External drive--partition error message

[GarySport]

Hi:
I can't figure out what happened. I had two internal HDDs. Disk 1 is 120 GB;
Disk 2 is 60 GB. I decided to move Disk 2 to become an external USB HD. Both
drives had been previously partitioned with PartionMagic 8.0, and DIsk 2 had 3
partitions and only a little bit of data. I moved it to the USB position, and
all was well. I could access the partitions and all files. I decided I wanted
to repartition the USB drive, so I rebooted my system with the PartitionMagic
boot disk and got this message as the program started: Partition Table Error
#110

"Disk 2 (57218 MB 7323c 254h 63s) appears to have partitions created using a
different drive geometry (255h 63s). This serious problem can lead to data
loss. No partition manipulation should be made to this disk using
PartitionMagic or Windows products. You should back up the data on this disk,
delete all partitions, create new partitions under the new drive geometry, and
then restore your data."

Does anyone know what happened? Why would the drive work OK in the USB
position, yet produce this error when I wanted to repartition? When I
originally partitioned both drives, I used the PM default choices, so I didn't
do anything unusual. I would have thought that the partitions created when
this was an internal HD would just transfer over to its use as an external
drive. I'm prepared to delete the partitions and do it all over, but it makes
me wonder what's going on and whether something will happen again. Any
thoughts? Thanks!

GS

 

[Eric Gisin]

Some idiot (microsoft, usb commitee) decided to change the conventional
IDE/SCSI H/S geometry of 255/63 to 254/63 for USB. Anyone know who screwed up?

Win 2k/XP does not care what the CHS values are, it uses LBA values in the
partition table. Don't use DOS or PM to create partitions.

| Hi:
| I can't figure out what happened. I had two internal HDDs. Disk 1 is 120
GB;
| Disk 2 is 60 GB. I decided to move Disk 2 to become an external USB HD.
Both
| drives had been previously partitioned with PartionMagic 8.0, and DIsk 2 had
3
| partitions and only a little bit of data. I moved it to the USB position,
and
| all was well. I could access the partitions and all files. I decided I
wanted
| to repartition the USB drive, so I rebooted my system with the
PartitionMagic
| boot disk and got this message as the program started: Partition Table
Error
| #110
|
| "Disk 2 (57218 MB 7323c 254h 63s) appears to have partitions created using a
| different drive geometry (255h 63s). This serious problem can lead to data
| loss. No partition manipulation should be made to this disk using
| PartitionMagic or Windows products. You should back up the data on this
disk,
| delete all partitions, create new partitions under the new drive geometry,
and
| then restore your data."
|
| Does anyone know what happened? Why would the drive work OK in the USB
| position, yet produce this error when I wanted to repartition? When I
| originally partitioned both drives, I used the PM default choices, so I
didn't
| do anything unusual. I would have thought that the partitions created when
| this was an internal HD would just transfer over to its use as an external
| drive. I'm prepared to delete the partitions and do it all over, but it
makes
| me wonder what's going on and whether something will happen again. Any
| thoughts? Thanks!