Norton Partition Magic

[Guest]

Is anyone familiar with the idiosyncracies of Norton's PM? I am wondering
why it is unable to recognize a 300 GB SATA HDD via a SCSI adapter (I ran out
of SATA ports on my mobo and opted for a Belkin card that gives me two more
SATA ports but is recognized as a SCSI port). On the PM display it shows the
drive as being bad when I know that it is okay.

I'm trying to partition off this drive to use as a clone for an emergency
boot drive using Norton Ghost.

I'm also trying to figure out why my first attempt at cloning my C: drive
resulted in a perpetual "MBR Error 13" advisory during bootup. I reformatted
the HDD but for some reason I still see the error. I saw another person with
the same problem but there was no solution.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Margaret Wilson]

Is anyone familiar with the idiosyncracies of Norton's PM? I am wondering
why it is unable to recognize a 300 GB SATA HDD via a SCSI adapter (I ran out
of SATA ports on my mobo and opted for a Belkin card that gives me two more
SATA ports but is recognized as a SCSI port). On the PM display it shows the
drive as being bad when I know that it is okay.

I'm trying to partition off this drive to use as a clone for an emergency
boot drive using Norton Ghost.

I'm also trying to figure out why my first attempt at cloning my C: drive
resulted in a perpetual "MBR Error 13" advisory during bootup. I reformatted
the HDD but for some reason I still see the error. I saw another person with
the same problem but there was no solution.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I used to own PowerQuest's PM and Drive Image, but I found support (and
updates) were practically nonexistent once Symantec got hold of these
great products. And now the best of DI has been eaten by Ghost. I soon
found that because my (the most recent) version of DI was purchased
through PowerQuest, Symantec was going to make me pay full price to
upgrade. Between that and Norton's bloated AV, I began activately
searching for replacement software. I've found Acronis True Image 9.0 a
much better disk imaging/cloning program than Ghost. Further, there's
an active forum which is monitored by Acronis tech support reps.
Although I've continued to use Partition Magic (again the latest version
and purchased from PowerQuest), I disklike the two boot floppies which
only sometimes work, and it doesn't always see all of my drives.
Figuring Symantec would pull the same stunt with me upon trying to
upgrade should they ever enhance the product, I started looking at other
options and settled on Acronis Disk Director Suite 10. It sees all my
drives and performs functions *much* faster than PM. Further, it has a
boot CD, which always works when I need it. Updates are much more
forthcoming from Acronis than they've ever been from Symantec, and the
products aren't outrageously priced. Finally, if you own both TI and
DD, you can put both (in full and safe modes) on the same recovery CD.

Acronis' tech support has its issues as do most tech support depts. But
there are live people who monitor the forum and they do reply with
solutions to most problems pretty quickly. Further, you also get the
support of fellow users. <rant on> IMNSHO, Symantec once made great
software. Now they sell bloat, and if they buy another company with
decent apps, they soon destroy them or drive users away by making them
pay full price for an upgrade when they already own the app. I don't
see myself ever buying or recommending Symantec software again.
Something major would have to change for the better for that to happen.
<rant off>

Check out Acronis and see what you think.

Regards,

Margaret

 

[Guest]

yes, my experience with the Acronis people has been very favorable.

Their disk director is an excellent partitioning tool that functions inside
of the desktop and not in dos. It also recovered my crashed partitions and
saved my valuable data.

I've been being cheap lately and haven't wanted to buy a disk imaging
software. But i did found a freeware that has made the images. However, i
have not needed to test the software yet and see if a restoration would be
successful. If you want to try it out it is called PE Builder.

Also, I think that I found that ntbackup has a similar feature as well, but
havnt tested it. You have to use the "advance mode" to see the options to
either backup or create somekind of restore disks.....

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the info, Margaret. I had already given up on Norton AV and found
that Zone Alarm has been MUCH more reliable. I should have known that other
Norton products would be equally cumbersome. But in the pursuit of saving
money, I bought the pair of Norton Ghost & Partition Magic off someone who
didn't need it (or didn't want it) very cheaply ($30) and I'm seeing that you
always get what you pay for.

I had tried the trial version of Acronis but didn't get very far when I
developed an error advisory "MBR Error 3" after trying to back out of a
backup boot partition I created on another drive. I'm sure it was operator
error on my part because after disconnecting my C: drive, the backup boot
worked fine. What threw me off was that my Disk Management was still showing
a C: drive vice the Z: drive. Since then I've learned that was a "normal"
indication.

And foolishly I tried different S/W (Norton) thinking that would correct my
problem. So, after completely reformatting the Z: drive (and wiping out 300
GB of data stored) I'm still getting the "MBR Error 3" advisory when I boot
up.

It isn't causing any problems more than a puzzling annoyance that's turning
into a quest to solve the mystery. I've tried to access the recovery console
to try the FIXBOOT /MBR command but I haven't been able to locate the
recovery console yet. I booted off the recovery disk (without restoring the
entire C: drive) but I still can't locate the app that will let me fix my MBR.

Any suggestions?

TIA,
Brent

 

[Margaret Wilson]

Thanks for the info, Margaret. I had already given up on Norton AV and found

And foolishly I tried different S/W (Norton) thinking that would correct my
problem. So, after completely reformatting the Z: drive (and wiping out 300
GB of data stored) I'm still getting the "MBR Error 3" advisory when I boot
up.

It isn't causing any problems more than a puzzling annoyance that's turning
into a quest to solve the mystery. I've tried to access the recovery console
to try the FIXBOOT /MBR command but I haven't been able to locate the
recovery console yet. I booted off the recovery disk (without restoring the
entire C: drive) but I still can't locate the app that will let me fix my MBR.

Any suggestions?

I've never used the fixboot /mbr method to fix the MBR, as I've never
had much luck with the recovery console. I still use FDISK, probably
because I started in computers back when DOS was it. If you have a
floppy disk in your computer, you can use the following free, enhanced
FDISK to fix your MBR problem.

http://www.23cc.com/free-fdisk/

And here's another site with more info: http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/

While the above FDISK says it works on hard disks up to 128GB in size,
I've found that it works with larger ones, though I do have mine
partitioned....

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Margaret

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip, Margaret. I'll be sure to give it a try and let you know
how it turns out.

B