I'm trying to create partitions on an 80Gb HDD using PM7. Have Bootmagic 7 loaded as well.

Trouble is, no matter what combination I try, logical or Primary, active or no, ext2 or NTFS, as soon as PM7 enters DOS mode and starts to apply changes, the system reboots.

I previously had the Grisoft AVG6.0 anti-virus software installed and thought maybe it was detecting an attempt to write to the HDD and so stopped it, but I've since uninstalled AVG6.0 and the problem's still there.

Only thing on the HDD atm is WIN98 and a few small apps, was hoping to divide thus:

WIN98: 30Gb
Mandrake 8.2: 10Gb.
WIN XP: 10Gb
MP3 storage: 15Gb
Pic storage: 15Gb.

I've also deleted the Grisoft folder AVG6.0 left behind and tried disabling BootMagic, still no go.

I'm a bit stumped, anybody any ideas?

Why are you using the DOS version of PM? The Windows version works great for me. Oh, and as a last resort, you could put your Mandrake CD in, and create your paritions there. It won't format windows partitions, but you could leave them blank and format them in Windows later.

I havn't got partition magic installed on this computer, but If i remember correctly it creates a log either in the / filesystem or in its proram directory that tells you exactly what it is doing, if you look at the last entry in the file then that will tell you what was happening.

Did it come up with any errors before it reboots, and exactly what are you trying to do?

Is the whole disk one Windows98 (FAT32) partition? or do you have unpartitioned space?

You could try only doing one thing at a time like just decrease the windows 98 partition or just create one new partition at a time.

Also check that "boot sector virus protection" is turned off in the BIOS as this can have some interesting effects.

Eric:

I wasn't using PM7 in DOS mode, I was using it in Windows mode. But if you've used this software you'll be aware that to carry out some operations, PM7 enters DOS mode from Windows, does it's work, then reboots to Windows.

And it's while it was in DOS mode that my problem occured.

Since then, I actually wiped the hard drive, loaded WIN98 on 16Gb; XP on 20Gb; Mandrake 8.2 on 10Gb which leaves me 30Gb for storage, mostly for video editing.

I'm quite certain Grisoft AV6.0 was the culprit, have Nortons AV 2002 installed now, no probs.

On top of that, I actually had an unstable 256 stick of Crucial RAM, I bought it second hand. That didn't help! :angry:

I'm now using some Corsair RAM and all appears well.

Thanx for replies, btw

Hmmm...sounds odd. I'm using PartitionMagic 8.0 in XP and it never has to go into DOS mode (not that there is a DOS mode for it to use).

Yup, have PM8 myself now, much nicer interface and I like the option to resize clusters within a Windows enviroment.