Partitioning hard drives.

[Dennis Pack x64, v64B2 \(5384\), OPP2007B2]

Partitioning hard drives can be a nightmare. I've been using PQ Partition
magic for years, I've seen no updates to it since Norton purchased it other
than name change. PM isn't compatible with XP x64 or Vista at this time
other than booting it from the CD or floppies which works. I'm not holding
my breath for an update since there have been no updates in over three
years. When I rebuilt my FX51 tower, dropping raid and installing a 320GB
hard drive, I didn't have a copy of XP X86 to install without violating
licensing. I installed XP x64 instead on a 30GB partition setup during
installation. That left 268GB unallocated. Using "Disk Management" in x64 I
created two 49GB primary partitions, F data and G Vista and formatted them
NTFS with name and letter. Installation of Vista x64 on the G partition was
flawless. Under hard drives I see C x64 30GB, F Data 49GB and G Vista 49GB
in either operating system. Under "Disk Management" I see the same
partitions plus 170GB unallocated. This proves that with a little planning
from the beginning a third party partitioning tool isn't needed. I will
still boot PM from floppies if I need to resize the partitions because it
works, but for partition creation and formatting "Disk Management" is faster
and easier.

 

[Chad Harris]

Dennis--

1) I would be skeptical of Symantec given their track record paralleling
every single OS change in Windows including the ridiculous dissembling way
they handled the SP2 release on about August 9, 2004 to Beta testers and
shortly afterward to the public (my dates may be a few days off) including
service packs. They made a big deal of the fact they were updating Norton
AV products, and then simply released an update to the Mickey Mouse Center
that lets people know the AV is on in XP. Few people on the planet ever
needed to consult that thing to figure out if they could right click the
icon in the notification area and "turn their frigging AV on."

If that weren't enough, they didn't make their little update available on a
server on their site, but instead you had to own Norton to use Live Update
and it didn't work for a sizable percentage of people. As a response,
people immediately posted the update on the web.


From everything I've been able to read, PM isn't compatible with Vista yet.
You can ayk use Disk Management in Vista. But are you trying PM from XP to
resize drives the way you want for Vista? Or have you tried Ranish which is
Vista compatible right now if you want an alternative to Disk Management on
Vista.

I read this that you are trying to get some machines ready to put Vista on
them.

http://www.ranish.com/part/

Ranish Partition Manager on Vista:
http://www.tutorialsall.com/VISTA/BootIt-andor/
Resizing Partitions with Windows Vista:

1.. Click on the Start Button and right click on Computer and select
Manage.
2.. Expand the Storage section and select Disk Management.
3.. Then just right click on any partition and select either Expand or
Shrink to change the size of the partition.
This will allow you to safely resize your partitions without any data loss.


CH

 

[Dennis Pack x64, v64B2 \(5384\), OPP2007B2]

Chad:
I started out with PM7 when XP came out which wasn't compatible with NTFS
fully at the time. Then I went to PM8 to setup partitions to dual boot W98 &
XP. Since PM8 isn't compatible with X64 or Vista I went over to using the
startup floppies (called rescue disks by PM) for setting up hard drives,
moving partitions or resizing partitions. Since the startup floppies setup a
DOS environment there isn't a conflict with X64 or Vista. PM8 doesn't
install on x64 or Vista, but it works faster when not working from within an
operating system.
I agree with you fully about Norton's lack of keeping up with operating
system changes until it finally hurts sales appreciably. Norton just had an
article listing Vista as very insecure and noting that they had the cure, I
laughed so hard that I almost got sick which doesn't help my therapy.
As John Barnes noted in the x64 newsgroup, I omitted the shrinking ability
in Vista. The omission on my part was an error, just because I haven't tried
it yet.
When I rebuilt my FX51 tower with it being totally x64 and Vista x64 at
this time, I decided to try the onboard tools in x64 for setting up
partitions. I found that they work and can be faster and easier than third
party programs.
After reading many posts about problems corrupting or damaging partitions I
decided to post an easy way that works. Have a Great Day.

 

[Rob Wilkens]

I haven't used recently, but have you tried booting into :
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php

It "requires" linux, but I think the Live CD has Linux on it as well as all
supporting files to run the application. No installation of Linux on to
your hard disk is required.

I should mention, it's free.

-Rob

<DIV>&quot;Dennis Pack x64, v64B2 (5384), OPP2007B2&quot;
&lt;[email protected]&gt; wrote in message

 

[Chad Harris]

Dennis--


I came accross some rescue discs I had made with PM 8 the other day. But I
made them on XP. I guess I would have to make them on Vista for use on
Vista--is that correct? My understanding is that as of now, you can't
install PM8 itself onto Vista but maybe you don't need to using your
methods.

I remembered the information and the tricks for faster PM use in Vista that
you and I think Mark Vandenberg have been posting. If I understand you
correctly PM8 is still not compatible in Vista as of 5536 pre-RC1 (I thought
it would not install) but there is a faster way of using it you have
described here and in other posts. If you can post the faster way again,
it'd be convenient for me. I want to put it in a folder on this Vista
install for easy retrieval.

AYK Symantec and MSFT are going at it in Federal District Court in Seattle
but still in the early stages of ths suit. MSFT has seemed to me a little
more vulnerable in litigation or threatened litigation with the Vista "shove
anything we got" outta door by an Oct 25 RTM as evidenced by their retreat
with Adobe although they will offer most of the capabilities they were as
separate free downloads--is my understanding from talking to them.

CH

 

[Dennis Pack x64, v64B2 \(5384\), OPP2007B2]

Chad:
I had to do some testing to be able to give you a good answer. Test system,
AMD FX51 with x64 and Vista x64 b2 (5384). PM8 installed on both operating
systems. In x64 trying to create a partition in un-partitioned space had an
error and wouldn't complete. In Vista x64 when opening the program a
conflict message appeared, running anyway the program wouldn't start with
the message that the program was designed for a NT4 operating system. The
PM8 rescue disks (created in XP x86) start DR-DOS and function normally. The
test partition is recognized as NTFS and healthy in the drive manager from
both operating systems. Running PM8 from the rescue disks is faster because
no operating system is loaded or running. After creating the partition a
disk scan is performed on the new volume when x64 is started, in Vista x64
the new partition is installed like and recognized as new hardware.
The Symantec episode in my opinion is a joke because they aren't keeping up
with the new technologies, including x64, Vista, IE7 and WLMD. Also with the
new security features in Vista they can't control the operating system the
way that they like to. My last purchase from them was Ghost 10 which was a
waste except that Ghost 2003 was included at no extra cost. They will get no
more of my money until they upgrade their products to function properly with
whatever operating system or programs that I'm using without modifications.

 

[John Barnes]

Ditto. My only concern would be whether there would be the same problems
using the partition that Acronis has shown with Vista.

 

[Dennis Pack x64, v64B2 \(5384\), OPP2007B2]

John:
Again on the AMD FX51 test computer. I created a 20GB partition and
formatted it NTFS using the PM8 floppies. Booting off the Vista x86 DVD, the
new partition is recognized and in the process of installing at this time.

 

[John Barnes]

Off hand, I don't remember what problems those who had used the Acronis
partition had, or when they had them, just that more than one reported
problems and recommended against using anything but the native Vista
partitioning.

 

[Dennis Pack x64, v64B2 \(5384\), OPP2007B2]

John:
I don't remember the Acronis issue either. The installation of Vista x86
was successful in the partition created with the PM8 floppies. The error
that I made was booting from the DVD, now my drive letters are different
which is no big deal because all partitions are labeled. If I get ambitious
I'll delete the partition and see if I can install Vista x86 with x64
running since this computer doesn't have XP x86 installed.

 

[JCO]

This is something good to know. I've been playing around with Chad's
suggestion Ranish (or rather BootIt NG) at the moment. I've been going back
and forth with it and PM 8 to see if they mess each other up. Seems like
when going from one to the other, that you get some cross link issues. I'm
playing with a small HD that has no data on it. Just trying get familiar
with it.

I don't have trust in BootIt NG yet.