Inserting BootMagic after the fact

[Roger Smith]

Partitions are: XP English (4094.7 MB); XP Foreign (3537.8 MB);
Unallocated (15963.0 MB); Extended (90875.5 MB). One XP partition is
always hidden using PartitionMagic 7.01 boot diskettes. Need more
space on the XP partitions, but PartitionMagic gives nasty messages
about the 1024 cylinder boundary and the new sizes not being bootable.

Am I right in suspecting that I would not have this problem had I
created a small FAT partition for BootMagic as the first partition? If
so, can I add this partition now?

Thanks.

 

[Joseph Conway [MSFT]]

FAT really wouldnt have anything to do with it I dont think. The 1024 limit
was based on the old INT13 calls to the BIOS of a machine and the inability
of NT based systems to see past that limitation. Newer OS's (200/XP, etc)
can see past that limitation because of the way the new BIOS works. I am
not sure how youre going to get around it now, but I know that we only
support our boot strap code so you would most likely want to speak with
someone at PM.

 

[I'm Dan]

Partitions are: XP English (4094.7 MB); XP Foreign (3537.8 MB);
Unallocated (15963.0 MB); Extended (90875.5 MB). One XP
partition is always hidden using PartitionMagic 7.01 boot diskettes.
Need more space on the XP partitions, but PartitionMagic gives
nasty messages about the 1024 cylinder boundary and the new
sizes not being bootable.

Am I right in suspecting that I would not have this problem had
I created a small FAT partition for BootMagic as the first
partition? If so, can I add this partition now?

It sounds like you don't presently have BM installed, right? Yes, you
can add a small FAT partition and install BM after the fact, but I don't
think that's the problem. XP has no trouble with the 1024 cylinder
boundary.

I could be wrong, but somewhere in the back of my mind I thought PM7
could only manage HDDs up to 80GB. If that's true, perhaps PM is just
getting confused and complaining about the wrong thing?

 

[Roger Smith]

My understanding is that the 80GB limit in PM7 is for partitions, not
the drive itself. If XP has no trouble with the 1024 cylinder boundary
is it possible that PM7 isn't able to recognize that XP is installed?
Was 7.01 written before the advent of XP? Else it's odd that the
warning messages aren't prefaced by "For OSs other than XP…"

Yes, that's correct. BM is not presently installed. Is unallocated
space a partition? Isn't it only possible to have 4 partitions per
disk, or has that changed too?

Thanks

 

[I'm Dan]

I think it's really a per-disk limit rather than per-partition, but a
FAQ on PQ's site says the max drive PM7 can handle is 120GB, so looks
like your drive is still okay, anyway. I believe PM7 was released
shortly before XP, with the 7.01 upgrade released to fix a minor issue
or two after XP was released. Win2000 also doesn't have a problem with
1024 cyl, and it was released long before PM7. The disk limit is still
4 primary partitions per disk (one of which can be an extended
partition), and unallocated space is not a partition.

I just booted up my PM7.01, and I see what you're referring to -- a
small informational msg or warning msg about the 1024 boundary in the
"Create Partition" dialog box. Those msgs aren't real warnings, and are
just informational artifacts left over from much earlier PM versions.
You can safely ignore them.

 

[Roger Smith]

Thanks, Dan. I now have: XP English (5694.9 MB); Unallocated (1059.0
MB); XP Foreign (6636.2 MB); Unallocated (10205.4 MB); Extended
(90875.5 MB) and everything is working fine.

I left the Unallocated (1059.0 MB) with a view to moving part it to
the front of the disk and installing BootMagic in a FAT partition
(everything else is NTFS). But wouldn't the FAT partition need a
letter and wouldn't that change all the drive letters?

BTW I keep reading about installing BootMagic in a small partition.
How small?

 

[I'm Dan]

Thanks, Dan. I now have: XP English (5694.9 MB); Unallocated
(1059.0 MB); XP Foreign (6636.2 MB); Unallocated (10205.4
MB); Extended (90875.5 MB) and everything is working fine.

I left the Unallocated (1059.0 MB) with a view to moving part
it to the front of the disk and installing BootMagic in a FAT
partition (everything else is NTFS). But wouldn't the FAT partition
need a letter and wouldn't that change all the drive letters?

BTW I keep reading about installing BootMagic in a small
partition. How small?

I don't recall if BM has a minimum size limit, but the smallest
partition you're likely to get on modern HDDs is about 8MB (one
cylinder). I no longer use BM, but I think I've installed it in as
little as 32MB before (I also stored DOS versions of DriveImage and
PartitionMagic in the FAT partition).

Hopefully, each of your XP installations should boot with itself as C:
and the alternate XP partition hidden, don't they? Similarly, the FAT
partition will be hidden when XP boots and won't get a drive letter.

Technically, sliding your XP partitions around might cause problems
because their partition "signatures" will change -- the signature is
based on location on the HDD -- and XP remembers drive letters by those
signatures. If both XPs are alternate C: volumes, there are relatively
simple workarounds to regenerate the signatures and keep both properly
as C:. However, if BM will install in a small logical volume (in your
extended partition), you wouldn't have to move your XP partitions and
could avoid potential problems. I don't recall if BM will install in a
logical volume, but I know several alternatives to BM will -- XOSL and
BootIt NG are a couple of the better alternative boot managers that can
be installed in logical volumes instead of primary partitions.

 

[Roger Smith]

In this case I believe installing in the extended partition won't
work, because it is NTFS and I believe BM needs FAT or FAT32.

Currently I have two drive Cs, one of which is always hidden, with
unallocated space between them. Can I install BM in the space between
the Cs without moving it to the front of the disk?

Am I right in thinking that to install BM I need to hide both current
Cs and create a third active C for BM, and that on selection of one of
the original Cs, BM hides itself and makes the chosen C active?

 

[I'm Dan]

Currently I have two drive Cs, one of which is always hidden,
with unallocated space between them. Can I install BM in the
space between the Cs without moving it to the front of the disk?

Am I right in thinking that to install BM I need to hide both
current Cs and create a third active C for BM, and that on
selection of one of the original Cs, BM hides itself and makes
the chosen C active?

Yes, creating an active FAT/FAT32 partition in the middle for BM should
work fine. When configuring each menu item, there are checkboxes to
indicate whether other partitions are to be hidden or visible (by
default, BM initially sets them up to be hidden, I believe).

One possible fly in the ointment may be that, IIRC, current versions of
BM only install from within Windows, so you may have to put a minimal
Windows install on that third partition just to install BM. (Up to
about BM 5.0, it could also be installed from DOS, but I think the DOS
install option was dropped from subsequent versions). If that's the
case, I'd forget BM and use something else like GAG or XOSL -- they're
both free, are both better than BM, and both will install from a floppy
disk.

 

[Roger Smith]

Thanks for the info, Dan. I'll try the BM install and see what happens
and in the case of problems move over to GAG or XOSL.

In the meantime a strange thing has happened with Disk 1, but whether
it springs from PMagic, Diskeeper or something else I don't know.
After making C: Xp Pro English active and hiding C: Xp Pro Foreign,
Chkdsk ran an amazingly long session. Messages were fast and furious,
overwriting one another. I saw the words Deleting, File, Corrupt,
Record, Segment, 128, 160, $130. Then messages "Deleting orphan file
record segment", "Correcting error in index", "Sorting index" and so
on. The only file names I saw were TIFs.

Afterwards, using Windows Explorer to open TIFs in PhotoPaint shows
that many produce the message "File [name of file] not found". Their
backups on E: Archived and H: Archived produce the same message. As do
their backups stored on CDs. Attempting to open these files with
PhotoPaint produces "File name [name of file] is either invalid or too
long". The problem files open normally from Windows Paint. Removing
and reinstalling PhotoPaint has had no effect.

When I make C: Xp Pro Foreign active and hide C: Xp Pro English, the
problem files open normally.