OMG some1 help, Comp hangs after XP OSLOADER shows its ugly head

[Killawat]

I don't get it. Heres my situation. Got a new Seagate 120 gig ( won't go into specs) and went to go partition it up into lil single servin slices ^.^. Went to partition magic and it said OMG OMG OMG. MBR is messed up and something else like LBA or something like that had some "incorrect values" ::my @$$:: . So it asks to reset values and i say sure whatever. It continues and i split the HD up into 3 parts. I reset comp and now, Comp freezes after OSloader comes up (on both hd's) and my seagate only shows 30 gigs on 1 partition. I "tried" to reset the MBR , which XP recovery console says is weird, but it never changes anything even when it says it does. Any <-x10000 help would be appriciated cause this safe mode is a :finger

[RACKnRAIL]

I have never used partition magic, but I've heard you can really goof up your computer with it, if you don't know what you're doing. I have always partitioned from a clean install of windows myself. It sounds to me like it's trying to boot from two windows directories. If that's the case, I would try reformatting your D and E drives, if you are still able to do that from safe mode. What's your OS and did it come pre-installed? If you have a new computer, I would myself, just re-install windows from the ground up, then let windows format and create your partitions. That's assuming you have a copy of your OS. it's really hard to tell what's going on without more details.

I'm sure lot's of people will have other suggestions. I would look on google also, for other people that have had similar problems or for more information on partition magic (help files) and such. Try a Google web and group search. Good luck!

[cpugeniusmv]

did you make partition magic recovery disks? try using those, and see what it looks like in PM.

this is one of the reasons i stopped using PM as my main partition manager....most of the time, i use Acronis Partition Expert...it hasn't screwed anything up...yet.

i'd be willing to make an ISO of a bootable rescue disk for you...but it will be later, PM me if you're interested.

[DemonusAE]

I have a question that has been bothering me. Why doesn't anyone use the disk manager on your windows console to partition, manage, or format your hard drives. Has anyone had problems with it? Is it too complicated? Do the other programs provide something that disk manager doesn't? I'm just curious, I have never used anything else.

[sToNeD_rApToR]

try correctin the error usin the good old fdisk(start it usin a bootable floppy), partion ur hdd and then format the diff. partitions thru the floppy itself, tis will most likely correct ur mbr(master boot record) and Lbw(tis is some information of cylinders, tracks n sectors on ur partition of ur hdd)
if tis doest solve ur prob try elaborating and moreover if u have 2 o.s installed then u should have have option to start one of them at start-up...........check for file name boot.ini(if u know how to edit it to ask for options on booting)

[que-em]

I have a question that has been bothering me. Why doesn't anyone use the disk manager on your windows console to partition, manage, or format your hard drives. Has anyone had problems with it? Is it too complicated? Do the other programs provide something that disk manager doesn't? I'm just curious, I have never used anything else.

I think it has something to do with the size of the hard drive. From what I have read windows disk manager doesn't format large hard drives correctly.

[Killawat]

Thx for the help guys, lemme try Acronis Partition Expert as suggested above before i waste any more of u guys time.

[DemonusAE]

I believe the limit is 137 Gb, more than that and utilities like defrag and ScanDisk tend to not work properly. But you can still use disk manager to partition large hard drives into partitions smaller than 137 Gb.

[multi]

if you perform certain actions like creating new partitions ..ect in fdisk you will lose all your data on that disk
Partition Magic and Partition Expert let you do it without
losing stuff
there is a FIXBOOT in the XP recovery console
that helped me out once..
(dont know if would help here)

[shawners]

I want to buy a 250 gig hard drive.. you know how many albums i could hold and consume =)

[CCSDUDE]

I believe the limit is 137 Gb, more than that and utilities like defrag and ScanDisk tend to not work properly. But you can still use disk manager to partition large hard drives into partitions smaller than 137 Gb.
In XP it 'speaks' to LBA drives so as long as your hardware (IDE controller/bios) can accept it you're home free.

Have you tried pulling the main drive setting the Seagate as master then formatting via fdisk (just for now so don't worry about losing space just yet) then slaving it again and rebooting with the old drive as master?

Also tried booting into a 'dos' like prompt in XP via F8? Use 'chkdisk' and 'scandisk' as well as 'defrag' in the dos like prompt and see if it'll properly fix the MBR.

After all is said an done...the system now works...doesn't matter what ya had to do..it's done.

If your bios can't take the drive you've got two options.

1) Buy a cheap IDE controller card (extra cash + the hassle of getting it working proper - Promise cards suck ass)

2) Download 'MaxBlast' from Maxtors website as it'll format any drive (with the size fake out) no matter what the brand. Or try Seagates site or CD for such a program.

[cjules13]

I want to buy a 250 gig hard drive.. you know how many albums i could hold and consume =)

Do the math... a lot, prolly close to 2000. But be prepared to partition... With a drive that big I believe you MUST partition it.

[crackerjacker]

if you perform certain actions like creating new partitions ..ect in fdisk you will lose all your data on that disk
Partition Magic and Partition Expert let you do it without
losing stuff
there is a FIXBOOT in the XP recovery console
that helped me out once..
(dont know if would help here)


yeah exactly because if you have to do a fdisk through the dos mode you lose all your data. but with partition magic, you can use the extra harddrive space that you did not partition.

for example on my 20 gig harddrive i did use fdisk to partition it. but i only used 4 gigs, so right now the rest of my harddrive is not showing up. i prefer it to be like this. but i can just get partition magic, and partition the rest of the harddrive space to my own accord.

that is what i did one time to run turbo linux.

and one other note, if you do go into fdisk you would have to fdisk the whole hard drive, if its not secondary. so partition magic as well as other programs are awesome and very useful for this reason.

:)

[collideous]

I think it has something to do with the size of the hard drive. From what I have read windows disk manager doesn't format large hard drives correctly.

I run WinXP Pro and have never used anything other than the disk manager that comes with it. I have two 120 gig internal drives and a 320 gig external LaCie.

[origin]

probably MS "reccomends" with there OS XP that the disk manager can handle x amount of data at most, well since when does it matter what the reccomended settings are that never stopped anyone from pushing the supposed limits on things. I run 1 120 gig maxtor, and a 180 gig WD drive never had any problems.

l8

[ccc1005]

I have a 160 GB disk partitioned into 2 seperate drives, and I havent had any problems.

I would just use fdisk, and delete the partitons, and have the Windows XP setup partition and format the drives. Easy to do, and worked fine for me.

If you need to copy old files over you can always just reinstall Windows without a reformat, get the files onto CD and then repartition/format the drives. I would just do this and clear out any problems you have.

I did this same thing with a friends computer and it worked fine for her, saved 670 songs in the process :)