you were right that it can’t be done with the Windows disk management app.

However, if you’re having trouble with Partition Magic to the significance you stated, it looks like time to open a CMD window and do a CHKDSK C: /F (you’ll have to reboot) to make sure PM hasn’t scrambled the disk on you. If it seems OK and you don’t want to try it again, you might resort to uninstalling and/or re-installing PM.

If not and you want to try other methods, in addition to BATcher’s suggested program, there’s a free partition manager at Partition Wizard FREE Partition Manager that’s been mentioned at least once here in The Lounge. I’ve not used it, so for your safety you ought to have a good full backup.

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Sorry guys, didn’t see all of these replies until this morning. I have some updates, though.

I was able to partition the drive using Acronis Disk Director Suite. I basically took some space from the one partition and made a whole new one from that. I installed Windows 7 on to this new partition. However, once I started messing around with 7, I started getting TONS of error messages saying that my disk was corrupted and to run chkdsk. I used the “Repair Your Computer” tools while booting up to run chkdsk and upon rebooting, it seemed all of those problems went away. Good. I started to install some programs because the chkdsk issues wouldn’t let me do much of anything.

Now, I have a new problem, unfortunately. When trying to open Firefox and Thunderbird, I get an error message saying that there is instances already running of these programs and that I should restart or close them. The Task Manager shows no processes related to these programs and restarting doesn’t help. I have a feeling that the problem may lie with Acronis.

After doing some research, I’ve seen that some folks who were using the beta back in January had similar problems related to chkdsk (albeit none mentioned the newest problem I’ve been having). I’ve debated uninstalling the entire thing and just starting anew with one of the partition programs mentioned here. Is this the route I should be taking?

How would I go about resetting my Windows 7 partition to a factory default and then moving all of that space back to my main partition and just starting over?

Thanks for the replies

EDIT: I should also mention that it seems to only be Firefox and Thunderbird. iTunes seems to open up fine and so does IE.

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Now, I have a new problem, unfortunately. When trying to open Firefox and Thunderbird, I get an error message saying that there is instances already running of these programs and that I should restart or close them. The Task Manager shows no processes related to these programs and restarting doesn’t help. I have a feeling that the problem may lie with Acronis.

No, no, don’t give up yet! I am now running a triple-boot machine with XP, Vista and Win7 RC. I had the exact same problem with both Firefox and Thunderbird with both Vista and Win7.

Try this for starters, which was pointed out to me by TonE: Profile in use – MozillaZine Knowledge Base

If that doesn’t help, don’t give up without consulting back. Meanwhile, I’ll go looking further through my posts. The answers are there and I just don’t remember how I solved it. BTW, I run all three OSs using the SAME Fx and TB profile. And it works splendidly!

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More possible info. Here’s the thread from earlier this year where I finally succeeded. Check the post about PERMISSIONS and, like my case, that may prove to be the answer for you if the tip above doesn’t help you.

[post=”709925″]Post 709925[/post]

Let us know how you make out.

Edited later to add: Here’s the thread from earlier this year where Joe Perez solved the Thunderbird in Win7 problem for me. It too may be of some help.

[post=”775622″]Post 775622[/post]

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The Microsoft Gods must be smiling on me because it seems the problem has solved itself. Weird. Thanks for the help and I will definitely check back here if the problem occurs again.

Thanks again!

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The Microsoft Gods must be smiling on me because it seems the problem has solved itself. Weird. Thanks for the help and I will definitely check back here if the problem occurs again.

Thanks again!

Here is one recommendation you might find of use if things really do go south on you. (It must be available BEFORE things go south.) There is no need to install either PartitionMagic or Acronis Disk Director, so long as you have them on disk, because you will have a boot disk that allows you to get the machine running and to examine what is going on with your hard drive(s) and partitions. What is more, you can perform all manner of operations on those drives, all thanks to your having booted from CD. Your mention of the BSOD should be enough to convince you that booting from CD (try it – it works) would be a handy trick to have up your sleeve.

By the way, is there any real need for drive 1 to be FAT32?

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By the way, is there any real need for drive 1 to be FAT32?

No idea. I just found an external HDD laying around here and moved my Windows Easy Transfer files to it.

New question: How long should I keep my XP setup on it’s own partition? Eventually, I would like to clear out that partition and move the memory being used back into the “general population” of my Windows 7 partititon.

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New question: How long should I keep my XP setup on it’s own partition? Eventually, I would like to clear out that partition and move the memory being used back into the “general population” of my Windows 7 partititon.

Until you are comfortable that everything is working OK. You have to answer the question.

Joe

--Joe

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New question: How long should I keep my XP setup on it’s own partition? Eventually, I would like to clear out that partition and move the memory being used back into the “general population” of my Windows 7 partititon.

I am now on day two (or three) with the 32-bit version and I am delighted with it. Everything so far appears to work, but the big concern is with drivers and that sort of thing. In my case it is a computer reserved for experiments and beta testing so I’m not worried about it, but it will be some time and a careful reading of the experiences of others before I install the O/S on my major computers.

So far as programs are concerned, I installed it on top of Win 7 RC, which gave me a directory called Windows.Old, and as I got things to work on the new setup I deleted them from that, and the same sort of approach might work with XP. When you get an application to work in Windows 7, uninstall it from the XP installation (after a delay to be sure of the drivers, and not necessarily one at a time). Once you are down to Windows itself, you can recover the partition.

So long as your XP partition is fully backed up, you have nothing to worry about in deleting stuff. The worst that can happen is that you will have to reformat the drive and reinstall XP, which is to say start over

Here is one final tip, in case you didn’t think to look for it: if you google Windows 7 Forum, Windows 7 Help, or that sort of thing it seems half the known universe is already on the bandwagon, and it might be worth following some of those other sources, or joining their mailing lists or newsgroups or whatever they have. There is plenty of help available.

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I’m about ready to make the move to 7 but a few bugs are still holding me back for at least a couple weeks. For some reason, sometimes when I restart the computer or turn it off, it seems to corrupt the partition on which 7 is installed. I simply restart and do a chkdsk and it seems to fix it. Not a dealbreaker, just kind of annoying.

Also, I’m having some issues with random disconnection from the internet that I suspect involves my network card.

Other than those 2 bugs, I’m loving Win7. Most of my programs work and those that don’t will soon.

Thanks for the help, guys.

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I’m about ready to make the move to 7 but a few bugs are still holding me back for at least a couple weeks. For some reason, sometimes when I restart the computer or turn it off, it seems to corrupt the partition on which 7 is installed. I simply restart and do a chkdsk and it seems to fix it. Not a dealbreaker, just kind of annoying.

Also, I’m having some issues with random disconnection from the internet that I suspect involves my network card.

Other than those 2 bugs, I’m loving Win7. Most of my programs work and those that don’t will soon.

I’d be suspicious of a recurring disk problem that is cured by running chkdsk. That generally is an inidicator of a hardware issue unless you are just suddenly turning the machine off and not letting Windows shutdown.

Joe

--Joe

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Only thing is that it doesn’t happen at all when using XP. I have a feeling the partition program I used is to blame. I’ll wait a while and see what happens.

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Update time: I got tired of the chkdsk nonsense so I went ahead and formatted the partition Windows 7 was on. Reinstalled on the new, squeaky clean partition and everything works FLAWLESSLY. After all is said and done, I basically used Acronis to make a partition from an existing partition, then deleted that partition. By doing this, I was able to free up some unallocated space. I then used the Windows Disk Manager to format and make a new partition from this space. Installed Windows 7 and everything works perfectly that should.

Not a single error yet and I’ve been using this new setup for 3 days now. All programs work. Restarting doesn’t give me any problems. That pesky issue with the internet is completely solved.

Thanks again for everything you guys have helped me with.

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Update time: I got tired of the chkdsk nonsense so I went ahead and formatted the partition Windows 7 was on. Reinstalled on the new, squeaky clean partition and everything works FLAWLESSLY. After all is said and done, I basically used Acronis to make a partition from an existing partition, then deleted that partition. By doing this, I was able to free up some unallocated space. I then used the Windows Disk Manager to format and make a new partition from this space. Installed Windows 7 and everything works perfectly that should.

Not a single error yet and I’ve been using this new setup for 3 days now. All programs work. Restarting doesn’t give me any problems. That pesky issue with the internet is completely solved.

Thanks again for everything you guys have helped me with.

You’re quite welcome. Thanks for posting back your solution.

Joe

--Joe

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There shouldn’t be any permanent allocation of memory to an unused partition. A dual boot system should use all the system RAM for the OS that is booted. A second OS on a seperate partition uses 0 RAM because it is not running.

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There shouldn’t be any permanent allocation of memory to an unused partition. A dual boot system should use all the system RAM for the OS that is booted. A second OS on a seperate partition uses 0 RAM because it is not running.

When I said “memory”, I meant like hard drive space. Sorry to confuse.

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