When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
code 0F00:0244

Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?

My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
XP

I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
two logicals.

If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:

The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
partitions.

Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.

Is that correct?

Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?


Thank

JoeSulla wrote:
> When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
> code 0F00:0244
>
> Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?
>
> My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
> XP
>
> I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
> two logicals.
>
> If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:
>
> The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
> partitions.
>
> Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
> other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.
>
> Is that correct?
>
> Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
> disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?
>
>
> Thank

My first question would be, how trustworthy is the Dell Diagnostic ?
I tried a search, and wasn't able to form a strong opinion, based
on what people were doing with the results.

Generally, you'd want to test with a second diagnostic, and see if it
reports problems in the same block.

Both Western Digital and Seagate, offer diagnostics for download from
their web site. Seagate makes a self-booting version (Seatools for DOS)
and a version that runs from Windows, as examples of diagnostics. They
can have things like a "short" and a "long" test. Such tests would
likely include read verification.

A lot of other disk companies, have been bought up by the big two,
making it more of a challenge to find the diagnostics for other
brands of disks.

I can get the same sort of info as well, from some testing with
HDTune, but that probably won't be giving you a log to look at
later.

*******

You'll need a Partition Manager program, to do manipulations on
the disk partitions. For example, you could "move" the logicals to
the left, squeeze down the extended partition holding them, and put
new partitions to the right. Or, attempt to convert the logicals
into primary partitions. Or, try the (much more dangerous) merge
type operation, to squash them together and make room for more
partitions.

Depending on the importance of your data though, I still like the idea
of backing up a disk, as a function of what you plan to do to it. If
I was "merging" several partitions, I'd definitely make an image of
the entire disk, onto a brand new disk.

Think of it this way. You've had a disk failure, and are now "minus one disk".
Logically, you should be buying a new (dependable) disk to add to your
collection, to take its place. That gives you one spare disk to play with,
while planning all your partition movements or changes. You can select
a size of disk, big enough to do maintenance on the biggest disk you've
got. The pricing on disks is sufficiently illogical, you can pay just
about anything now, whether the disk is 20GB or 2TB.

There are partition manager programs which are available for free.
There are Linux discs like Gparted LiveCD (which I find scary, because
of the bogus messages you might see while it's running). If selecting
a free partition manager, run the name of the utility through Google,
and see if it's damaged stuff. if there are reports of it ruining disks,
then you'll have advanced warning (and be using that new disk for a backup).

Even Windows has some primitive capabilities. DiskPart, if you run it
from a Windows 7 Recovery Console, can do things like "shrink" a partition.
You can download a Windows 7 installer DVD, and use the Recovery Console on
it, without a license key.

But what most people are looking for, is a reliable "non-circus" tool
that won't make them crazy. In which case, a commercial partition manager,
with a good reputation, is what you should be looking for. I revel in
the free crap, but also use backups to cover me, in case something goes
wrong. And with that "new disk to replace old disk, balance of the universe"
approach I suggest, you should be getting an additional brand new disk, so
you don't have to be nearly as fearful while making these changes.
I don't mind moving a primary partition with a utility. That always
works. But some of the more complicated operations, like "merge", is
just asking for trouble.

I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.
Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
like that, are gone.

*******

One other thing. I'm sure Acronis will be able to find how many partitions
are really on that disk. A Dell might have three or four. You can use
PTEDIT32, to check the partition types, if you want another opinion.

ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip

Example output from that program, showing a Dell disk.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif

*******

In your situation, I'd probably be dropping by my local supplier,
and picking up another disk. On average, I buy about two disks a
year, just so I have a safe place to do stuff. That's better than
plotting and scheming, with untested partition manager utilities,
when you have no safety net to work with.

Paul

From: "Paul" <(E-Mail Removed)>

> JoeSulla wrote:
>> When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
>> code 0F00:0244
>>
>> Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?
>>
>> My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
>> XP
>>
>> I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
>> two logicals.
>>
>> If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:
>>
>> The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
>> partitions.
>>
>> Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
>> other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.
>>
>> Is that correct?
>>
>> Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
>> disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?
>>
>>
>> Thank
>
> My first question would be, how trustworthy is the Dell Diagnostic ?
> I tried a search, and wasn't able to form a strong opinion, based
> on what people were doing with the results.
>

It's trustworthy albeit I prefer manufacturer diagnostics but I haven't had a case where
the two software disagree.



--
Dave
Multi-AV Scanning Tool - http://multi-av.thespykiller.co.uk
http://www.pctipp.ch/downloads/dl/35905.asp

On Fri, 4 May 2012 19:59:36 -0400, "JoeSulla"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test Error
>code 0F00:0244
>
>Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?

By itself, probably not, but you can get a second or third opinion by
running chkdsk and/or the drive fitness utility for your respective
drive.

>My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell Diagnostics and
>XP
>
>I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a primary and
>two logicals.
>
>If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:
>
>The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two big
>partitions.
>
>Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk onto the
>other one will erasse all my data in the two logical partitions.
>
>Is that correct?

That's correct. If you use the Clone feature, everything currently on
the target drive will be gone. The solution is simple: don't use the
Clone feature since it doesn't apply in your case.

>Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
>disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?

You need a tool that can copy partitions from drive to drive and
optionally adjust the size and placement of those partitions on the
target drive.

I use Acronis Disk Director since it's what I have on hand. I've used
it numerous times to copy or move partitions, among many other
partition-related tasks, and it works well. I'm sure you can find a
similar tool, maybe even freeware, that will copy an existing
partition from one drive to a second drive. Copy the two partitions to
the big drive, make that drive bootable, and Bob's your uncle.

Molly Gilliver wrote:
> In message <jo1thu$6nm$(E-Mail Removed)>, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
> []
>> I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
>> would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
>> the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
>> I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
>> solutions.
>
> Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
> the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
> curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.

When you need to move logicals, it isn't very convenient. Your best choice,
might be to make the fourth partition the extended one, and put the logicals in
there. But during your planning phase, you'd better get the sizes right,
or you're in for hours of fun. For example, if you needed to make your
third primary larger, you might need to shrink your logicals, shift them
to the right, shrink the Extended and move its left edge to the right,
until you have an unallocated gap suitable for making the third primary
partition larger. Which is a whole lot of work, with a whole lot of risk.

>
>> Sometimes you have no choice. In the old days, I had particular reasons
>> for having a computer with 20 partitions. But I just don't do stuff like
>> that any more. A lot of the old capacity barriers that caused solutions
>> like that, are gone.
>
> I agree the reasons you _had_ to have many partitions are mostly gone
> (mainly OS and/or motherboard limitations), but I think some people just
> like it as something logical. (Also, possibly, having one for large
> and/or fast-access files - such as video files - might still have
> advantages in some situations, though a physically separate disc would
> be better for most of those.)
> []

I had a certain backup tool, with size limits on backup. And the "20 partition"
machine, allowed me to beat their silly limit, which had no logical reasoning
in the first place. It was just an arbitrary limit in some commercial backup
software I'd bought. Rather than let the bastards win, I "fixed it". And at
the time, 20 partitions was the max allowed. I would have continued with the
silly idea, and added more partitions, if I could have.

>> ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis...s/PTEDIT32.zip
>>
>>
>> Example output from that program, showing a Dell disk.
>>
>> http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/files/dell-tbl.gif
> []
> That puzzles me. It seems to show a disc with three partitions (well,
> four, but the fourth one is all zeros - I presume that's its way of
> marking the end of the list). But although the first three have
> different "Starting" "Cyl Head Sector" numbers, they all seem to have
> the same "Ending" ones. I'd have expected each one to end at the sector
> before the next one starts?!?
>
> (I also see partition 1 starts at Cyl 0 Head 1 Sector 1, and has 63
> sectors before it, whereas the others all start on a Head 0; I presume
> the first head [0] of 63 sectors is where the partition table itself,
> and/or boot sector, resides, or something like that?)

Once you get past a certain capacity point, the CHS is bogus. Disks are
actually controlled by LBA (logical block address), the numbers down
the right hand side of the PTEDIT32 display. But the CHS is still used
by a lot of OSes, for decision making. For example, Disk Management in
WinXP, plans the offsets and sizes of partitions, quantized to "S". So
if there are 63 sectors per track, then everything on the right hand
side ends up divisible by 63. And that screws up two things. Efficient
operations on an SSD. And efficient operations on a 4KB/sector current
generation hard drive. If the number was 64, the "world would have been
a happy place".

At one time, disks had small capacities, and the CHS was physical. You
might have had say eight heads, some number of fixed sectors per track,
and the cylinder count was real. You would specify operations in terms
of particular C, H, and S values. But once disks got large enough, the
allocation for those fields (field width) ended up too small. So IDE drives
and the BIOS, added support for simple logical block addressing, a single
number specifying what sector you wanted. That's similar to how SCSI works,
which had LBA from the start (a much more reasonable design, but
with added complexity in the controller board strapped to the drive).

Real disks, are actually variable geometry. The disk is "zoned", meaning
the number of sectors per track, varies across the disk. To convert an
LBA, into actual internal geometry on the disk, would need to take into
consideration, how the zones work. A good drive design, numbers all the
sectors as well, so after seek is complete, and the head is on track,
the controller can read the sector headers, and verify its in the right
place to get the LBA numbered sector the user specified. IBM is an example
of a company, that stopped doing that (no double check via sector headers).

*******

That Dell disk has three primary partitions. It's possible PTEDIT32 also
has a notation for logical, but since I just don't use extended/logical
partitions here, I don't know what it does in that situation. Logicals
live in an extended envelope, and so one primary partition would have
a partition type field indicating extended. The GUI on that tool, doesn't
look like it has room to display logicals at all. Just the primary partitions.

PTEDIT32 and Partition Magic in general, are pretty "brittle" when it comes
to "fake CHS geometry" info, alignment to multiples of S, and so on. If
I were to present a Windows 7 disk, with alignment to 1MB chunks instead of
to 63 sectors, the tools would likely error out. Whereas, when PTEDIT32 and
the OS disagree on the fake CHS shorthand, you get warnings every time
those tools are started. Annoying, but not the end of the world. The thing
is, if you "let Partition Magic fix the problem", the problem only comes
back again later, after you make some change with Disk Management.

And if I switch over to one of the 500 Linux distros, in an attempt to do
maintenance work, the tools there have switched to Windows 7 style alignment.
Instead of providing "hobbyist style controls" that could do just
about anything, they instead provided "dumbed down controls", which
means I can't do any serious work with things like GParted, from Linux.

Summary: Things are a mess... The switch from CHS, should have started
a lot sooner. As in, completely ignoring CHS once the disks no longer
used CHS in a practical way. And it's mainly an issue, if you're trying
to maintain your older equipment.

Paul

JoeSulla wrote:
> When I run the Dell Diagnostics on my system disk I get a Read Test
> Error code 0F00:0244
>
> Is that reasom enough to move the system off that disk?
>
> My system disk is 35G and has two prinary partitions - Dell
> Diagnostics and XP
>
> I have another disk, 500g, paritioned in to three partitions: a
> primary and two logicals.
>
> If it makes sense to make the bigger disk the system disk consider:
>
> The primary has no data that I want. I need the data in the other two
> big partitions.
>
> Reading the Acronis manual it appears that cloning the system disk
> onto the other one will erasse all my data in the two logical
> partitions.
> Is that correct?
>
> Is there some way I can make the bigger disk my system disk without
> disturbing the data that is in the two logical parttions?

Sure...

1. Install XP to the primary partition of the bigger drive. Doing so won't
mess up anything already in that partition or the other two. If you have
programs installed on the smaller drive, one of three things will happen
when you run them from the new XP install...

a) they will run just fine despite the lack of registry entries
b) they will make new entries in the new XP registry
c) they won't run and will have to be re-installed

Most all will be either "a" or "b". You may have to re-enter any
registration number for them.

2. You now have a system which can boot from either drive. You will be
presented with a boot menu when you boot so you can choose the drive; one of
the XP installs (the older most likely) will be the default. The boot menu
comes from boot.ini which is a text file on the first primary drive (what is
now C

3. Once you have things as you want them, you can just delete the original
XP install (the Windows directory).. You can also edit boot.ini so that
only the remaining XP install is listed; you can also edit the time delay
("timeout") for choosing a boot drive so that there is no delay.

Note that this would place Windows on whatever the drive letter is for the
new XP install (it won't be C. That is no problem, just leave it as it is
and forget having C: as the boot drive.

I'm sure there are other ways to do what you want too but this requires
nothing you don't already have (I assume you have an XP install disk).

--

dadiOH
____________________________

dadiOH's dandies v3.06...
....a help file of info about MP3s, recording from
LP/cassette and tips & tricks on this and that.
Get it at http://mysite.verizon.net/xico

On Sat, 5 May 2012 12:09:24 +0100, Molly Gilliver
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> In message <jo1thu$6nm$(E-Mail Removed)>, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
> []
> >I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
> >would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
> >the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
> >I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy solutions.
>
> Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
> the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
> curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.


I'm not Paul, to whom you responded, but I am also someone who
generally dislikes multiple partitions and recommends against them for
most people. If you're curious you can read my reasons in this article
I've written: "Understanding Disk Partitioning" at
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

On Sat, 5 May 2012 11:04:09 -0400, "David H. Lipman"
<DLipman~nospam~@Verizon.Net> wrote:

> From: "Ken Blake, MVP" <(E-Mail Removed)>
>
> > On Sat, 5 May 2012 12:09:24 +0100, Molly Gilliver
> > <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> >
> >> In message <jo1thu$6nm$(E-Mail Removed)>, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
> >> []
> >>> I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
> >>> would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
> >>> the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
> >>> I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
> >>> solutions.
> >>
> >> Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
> >> the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
> >> curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.
> >
> > I'm not Paul, to whom you responded, but I am also someone who
> > generally dislikes multiple partitions and recommends against them for
> > most people. If you're curious you can read my reasons in this article
> > I've written: "Understanding Disk Partitioning" at
> > http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326
> >
> > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP
>
> 100% agreement with that Ken.


Thanks very much, Dave.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP

On Sat, 05 May 2012 08:46:43 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Molly Gilliver wrote:
>> In message <jo1thu$6nm$(E-Mail Removed)>, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>> []
>>> I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
>>> would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
>>> the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
>>> I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
>>> solutions.
>>
>> Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
>> the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
>> curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.
>
>When you need to move logicals, it isn't very convenient.

I wish you had explained that in a little more detail. I don't see
anything inconvenient about logical versus primary partitions. Modern
tools let you convert partitions from one type to the other with two
or three mouse clicks, and moving either type is as simple as
selecting it, selecting the Copy or Move command, and deciding where
to put it. I use Acronis Disk Director, but there are numerous
alternatives available.

>Your best choice,
>might be to make the fourth partition the extended one, and put the logicals in
>there. But during your planning phase, you'd better get the sizes right,
>or you're in for hours of fun. For example, if you needed to make your
>third primary larger, you might need to shrink your logicals, shift them
>to the right, shrink the Extended and move its left edge to the right,
>until you have an unallocated gap suitable for making the third primary
>partition larger. Which is a whole lot of work, with a whole lot of risk.

Your frustration seems to be a result of the tools you're using.
Starting around the time of Partition Magic (circa 1994 or so?),
moving and resizing partitions became dead simple. Plus, if the
partitions are empty or the data is not placed where it needs to be
moved, the process of moving or resizing partitions completes in
seconds. I consider the risk to be about on par with defragmenting.
Not zero, but close to it. It's low enough that I never make a backup
first, if that's any indication.

I don't know why you're finding such simple tasks to be a "whole lot
of work, with a whole lot of risk", but I suspect it's your tools.

Char Jackson wrote:
> On Sat, 05 May 2012 08:46:43 -0400, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> Molly Gilliver wrote:
>>> In message <jo1thu$6nm$(E-Mail Removed)>, Paul <(E-Mail Removed)> writes
>>> []
>>>> I wouldn't have made those two logicals in the first place. That
>>>> would put me in a hard spot, when it comes to managing space, and facing
>>>> the situation you're in right now. From bitter experience, I know if
>>>> I make logicals now, they'll only be a roadblock later, to easy
>>>> solutions.
>>> Care to elaborate on that? Although I only have two partitions (one for
>>> the OS and software, the other for my data) on this my main machine, I'm
>>> curious to know your reasons for disliking multiple partitions.
>> When you need to move logicals, it isn't very convenient.
>
> I wish you had explained that in a little more detail. I don't see
> anything inconvenient about logical versus primary partitions. Modern
> tools let you convert partitions from one type to the other with two
> or three mouse clicks, and moving either type is as simple as
> selecting it, selecting the Copy or Move command, and deciding where
> to put it. I use Acronis Disk Director, but there are numerous
> alternatives available.
>
>> Your best choice,
>> might be to make the fourth partition the extended one, and put the logicals in
>> there. But during your planning phase, you'd better get the sizes right,
>> or you're in for hours of fun. For example, if you needed to make your
>> third primary larger, you might need to shrink your logicals, shift them
>> to the right, shrink the Extended and move its left edge to the right,
>> until you have an unallocated gap suitable for making the third primary
>> partition larger. Which is a whole lot of work, with a whole lot of risk.
>
> Your frustration seems to be a result of the tools you're using.
> Starting around the time of Partition Magic (circa 1994 or so?),
> moving and resizing partitions became dead simple. Plus, if the
> partitions are empty or the data is not placed where it needs to be
> moved, the process of moving or resizing partitions completes in
> seconds. I consider the risk to be about on par with defragmenting.
> Not zero, but close to it. It's low enough that I never make a backup
> first, if that's any indication.
>
> I don't know why you're finding such simple tasks to be a "whole lot
> of work, with a whole lot of risk", but I suspect it's your tools.
>

I evaluate tools, to start, by doing a Google search and looking for
signs of failure. There is a correlation between the complexity
of the operation, and it's chances of failure. For example, "merge"
is a waste of time. And I'm sure the developers of such options,
really wish they hadn't. (Merge attempts to squash two partitions
together. And take care of file or directory clashes or whatever.)

Even in the simplest of operations, I can do a Google search and
find reports of failure. One of the free utilities, managed
to trash a FAT32 partition while resizing it. You can't get much
simpler than that. And based on that report, I wouldn't touch that
one with a barge pole. If it failed on a "merge", well,
what do you expect.

I'll leave it to anyone wishing to use a partition tool, to do
the necessary search for themselves, and see how trustworthy
these tools are.

You may scoff at my copy of Partition Magic. It sucks in many
ways. But, there are a subset of things I can do in it, that
I've come to trust. The same approach should be used with
any other tool you happen to find, that does partition management.
Do a backup first, "go crazy with the clicks" if you want,
pretend the tools is faultless. Then, check and see whether
it messed up or not. If it messed up, restore from backup,
and try it again, using simpler operations until you get a feel
for it. Maybe you'll find the defects in it, are too much to
stomach.

It's your data, and you can be as careless with it as you want.

Paul