XP Pro, SATA Drive, Partition Magic.. Compatible?

[Guest]

I have a brand new system with a 250 GB SATA drive and want to partition it
into 3 partitions. I started to do it with Partition Magic 8 but after
creating the changes and then selecting "APPLY", I got a message that says
"There is no active partition. Would you like to continue?" There is no
explanation so I am confused as to whether I should say yes. So far, I've
said NO and quit so I don't screw up my brand new system.

Do I need to be afraid of continuing? Or should I somehow make a partition
"active" and if so how ? Bottom line, though, does PM 8 work OK with SATA
drives?

Slightly related question: what is the easiest and safest way to re-assign
drive letters?

Fred

 

[Airman Thunderbird]

Why not use Disk Management in XP? I've had trouble with PM8 since
updating to IE7, (windows explorer crashes consistently with PM
formatted drives) and rediscovered XP's utility.

 

[Og]

I have a brand new system with a 250 GB SATA drive and want to partition it
into 3 partitions. I started to do it with Partition Magic 8 but after
creating the changes and then selecting "APPLY", I got a message that
says
"There is no active partition. Would you like to continue?" There is no
explanation so I am confused as to whether I should say yes. So far, I've
said NO and quit so I don't screw up my brand new system.

Do I need to be afraid of continuing? Or should I somehow make a partition
"active" and if so how ? Bottom line, though, does PM 8 work OK with SATA
drives?

Slightly related question: what is the easiest and safest way to
re-assign
drive letters?

Fred

Please feel free to visit Symantec for assistance with using their
non-Microsoft, non-Windows product.
Steve

 

[Anna]

I have a brand new system with a 250 GB SATA drive and want to partition it
into 3 partitions. I started to do it with Partition Magic 8 but after
creating the changes and then selecting "APPLY", I got a message that
says
"There is no active partition. Would you like to continue?" There is no
explanation so I am confused as to whether I should say yes. So far, I've
said NO and quit so I don't screw up my brand new system.

Do I need to be afraid of continuing? Or should I somehow make a partition
"active" and if so how ? Bottom line, though, does PM 8 work OK with SATA
drives?

Slightly related question: what is the easiest and safest way to
re-assign
drive letters?

Fred

Fred:
It's really hard, if not impossible, to tell from this distance what went
wrong during that aborted partitioning exercise with Partition Magic.
Generally speaking PM works quite well with the XP operating system,
including SATA HDDs with respect to basic partitioning, partition merging,
and the like.

Since you mention this is a "brand new system" why don't you - as I believe
at least one responder suggested - simply start fresh and install the XP OS
together with creating the three partitions you want? Would that not be the
most practical approach at this time? Yes, if you've installed any programs
you would have to install them again. And if there's any important or
crucial user-created data on your SATA HDD it should be copied to some other
media before the fresh install of the OS.

If the drive was a secondary HDD, you could, of course, use the Disk
Management utility to multi-partition the disk.
Anna

 

[Jerry]

You should really be asking the vendor, but ALL computers require one
partition to be active so it can boot.

 

[Sandy]

I keep reading messages that refer to partitioning with Windows "disk management utility". I have never seen how to do it and I do not believe it can be done.

Can you or anybody who claims it can be done describe exactly how to do it and also say whether you have actually done what you describe?

Sandy

Airman Thunderbird wrote:
"Why not use Disk Management in XP?"

 

[Big_Al]

I keep reading messages that refer to partitioning with Windows "disk management utility". I have never seen how to do it and I do not believe it can be done.

Can you or anybody who claims it can be done describe exactly how to do it and also say whether you have actually done what you describe?

Sandy

Airman Thunderbird wrote:
"Why not use Disk Management in XP?"

IIRC, the built in utility is good for the fundamental adding or
deleting of partitions. But you cannot resize a partition. And all
partition work is destructive.

Unlike 3rd party programs like Partition magic etc.

 

[philo]

management utility". I have never seen how to do it and I do not believe it
can be done.

IIRC, the built in utility is good for the fundamental adding or
deleting of partitions. But you cannot resize a partition. And all
partition work is destructive.

Unlike 3rd party programs like Partition magic etc.

Correct!

 

[Lil' Dave]

Disk management, which operates within the XP environment, cannot partition
the system or C: partition where the boot files reside, AND, if windows is
installed on another partition, it cannot partition that area either. The
first step in either case above is to delete the current partition which it
can't do.

2ndly, disk management cannot create any substantial (>32GB) partition in
FAT32 format. NTFS is your only choice. The version of NTFS is version 3.
NT/Win2K sp2 and prior can't handle that version. Forget 95/98/ME as they
ride on msdos, and have never worked natively with NTFS.

Various methods to use all disk space:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316505
Some commonly used 3rd party software for partitioning are Symantec
Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director, and Paragon Parttion Manager. Like
the XP boot CD, you have use these on their boot media to partition the
system and boot current partitions of XP.

http://partition-xp.com/create-partition-windows-xp.html

Yes, I've used disk management within the XP environment to delete, create,
and format partitions. I use the first method of 3 noted on this webpage to
access disk management as I'm logged on as an administrator.
http://partition-xp.com/create-partition-windows-xp.html

 

[JS]

You will need a third party utility like Partition Magic, Acronis Disk
Director,
BootIt Next Gen (which has a free trial) or Super Fdisk (worth a look).

BootIt: http://www.bootitng.com/
Acronis:
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/partitioning.html
Partition Magic:
http://www.powerquest.com/home_homeoffice/products/overview.jsp?pcid=sp&pvid=pm80
Super Fdisk Partition Utility:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/Super_Fdisk_d4985.html

As always backup any important data files (documents, photos, music, etc.),
before using such a tool as there is always a small chance that something
can go wrong.

Better still backup (Image backup) your entire C: partition to an external
drive
or a second internal drive.
You can use Acronis True Image (Free trial version) to do this.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

JS
http://www.pagestart.com

 

[Kenny]

Computeractive magazine is currently giving away a free version of Paragon
Disk Manager but warn against posting the download link anywhere!