STUPID Partition Magic! PARTITION ERROR HELP!!!

[DeAthWiSh]

I partitioned my friends hard drive which had Windows Me. I partitioned it at Primary and as NTFS the probably is I only have a upgrade installing of XP which I was planning to install on the NTFS partition. I cant get it to start up Windows ME! and windows 98 couldnt read it cuz it was NTFS, so I installed XP on my computer and see if I couldnt some how turn it into Fat32 but couldnt. And coudlnt format it into Fat32. The only option I get from the Windows 98 setup cd is saying that its goin to delete my (null) hard drive or something, what does that mean. its saying its goin to delete the partition and all the files on the drive. I am afraid to do this cuz im not sure if its goin to format the Windows Me OS as well... please help! how do i get windows me as my PRIMARY AGAIN

[Indus]

Hehe silly error. Okay, use partition magic again and convert the ME partition to FAT32. That should work. The reason Win XP can't do itself because it sees an o/s on there so use PM.

[DeAthWiSh]

No, its not ME that is being recognized by WinXP, WinXP is recognizing the partition that was made with 14000 MBs of space and was set as the primary partition. How do I set the other partition as primary? When I open up Partition Magic it says "BAD" as the hard drive partition and it says Error #105 now at the bottom. How do I fix it. WinXP notices the drive and reads the empty space of 14000 MBs. I havent tried writing to it but im sure it would work. Is there a program that can help me go back to Fat32 I guess that might do the trick? Thanx...

[Indus]

Originally posted by DeAthWiSh
No, its not ME that is being recognized by WinXP, WinXP is recognizing the partition that was made with 14000 MBs of space and was set as the primary partition. How do I set the other partition as primary? When I open up Partition Magic it says "BAD" as the hard drive partition and it says Error #105 now at the bottom. How do I fix it. WinXP notices the drive and reads the empty space of 14000 MBs. I havent tried writing to it but im sure it would work. Is there a program that can help me go back to Fat32 I guess that might do the trick? Thanx...

Umm tellme one thing before I suggest anything, in XP under disk management, does the hard drive list as a basic disk or a dynamic disk?

[dudephil]

Originally posted by DeAthWiSh
I partitioned my friends hard drive which had Windows Me. I partitioned it at Primary and as NTFS the probably is I only have a upgrade installing of XP which I was planning to install on the NTFS partition. I cant get it to start up Windows ME! and windows 98 couldnt read it cuz it was NTFS, so I installed XP on my computer and see if I couldnt some how turn it into Fat32 but couldnt. And coudlnt format it into Fat32. The only option I get from the Windows 98 setup cd is saying that its goin to delete my (null) hard drive or something, what does that mean. its saying its goin to delete the partition and all the files on the drive. I am afraid to do this cuz im not sure if its goin to format the Windows Me OS as well... please help! how do i get windows me as my PRIMARY AGAIN

Did you actually partition the drive(split it up) or did you just format the whole thing NTFS? I'm having trouble understanding your question. If it is one partition then you'll have to reformat. If you can't do it UnderPartition magic or XP you have to do the format [drive:] /fs:fat32 command.I know some of these partitioning programs are having some trouble when trying to use them from an NTFS drive. Either way you cannot convert from NTFS to fat 32 without reformatting.

[hyuga]

How many partitions do you have? Is the partition with Windows Me a FAT32 partition? Windows 9X/Me cannot read NTFS partitions.

[DeAthWiSh]

It is two partitions.
Originally Fat32 with Windows Me.
After Partitioning with Partition Magic 7.0 it gave me "Bad" Error #104.
I partitioned the second one as NTFS so I could install Windows XP on it.
I come to remember that I only have an upgrade XP i think? How would I go about installed just XP cuz I have tried installing with a Win98 start up disk but XP cd says it cant run in DOS is there another start up disk I should use... maybe if I install XP on that NTFS partition it will fix my problem...

My Problem is... after Partitioning the FAT32 which had Windows Me on it. I cant get access to Windows Me. My plans were trying to get the option of running Windows Me or XP. When I went to partition with Partition Magic I put the NTFS partition to become the "primary". How would I get Windows XP on the NTFS drive or how would I go about getting my FAT32 (Windows ME) to become my "primary"

I have tried FDISK with the Win98 start up Disk and try setting the primary partitions through there but when it goes to do it... it just hangs there and does nothing just freezes...

[hyuga]

(I have never used Partition Magic, only FDISK (DOS) and fdisk (Linux).)

Originally you had 1 FAT32 partition, right?

Now you have 2 partitions, 1 FAT32 and one NTFS, right?

Which is the first partition? Is this partition the active partition?

The boot partition must reside in the first 1023 cylinders of the HDD. If the FAT32 partition is the second partition, then maybe it is past the 1023 cylinder and therefor cannot be booted. If the FAT32 partition is the first partition, maybe it is not the "active" or bootable partiton.

When you run FDISK (DOS), use option 4 to list the partitions. What information do you see listed. Is there an "A" (active) marking the FAT32 partition? Are both partitions primary partitions? Or the second one a logical partition inside an extended partition?

[hyuga]

Maybe you can boot off the Windows XP CD-ROM and install from there.

[dudephil]

Since you were fooling around with your hard drive I'm sure you backed up all of your important files. Run fdisk and delete all partitions, then create 2 partitions.The first partition has to be fat 32 and primary so you can dual boot.Never make an NTFS partition your primary or boot partition when you are planning to dual boot with any 9x OS.Install ME in the first partition.Once you get it installed just put the xp upgrade cd in your cd rom. During setup you can pick the NTFS partition to install XP to.

[DeAthWiSh]

Right now im formating that partition I created. Hopefully after formating it to FAT32 I will be able to install Win98 and then the XP upgrade CD after and I it will be able to read both partitions. I will be back to post the results... ::crosses fingers::

[DeAthWiSh]

I open up PartitionMagicPro and it says this

"Disk 2 (38161MB 5169c 240h 632) appears to have partitions created using a different drive geometry (225h 63s). This serious problem can lead to data loss. No Partition manipulations should be made to this disk using this product or the operating system's products. You should back up the data on thisdisk, delete all partitions, create new partitions under the new drive geometry, and then restore your data using the backup."

How would I go about making a backup of the data on the other partition? I opened up EasyRecovery Pro and it read the other partition... please help... and where is disk manager located?

[fdeaton]

At this point it sounds like a totally hosed system to me--give us some more system specs--did you back up everything before you tried a major move like this?

[DeAthWiSh]

When I used EasyRecovery Pro it reads all the files on the Windows Me Partition and I can recover the files through there.. but is there a program that can read different partitions at the same time. A program that allows me to transfer files from one partition to another?