XP Pro Not REcognizing Existing Partitions

B

bbersted

I use a third party disk partition program ( Paragon Partition Manager) to
partition and format my HD, Installing Windows XP home on a partitioned and
NTFS formatted (NTFS) HD works fine. The partitioning and formatting schemes
are recognized and installation proceeds smoothly. However, XP Pro is a
different story. When I get to the screen where the partitions are displayed
during installation, no partitions are displayed, but the only the total
amount of unformatted unused space. My only option is to create a new
partition from this unused space ( which apparently spans all my preexisting
partitions or to exit the installation.

Why is XP Home able to see existing partitions and the XP PRO not?
Additionally, how can I use the third party partitioning program to partition
and format while installing XP pro on a preexisting partition .

Thanks in Advance
bbersted
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

bbersted said:
I use a third party disk partition program ( Paragon Partition Manager) to
partition and format my HD, Installing Windows XP home on a partitioned
and
NTFS formatted (NTFS) HD works fine. The partitioning and formatting
schemes
are recognized and installation proceeds smoothly. However, XP Pro is a
different story. When I get to the screen where the partitions are
displayed
during installation, no partitions are displayed, but the only the total
amount of unformatted unused space. My only option is to create a new
partition from this unused space ( which apparently spans all my
preexisting
partitions or to exit the installation.

Why is XP Home able to see existing partitions and the XP PRO not?
Additionally, how can I use the third party partitioning program to
partition
and format while installing XP pro on a preexisting partition .

Thanks in Advance
bbersted

WinXP Home and WinXP Professionals use the same engine when it comes to
detecting file systems. There is some other difference that you may not be
aware of and that is not apparent from your report.
 
B

bbersted

Pegasus said:
WinXP Home and WinXP Professionals use the same engine when it comes to
detecting file systems. There is some other difference that you may not be
aware of and that is not apparent from your report.


Doesen't the pro have some additional capabilities, such as hiding or limiting access to folders or partitions? The only difference I neglected in my post was that the XP home is an upgrade version, while the Pro is a full version.

bbersted
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

bbersted said:

Here the features that are present in WinXP Professional but not in WinXP
Home:
- Remote desktop
- Domain validation
- EFS (Encryption File System)
- Device driver rollback, last known configuration, system rollback
- IIS
- Multiple CPUs
- Multiple language support
- Dynamic disks
As you see, none of them refer to partition recognition. Upgrade/Full
Version does not matter either. There is something else that is lurking on
your machine. Is your WinXP Pro a legitimate version?
 
B

bbersted

Pegasus said:
Here the features that are present in WinXP Professional but not in WinXP
Home:
- Remote desktop
- Domain validation
- EFS (Encryption File System)
- Device driver rollback, last known configuration, system rollback
- IIS
- Multiple CPUs
- Multiple language support
- Dynamic disks
As you see, none of them refer to partition recognition. Upgrade/Full
Version does not matter either. There is something else that is lurking on
your machine. Is your WinXP Pro a legitimate version?


I realize that you have to ask- both versions are legit retail and have been activated, registered with microsoft, and WGA'd. I tried booting Win 7 RC1 and it recognized the preexisting fpartitions and formatting just fine. I did install and activated fine the copy of the xp pro , as long as I let it do its own formatting and partitioning . I am baffled .
 
S

sandy58

I use a third party disk partition program ( Paragon Partition Manager) to  
partition  and  format my HD, Installing Windows XP home on a partitioned and
NTFS formatted (NTFS) HD works fine. The partitioning and formatting schemes
are recognized and installation proceeds  smoothly. However, XP Pro is a
different story. When I get to the screen where the partitions are displayed
during installation, no partitions are displayed, but the only the total
amount of  unformatted unused space. My only option is to create a new
partition from this unused space ( which apparently spans all my preexisting
partitions or to exit the installation.

Why is XP Home able to see existing partitions and the XP PRO not?
Additionally, how can I use the third party partitioning program to partition
and format while installing XP pro on a preexisting  partition .

Thanks in Advance
bbersted

I take it that you DID format each partition after forming?
 
B

bbersted

Pegasus said:
Here the features that are present in WinXP Professional but not in WinXP
Home:
- Remote desktop
- Domain validation
- EFS (Encryption File System)
- Device driver rollback, last known configuration, system rollback
- IIS
- Multiple CPUs
- Multiple language support
- Dynamic disks
As you see, none of them refer to partition recognition. Upgrade/Full
Version does not matter either. There is something else that is lurking on
your machine. Is your WinXP Pro a legitimate version?


XP Pro Not Recognizing Existing Partitions From Partition Manager

Thanks for your help Pegasus. You were right about something being different
between versions. First, let me say that the HD I was trying to install
windows on was a 1 TB WD HD. I finally realized that the original version I
installed on this HD was the Home Upgrade, which I had slipstreamed SP2 on
it, while the PRO full version was from the pristine disk with no SP2. As I
recalled SP2 greatly extended the partition and HD sizes. Apparently without
SP2, the installation was not the same and the HD with the the large
partitions was incorrectly recognized.

After slipstreaming SP2 into the PRO version, the problem was resolved. Feel
kind of dumb as I should have remembered the difference and its effect on
large HD's without SP2. Thanks again.

bbersted
 
P

Pegasus [MVP]

bbersted said:
Thanks for your help Pegasus. You were right about something being
different
between versions. First, let me say that the HD I was trying to install
windows on was a 1 TB WD HD. I finally realized that the original version
I
installed on this HD was the Home Upgrade, which I had slipstreamed SP2 on
it, while the PRO full version was from the pristine disk with no SP2. As
I
recalled SP2 greatly extended the partition and HD sizes. Apparently
without
SP2, the installation was not the same and the HD with the the large
partitions was incorrectly recognized.

After slipstreaming SP2 into the PRO version, the problem was resolved.
Feel
kind of dumb as I should have remembered the difference and its effect on
large HD's without SP2. Thanks again.

bbersted

Thanks for the feedback - nice detective work! I would not have suspected
this particular issue as a possible cause because it goes against my
principles having a large system partition. To me a system partition should
be large enough to accommodate all OS and program files, for which 20 . ..
50 GBytes is in most cases plenty. On the other hand I accept that different
people have different preferences.
 

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