Hi fellows , I am ready to finally take the plunge
I just bought a 160 gig seagate usb 2 hdd and a box with ghost 9.0 and a box with partition magic  at B.B this afternoon  and I will attempt to decrease the size of my E partition 131 gig and increase the size of my primary C drive 10 gig
I have a 250 gig hardrive and besides the primary C , I have an E 130 gig , a D70 gig and an F 24 gig ,all in an extended partition , I want to make this as fool proff and as simple as I humanly can  first I will uninstall everything from the E D F partition , scan disc and defrag and get the c drive down to 8 gig from 8.5 gig used space in 9.75 gig C drive
The technition at B.B told me he used P M  8.0 to partition his hardrive and he had some sort of disaster take place and he offered me this advice
1- Tell partition magic to delete the C drive
So I guess I will have to restore C if I am successful using ghost 9 along with the usb hdd
2- Tell partition magic to delete the130 gig  E partition after deleting the C partition ( F is empty)
I will then have 140 gig of unallocated space
3- Then create a new C primary drive about 30 to 40 gig at the most ( I guess PM will do that automatically ?)
4- create your E drive again making it 100 to 110 gig
{ could I make an additional partition each 50 gig ?} just wondering ?
He said another E partition again would automatically go into the extended partition
Then set the bios to boot from cd
And this is the part which I could not understand , I asked him over and over but I don’t know enough about this stuff to understand his explanation , and I wish someone could explain it to me so its understandable to me , this is what he said to do ( his exact words)
“Boot from the partition magic cd , do not under any circumstances boot from windows”
And I would imagine  restore C contents ( ghost image on usb hdd?) would be the next thing to do ?
Not having ever used partition magic , I can not concepualize  what he  means by boot from PM cd and not from windows and why not boot from windows and what does boot from partition magic vrs booting from windows actually mean  mean .. I do not understand any part of that statement

chuckychez

I'm busy for the moment--so I can't take too much time until later--but from what I just read in your post--I would not recommend any 'plunges' just yet--until we talk about a few things!

First off--have you made a backup of the whole HDD with Ghost?  If you are going to remove everything from one or more partitions anyway--set up a practice run and test that Ghost is working okay for you.

First--make a whole HDD backup using Ghost.  Then make a backup of the data on one of those partitions (in addition to the Ghost image)--just copy it to a new location on a separate partition (this is just in case Ghost does not work correctly), then delete the data from the partition you backed up.  Then using the Ghost backup, restore that partition and see that all the files are restored successfully.

You might want to do that from the Windows interface first (using Ghost 9.x--right?).  Once you see that everything went okay, delete the data again from that test partition, and then boot to the Ghost 9.x recovery environment using the Ghost 9.x CD, and restore that partition from there so you have confidence that all is working correctly from your Ghost backups.

More later...

Quote:

"... I just bought a 160 gig seagate usb 2 hdd..." chuckychez

Norton Ghost 2003 can either function purely in DOS using boot disks or it can transition from Windows-to-DOS-to-Windows - but no matter what, it is going to run in DOS part of the time.  Somewhat similar to Ghost 2003, PM8 has a DOS-based core program that relies on boot disks, but in contrast to Ghost 2003 PM8 is able to run purely in Windows for many tasks, albeit there are some instances where PM8 must transition from Windows-to-DOS-to-Windows.

All things considered, both USB host controllers and USB device controllers/bridge chipsets may prove to be aggravating obstacles with PM8 part of the time, but with Ghost 9.0 there should not be any USB 2.0 headaches.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]  

Quote:

"... Not having ever used partition magic , I can not concepualize  what he  means by boot from PM cd and not from windows..." chuckychez

Rebooting after inserting a Norton Partition Magic 8.0 CD in my Dell Dimension 8100 running Windows XP Home Edition, it "sorta" booted - but it would not open the PM8 DOS-based core program no matter what approach I took.  On the other hand, I tried the same thing with my Dell Dimension 8300 running Windows XP Professional and it immediately fired up the PM8 DOS-based core program without a quibble.

GO FIGURE !!!

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

chuckychez

I'm back--hope I have a little free time--so here goes:


Quote:

1- Tell partition magic to delete the C drive

Are you installing PartitionMagic on to your Windows system?  If 'yes', then you can not use it to 'delete the C drive' from within Windows.  The C drive is what is being used to run PartitionMagic from Windows!

Besides, the whole idea of using PartitionMagic is that you do not have to delete your data when you make partition changes--assuming you have no 'problems' while using PartitionMagic, you can make all sorts of changes to the layout and still have your data intact, and no restoring is necessary.

But, you want a useable Ghost backup--so in case something goes terribly wrong while using PartitionMagic, you do have the backup to restore from if you have to.


Quote:

Then set the bios to boot from cd. And this is the part which I could not understand , I asked him over and over but I don’t know enough about this stuff to understand his explanation , and I wish someone could explain it to me so its understandable to me , this is what he said to do ( his exact words) “Boot from the partition magic cd , do not under any circumstances boot from windows”

You have this listed as kind of the 5th step in your original post above--might this not belong as the 1st step when using PartitionMagic?  You can not 'delete' the C: partition using PartitionMagic from within Windows!--If you 'delete' the C: partition, you can not boot to Windows to continue using PartitionMagic that you have installed to use under Windows--because once you delete C:--PartitionMagic is gone!--and you can not boot Windows either!

By the way, I would not delete partition C:!


Quote:

I want to make this as fool proff and as simple as I humanly can

1.  Make Ghost backup of the entire HDD.  Make sure you are confident that you can restore either a partition or the whole HDD from your backup.

2.  Leave whatever data you wish on your various partitions.  (Assume that PartitionMagic is going to work successfully without complications--so it should not harm your data, and if you have done 1. above, you can restore if something does go wrong.)

Boot from the PartitionMagic CD into the DOS interface. (That's why you boot from the CD--you are in DOS and the partition changes will not be interferred with by Windows!)

3.  Using PartitionMagic--do one change and then tell PartitionMagic to 'Apply' that change immediately.

PartitionMagic can be told to do a series of steps, and unless you tell it to 'Apply' the change, it stores those steps up (you do not want to do that--that is the most common source of problems is when PartitionMagic has a whole series of steps to 'Apply' at once).  On the graphical image of the HDD layout, it shows you what the HDD will look like after you 'Apply' the changes, but those changes have not really taken place yet--until you hit the 'Apply' button.

Here's the general concept:  PartitionMagic can only make changes if there is 'free space'--you have to make 'free space' by shrinking the size of an existing partition.  Then you can move adjacent partitions around into that 'free space' to change where the 'free space' is located.  And once that 'free space' is next to a partition, you can add that 'free space' to the partition to make it bigger.

These are the steps:  (you fill in the sizes to suit yourself--I'm just using numbers as examples...)

a.  shrink E: to 50 GB--take 50 GB's from the F: side of the E: partition--hit the 'Apply' button,  then take 30 GB's from the D: side of the E: partition--hit 'Apply' button--now the E: partition is 50 GB's with 30 GB's of free space on the left side and 50 GB's of free space on right side of the E: partition.

b.  move D: partition over to the right up against the E: partition--hit the 'Apply button'--now the free space is on the left side of the D: partition

c.  shrink the Extended Partition from the left side next to the C: partition--hit the 'Apply button'

Have to go for awhile--be back later....

Quote:

"... Using PartitionMagic--do one change and then tell PartitionMagic to 'Apply' that change immediately..." NightOwl

[glb]Sound advice, indeed !!![/glb]And for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Partition Magic 8.0 operations have one peculiar vulnerability - power failures.  Minimizing and separating PM8 tasks certainly reduces the risk of power interruptions that would prove catastrophic during a long series of linked operations.  Don't have pets or youngsters cavorting about and inadvertently disconnecting your power while operating in PM8.  Also, if you have a battery back-up power block - use it - because oftentimes a generalized power failure may last only a few seconds (at least in Louisiana, anyway) and the outage may pass without effect.

I have often used PM8 on many PCs - both on internal and external HDDs - without a single mishap.  In fact, I have three licensed copies employed (with matching sets of Rescue Disks on floppys); two PowerQuest and one Norton.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

Welcome back chuckychez. NightOwl asked you to "Make Ghost backup of the entire HDD". To make it easy for you, open Ghost 9, change to Basic View, click BackUp Drives, follow the wizard. Choose C: drive and make its destination your External HD. Choose Standard Compression, tick Verify the backup image.

When the image has been created, do the whole thing again for your D: drive. If you have data in the other two partitions, image them too. Don't bother if they are empty.

Quote:

"... 1.  Make Ghost backup of the entire HDD.  Make sure you are confident that you can restore either a partition or the whole HDD from your backup..." NightOwl

In addition to Brian's advice, I would consider determining the counterpart to the Norton Ghost 2003 technique of creating a "disk-to-image".  Since I have yet to load my copy of NSWP 2005, I have no knowlege of Norton Ghost 9.0.  Nonetheless, my best guess is that your 160GB Seagate external HDD will have ample room for both a full set of partitions plus a "disk-to-image" if it works anything like Norton Ghost 2003.

[glb]El Pescador [/glb]

Hi El Pescador, I have very limited experience with Ghost 2003 so I'm not certain what a Disk to Image means. Does it mean that all partitions on the disk are imaged to a single image file?

With Ghost 9 you can image single partitions as I described above or you can Ctrl click several partitions and they are imaged at the same time but you still finish up with individual images of single partitions. It really doesn't matter which way you do it as you get the same result.

With the Copy Drive wizard you can only copy single partitions.

Copy Drives and Imaging must be done from Windows. It can't be done from the boot CD. Restoring can be done from Windows except for restoring a system partition. Any partition can be restored using the boot CD.

chuckychez

Back again....let's see--where was I...

c.  (continued)  The reason you shrink the Extended Partition is because the 30 GB's of 'free space' is inside the the Extended Partition initially.  You can not add that 'free space' to the C: partition until it is outside the Extended Partition and next to the C: partition.

d.  Now the 30 GB's of 'free space' is outside the Extended Partition, and next to the C: partition.  You now expand the C: partition to the right to include that 'free space'--hit the 'Apply' button.  Now you have added the 30 GB's to the C: partition.

e.  Back in step a.  we shrank partition E: on the right side by 50 GB's.  You had asked in your original post if you could break the E: partition into two smaller chunks of about 50 GB's--answer--'yes'!  That 50 GB's of 'free space' can now be formated and it will become an new partition (hit the 'Apply' button!)--in the DOS version of Partition Magic, it will be assigned the drive letter 'F', and your former 'F' will now be listed as 'G' (PartitionMagic may insist that you reboot for those drive letters to be properly re-assigned after you do the formating)--but because drive letters are 'sticky' in WinXP--when you boot to WinXP later, I'm thinking that new partition will actually be the new 'G', and your old 'F' will still be your old 'F'.  (If there are optical drives mixed in there as well, I would have to know more about how everything is hooked up to guess at what the drive letter assignments will be!)

If you did not want to make that original partition E: into a 50 GB partition, and add a new partition--you could just skip that step of shrinking it on that right side, and leave it as a 100 GB partition.

So, you do not have to 'delete' any partitions--and you do not have to create any partitions (unless you want to)--and you do not have to restore any partitions if all has gone well using PartitionMagic.

Questions?

Quote:

"... I'm not certain what a Disk to Image means. Does it mean that all partitions on the disk are imaged to a single image file?" Brian

Correct.  The end result of a Norton Ghost 2003 Restore of such a file - now an "image-to-disk" operation - is equivalent to what results from a Windows-based Ghost 2003 Advanced Clone of a HDD.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

Thanks guys !
I have not made a backup of the whole HDD with ghost 9.0  yet its still in the box as is the Seagate 160 usb drive
( just got it yesterday evening at BB )

Ok I will have to take my baby steps first things first
On the night owls very first post
When You say (data ) I hope you don’t mean everything “ the full backup all of C drive ” or are just referring to my personally created data ? Termenology in posts can be  kinda of confusing ( ok I am supposing by data you mean my  P.C. data  only and not the full c ghost image ??)
Quote : set up a practice run and test that Ghost is working okay for you.
I have to test everything so I know if I need to restore I could  restore

First--make a whole HDD backup using Ghost.  

Queston >  By whole HDD ? should I backup the whole 250 gig hdd even the empty partitions or just the C drive portion of my 250 hdd ?

In that case will my 160 usb hdd be large enough 160 gig to backup an entire 250 gig hdd ?
(I can always exchange it for a 300 gig Seagate if I need to  )
next :
Quote : set up a practice run and test that Ghost is working okay for you. “ yes good idea , that’s important !”

Make two backups ?

1- the whole 250 gig hdd
( night owl can an I just backup the C drive only
or do I have to backup the whole hardrive empty partitions and all  ?)

2- then a backup of my personally created data ?
( that’s the easy part)
(  word documents , photo, music )
its all been  on the D partition for a few months now
( I  copyed and pasted the files/ folders  from the my documents folder C drive to the D partition  and I have burnt them all  to cd-r discs using multi sessioned with  nero express software its all up to date ..

OK so I should delete all my data from D partition
( is that necessary ?)
as I say posts can be confusing !
So I am going to be testing the ghost 9x backup I made on the new Seagate  usb hdd , but at that  point  I am only  testing the data portion of the full backup not the full backup ??

Then number two besides testing my data  I also need to test the validity of the full C drive  ghost image backup after its backed up to seagate usb hdd  right ? ,

So if the  data portion of the full backup looks good on the F partition delete it from the F partition , so I will have an empty partition to restore the full C  ghost image  backup of the C drive onto the  F partition to check out the full backup if I need to have to restore if I have trouble using PM  ?

This next part is muddy , Its probably the termenology ??
Quote : You might want to do that from the Windows interface first (using Ghost 9.x--right?). “ yes right ghost 9.x not 2003 “
“What do you mean by windows interface , just do things as I normally do with my computer  , its that what windows interface first means” ?)
Quote: Once you see that everything went okay, delete the data again from that test partition
( By data I am not sure what you mean the ghost full backup image or just my personally created data my docs stuff ?
anyway just delete the backup full backup or just my data whatever !! from the F partition


and then boot to the Ghost 9.x recovery environment using the Ghost 9.x CD,
and restore that partition from there so you have confidence that all is working correctly from your Ghost backups.

“OK seeing as I never used ghost before this is a little tricky to concepulize”  and I am not 100% sure I understand this part ??

I know I will have to make a boot disc ( a cd ) after installing ghost 9x on my pc   ok!
And now I have to restore ??
Put in the boot cd in the cd tray and let it do its thing so I am in the ghost 9.x enviorment ??
I will see a different screen on my monitor then what I normally see ?
And tell ghost to restore the data portion or the full backup on the F partition ?
and If I have a duplicate of my C drive on my F drive then the backup is ok and I can delete it from there and proceed to the partitioning ?
and that part is over and done with
I will study the other posts after I come back from the hospital  , Its outpatient so I will be home late noon ....
Thanx chuckychez

chuckychez

As you have said, you have not even installed Ghost 9.x, or, I suspect, PartitionMagic--so you have not yet had a chance to 'see' the programs in person--you are trying to 'see' this in your mind's eye--and because of that, many of your questions are vague because your experience is just this written stuff in your imagination.

You need to get to the point of having the programs on the computer, nose around a bit to see what the program menus and options are--just don't go overwriting things until you get a few miles under your feet--usually, you can cause little or no harm if you make 'backups'--it's only when you instruct Ghost to replace (overwrite) partitions that you have to have it right!


Quote:

When You say (data ) I hope you don’t mean everything “ the full backup all of C drive ” or are just referring to my personally created data ?

Each of your partitions has data--programs, personal files, digital pictures, documents....etc., and 'free space' where more data can be saved to.  The default behavior of Ghost is to back up just the data, but not the 'free space'.  This makes the image file no larger than the actual data size, and smaller if you use 'compression' to pack the data into an even smaller space.  

You can force Ghost to back up your HDD's data and 'free space' (this is called a sector-by-sector backup), but then the image file will be the same size as the HDD's capacity.  Most folks do not do this, to keep image files as small as possible.


Quote:

Queston >  By whole HDD ? should I backup the whole 250 gig hdd even the empty partitions or just the C drive portion of my 250 hdd ?

If you wish to be able to recover your whole HDD if it goes 'boom', then the image has to be of the whole HDD, including the empty partitions--these will be very small, as they have little data--except the necessary partition file structures that define the partition.


Quote:

In that case will my 160 usb hdd be large enough 160 gig to backup an entire 250 gig hdd ?

If your 250 GB HDD has only 50 GB of data, and the rest is empty 'free space', then your image will be about 50 GB, or less if you use compression.


Quote:

Quote : set up a practice run and test that Ghost is working okay for you. “ yes good idea , that’s important !”

Yup--testing is good!  But, to answer a bunch of questions you ask after the above quote--

Do not use C: drive for testing at this point--that has your OS on it and you don't want to mess with that, and you said it has 8.75 GB of data--so that will take extra time to backup and restore--instead, use one of those partitions that you said are, or will be empty, or nearly empty--D:, E:, and/or F:.

1.  For example--before making the whole HDD Ghost backup, place a copy of 'My Documents' on your empty F: from your D: partition (just a copy--you are not 'moving' and changing the default location of 'My Documents'--and it does not have to be 'My Documents'--just something with data and files you can easily recognize).  The 'My Documents' folder should allow you to recognize the various files after they are restored, and should be a relatively small data amount unless you have 100 GB's of digital photos in 'My Photos' under the 'My Document' folder!

2.  Now make your whole HDD Ghost backup (that will be all the partitions).  Instruct Ghost to 'verify' the image integrity as part of creating the backup.

3.  Now for testing--first, you will still be booted to and using WinXP, delete the copy of 'My Documents' you made to F:.

4.  Now--still live using WinXP, use Ghost to restore F: from the image of the HDD that you made.

Everything go okay without errors or problems?  If 'yes'--then you now know you can restore non-OS partitions from a Ghost backup image while booted to WinXP.

5.  Now delete those files and folders again from F:

6.  Now, re-boot to Ghost using the 'Recovery Disk'--you will now be in an alternative 'lite' version of WinXP (Symantec calls it the 'recovery environment') that will allow you to run Ghost outside of your installed full-blown Windows OS.  (You have to be able to do this in case your OS partition goes BOOM! and you can not start WinXP in a normal manner.  This would allow you to replace that Windows OS partition (your C: ) if you had to--you can not boot to your regular Windows and use Ghost 9 to replace your OS partition that you are running Ghost from--i.e. your C: partition!--you have to be 'outside' of the WinXP OS partition to replace it--and you are if you boot using the 'Recovery Disk').

7.  But, for testing, you are going to restore the F: partition again--not the C: partition.  After you have performed the restore--re-boot to WinXP and check the F: partition to make sure everything you restored is actually there.  Did everything restore okay without error messages or problems?  If 'yes', then you're done testing and you can have confidence that you're doing things right and the software and hardware are all working together just fine!


Quote:

Make two backups ? and from my first response: Then make a backup of the data on one of those partitions (in addition to the Ghost image)--just copy it to a new location on a separate partition (this is just in case Ghost does not work correctly), then delete the data from the partition you backed up.

Okay, I've reworded this above--sort of--what I was suggesting in my first response was if the data on one of the 'empty partitions' (or nearly empty--but I was not meaning the C: partiton for 'testing') was important data, you could just make a copy to another partition before 'testing'--so you could restore it from a copy instead of using the Ghost image if that failed for some reason--but above in this post, I switched the sequence--so now the 'test' partition is empty to begin with--so you do not have to 'backup anything'--and you are adding a 'copy' of some data that is from some other partition that is 'test' data, and it doesn't matter if you delete it.  (Did I clear that up--or just make it more confusing?)


Quote:

I know I will have to make a boot disc ( a cd ) after installing ghost 9x on my pc   ok!

No, you do not make a boot disk with Ghost 9.x (you do that with Ghost 2003!)--you should have a Recovery Disk that is a separate CD from the installation CD (that's true if it's Ghost 9.x included with Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier)--if Ghost 9.x is a stand-alone product, I'm not sure if you get a separate 'Recovery Disk', or not--you might just use the Ghost 9.x installation disk as the 'Recovery Disk' as well.

Someone with a stand alone Ghost 9.x program--can you answer this--is there a separate 'Recovery Disk', or do you use the installation disk as the 'Recovery Disk' too?

Quote:

"... In that case will my 160 usb hdd be large enough 160 gig to backup an entire 250 gig hdd ? ... (I can always exchange it for a 300 gig Seagate if I need to  )..." chuckychez

The results of performing a Norton Ghost 2003 BackUp using Fast Compression are shown below (both the Source Drive and the Destination Drive are 80GB capacity).  The actual contents of the Source Drive occupied 29.61% of available space, but the compressed Ghost BackUp image of said contents only occupied 21.62% of the available space on the Destination Drive.

If Norton Ghost 9.0 functions anything like Ghost 2003 at all, I would be very surprised if your 160GB Seagate external HDD did not have more than ample room for the tasks you have in mind.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/El_Pescador/eekCC.jpg

[glb]El Pescador [/glb]

Thanks guys , I just got back from the hospital and I need time to really understand this
I have to read it and re read it many times until I get it and then I will start to act on all the information and help .
And I guess there is going to be more questions after I install ghost and the usb 2 drive after I look at the options and stuff in actuallity not just in my minds eye like you said night owl  
I will install pm later after I install ghost test it and make my backup for use in the event  I need it , g-d willing I will not  need to have to use the backup ....

chuckychez

Good plan!

Are you installing a stand-alone version of Ghost 9.x?

If 'yes', did you get a second CD that says 'Recovery Disk'?

Or, did you get just the single installation CD?

If just the single CD--can you put that in your optical drive, re-boot, and does it boot the system into Ghost's 'recovery environment?  Trying that will do no harm--after booting, exit and remove the CD and re-boot to WinXP.

Night Owl
No I did not purchease the Norton system suite with ghost 9x in there I got the stand alone ghost 9.x
Quote : your post was as follows
a.  shrink E: to 50 GB- -take 50 GB's from the F: side of the E: partition--hit the 'Apply' button,
and so now the E: partition is 50 GB's total  with 30 GB's of free space on the left side
and 50 GB's of free space on right side of the E: partition. 30 gig total free space
b.  move D: partition over to the right up against the E: partition--I hit the 'Apply button
So now the free space is on the left side of the D: partition
30  gig free space is on the left side of the D partition
c.  shrink the Extended Partition from the left side next to the C: partition--and hit the 'Apply button'
I have to shrink the Extended Partition  because the 30 GB's of 'free space' is inside the the Extended Partition initially.
I can not add that 'free space' to the C: partition  until it is outside the Extended Partition and next to the C: partition.
d.  Now the 30 GB's of 'free space' is outside the Extended Partition, and next to the C: partition.
And I now can expand the C: partition to the right to include that 'free space'-
I  now can hit the 'Apply' button.
Now I have added the 30 GB's to the C: partition.
So c primary drive is now 40 gig
And E partition is  now 100 Gig
e.  Back in step a. I  shrank partition E: on the right side by 50 GB's.  
So, I did  not have to 'delete' any partitions--and I do not have to restore any partitions if all has gone well using PartitionMagic.
How would you change the step by step procedure
if I changed the plan to this instead of the above
1- delete the D partition 70 gb
2- leave the F drive intact 24 gig
3- leave the E partition intact at 130 gig as it
4- add the 70 gig of unallocated gig
gained from the deleted D partition to my C drive
making my c drive 80 gig
Its going to be a big C drive now but by the same token
I don't need more then 130 gig on my e partition :-[

chuckychez, I have to agree with NightOwl regarding installing the software and playing with the settings. Partition Magic makes no changes to your computer unless you click Apply. So you can resize partitions etc and practice without anything really happening.

Partitioning is a secondary goal for you at present. Install Ghost first and make some images.

chuckychez


Quote:

No I did not purchease the Norton system suite with ghost 9x in there I got the stand alone ghost 9.x

So, what's the answer to these questions, if you would be so kind:


Quote:

Are you installing a stand-alone version of Ghost 9.x?  (You already answered 'Yes'.) If 'yes', did you get a second CD that says 'Recovery Disk'? Or, did you get just the single installation CD? If just the single CD--can you put that in your optical drive, re-boot, and does it boot the system into Ghost's 'recovery environment?  Trying that will do no harm--after booting, exit and remove the CD and re-boot to WinXP.

Quote:

How would you change the step by step procedure if I changed the plan to this instead of the above

1.  Delete D:, (you will have to confirm you want to do this by typing 'ok' in a box as requested by PartitionMagic) press 'Apply'

2.  Shrink Extended Partition from the left until it's against E:, press 'Apply'  (this gets that 70 GB from inside the Extended Partition to the outside of the Extended Partition--now the 'free space' is next to the C: partition)

3.  Expand the C: partition to include that 70 GB's, press 'Apply'

You're done!  But when you boot to WinXP, you will not have a D: drive listed any longer.  You can use 'Disk Management' to re-assign drive letters if you want them as D: and E: instead of E: and F:.

But, if you have installed any programs to E: and/or F: that have Registry entries that reference those drive letters, changing them with Disk Management will not change the Registry entries, and you will get 'program not found' or 'file not found' errors.

Hi Night Owl , am I glad to hear from you !
Ok I got two cd's in the box one of them says may be used as an emergency disk , retrieve files, scan for virus's , errors,   restore backup  with symantec recovery disk
and the other just says norton ghost 9.0
I spent all day today preparing for ghost , I backed  up my D partition on a brand new gold archival mitsui cd r multisession job  and I also unistalled encarta from my c drive so I will have more room in the C drive ,Now I got 1.31 G B unused space on the C drive (10GB)  and I uninstalled every thing from my E partition a 1 gig game chessmaster tenth edition and copys of all my folders from the D partition .
So all my partitions are empty , I am going to take a break now and do the scary ghost and usb2hdd  stuff tommorow and sunday .

Hi again
Night Owl , I was just wondering doesn't PM 8 automatically change the drive letters , so if  D partition Is deleted doesn't E partition automatically change its drive letter to D from E and then F would change to E , and F would go to one of my optical drive and so on down the line with a letter given to the usb 2 hdd as well
I have no idea but I was just wondering if PM 8 does so much maybe it does that also ?

Also so the verdict is If I had installed that Chess game with tons of files (over one gig) and today I unistalled it and now the E partition shows 0 gig that does not mean I am home free . I suppose that still means I would not be able to change the partition/drive letters from E to D , so that means I will have E partition but no D partition at all because I won't be able to do it  with windows disk manager if PM does not do it ?
I suppose even tho I unistalled  the game,  there  still must be plenty files( broken and orphed files ) in the registry
I know in add remove unistalling the game there was user something or other that I could not uninstall from the chess game ..I kept getting a message " are you sure you want to unistall this user something " Well who is sure of anything with computers .... :)

Although Symantec products can be used to create partitions, they do not make drive letter assignments for Windows 9x* or DOS. This is a function of the operating system.
When DOS or Windows assigns drive letters in a dual-hard-drive system, they do so in the following order (starting at drive letter C):

The first primary active partition on the first physical drive
The first active primary partition on the second physical drive
Logical partitions on the first physical drive
Logical partitions on the second physical drive
Additional visible primary partitions on the first physical drive
Additional visible primary partitions on the second physical drive
CD-ROM and any other removable media drives

Because the CD-ROM is one of the last drives to receive a letter, any partitions that are created or deleted on any of your hard drives will affect the drive letter assignment of your CD-ROM drive. Therefore, any programs that refer to your CD-ROM drive at its current letter will no longer work after you create or delete partitions until you change your pointers for the programs or reinstall the programs.

What will happen to my CD-ROM drive letter if I create a new partition?
When you create a new partition on a Windows 9.x system, the CD-ROM is assigned the next available drive letter after your hard drive partitions. To prevent the drive letter from changing in the future, you may want to assign a higher drive letter such as M or N to the CD-ROM when in DOS or Windows 95. On Windows NT/2000/XP, new partitions will take the next available drive letter, leaving the CD-ROM drive letter intact.
Thats why I don't like to go to the symantec web site to try to find out anything , I can't make heads or tails out of thier documents , this is a good example of what I mean ....
PS :I have no idea how the red with chuckychez got on the post , I tried to get it off but I could not !

chuckychez wrote on May 20^th, 2005 at 8:52pm:

e Because the CD-ROM is one of the last drives to receive a letter, any partitions that are created or deleted on any of your hard drives will affect the drive letter assignment of your CD-ROM drive. Therefore, any programs that refer to your CD-ROM drive at its current letter will no longer work after you create or delete partitions until you change your pointers for the programs or reinstall the programs. What will happen to my CD-ROM drive letter if I create a new partition? !

I always change my CD drive to Z: in Disk Management. Then it can't be changed by creating new partitions and is always easy to remember.

Quote:

"... I always change my CD drive to Z: in Disk Management. Then it can't be changed by creating new partitions and is always easy to remember..." Brian

I did the same thing on my Dell Dimension 8100 with its internal IDE/ATA 250MB ZIP drive ... Z for ZIP !!!

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

chuckychez


Quote:

I got two cd's in the box one of them says may be used as an emergency disk , retrieve files, scan for virus's , errors,   restore backup  with symantec recovery disk

Okay, thanks--so your stand alone Ghost 9.x package has a 2nd Recovery Disk like Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier.


Quote:

I was just wondering doesn't PM 8 automatically change the drive letters

As you stated in your next reply # 20, the drive letters are not assigned by PartitionMagic, but by the OS.  

In WinXP (and Win2000, WinNT--i.e. these are the 'NT-based' OS's), the drive letters are 'remembered' by the OS--so once WinXP has booted for the first time and 'seen' the HDD's and optical drives--it determines their 'unique device ID' and the drive letter assignment is written to the Registry.  These drive letters are then 'reserved' for every future boot, unless you somehow change the registry information.

For instance, I have a USB 2.0 HDD that I hook up only when I use it to store a Ghost image on it.  It's drive letter L: in WinXP.  When I disconnect it, drive letter L: no longer shows if I look in Windows Explorer--but the drive letters M:, N:, O:, and P: are assigned to my memory multi-card reader are still present and still the same drive letter assignments.  When I hook up the USB HDD again later, it's assignment of L: is used again.

But, in DOS (or Win9x orWinME), these OS's do not record the unique ID of devices that get drive letter assigned, and do not record drive letter assignments to the Registry.  So, each time you boot to these OS's, the drive letters are assign again on re-boot.  The drive letter assignment will depend on which device it is, and where it's located on the controllers for the device.

In your reply #21 above, you have listed the order that devices are assigned drive letters--that's in DOS, Win9x, WinME.  And it happens each time you boot.  That means if you start changing which drive is first and which is second--the drive letters will be assigned accordingly.

Now in WinXP--the first time the system boots, the order of drive letters is assigned the same order as outlined above in reply #21--but, after that first boot, the drive letters are retained even if you change the position of the devices.  So for example if you make the first HDD 2nd, and the 2nd is now 1st--the drive letters will not change--they will follow the drive regardless of their position.

So, if you boot to DOS to use PartitionMagic, the drive letters will be assigned dynamically during boot--so if you have deleted the D: partition, yes all the drives will shift down one--that's because you are in DOS.

Re-boot to WinXP--and D: partition will be absent, and your other partitions will be as they were before--because WinXP remembers the assignments between boots!

So, different OS--different drive letter assignment outcomes!


Quote:

I suppose even tho I unistalled  the game,  there  still must be plenty files( broken and orphed files ) in the registry

If you have uninstalled the program, then even if there are 'remnants' in the Registry, as long as you do not have any program that's loading automatically during boot that's located on that partition--and you do not have the program listed in your program menu--then it's not a problem.

You can go into Disk Management and change the drive letters to whatever you want if you have no 'still installed, active' program files on the partition.  It's only if you want to leave programs on a partition that you are still going to actively use and have their location stored in the Registry that you run into problems.


Quote:

What will happen to my CD-ROM drive letter if I create a new partition?

In WinXP, it will stay the same letter it was before you add a partition--because the drive letter assignment will be remembered--so a new HDD partition is going to be after the optical drive's drive letter.

In DOS--you have to load drivers that allow DOS to see the optical drive and to assign a drive letter.  If you do that--the optical drive, in DOS, will always get the last drive letter assigned, because DOS always re-assigns drive letter upon each boot.  When you load those DOS drivers, you can use a 'command line switch' for the optical drivers telling which letter to assign to the optical drive--that's what the quote from Symantec was talking about--'To prevent the drive letter from changing in the future, you may want to assign a higher drive letter such as M or N to the CD-ROM when in DOS or Windows 95. On Windows NT/2000/XP, new partitions will take the next available drive letter, leaving the CD-ROM drive letter intact.'

If, in DOS, you do not load the drivers for the optical drive--then DOS simply will not see the optical drive, no drive letter assigned, and you can not access the optical drive.


Quote:

PS :I have no idea how the red with chuckychez got on the post , I tried to get it off but I could not !

That's a weird one!

As Brian stated:


Quote:

I always change my CD drive to Z: in Disk Management. Then it can't be changed by creating new partitions and is always easy to remember.

I go into Disk Management and change my DVD-ROM to X: and CD-writer to Y:!  And if I am using DOS and load optical drive drivers, I force DOS to start optical drive letters at X: so the drive letters are the same in DOS as in WinXP!

Hi all just my latest thoughts on the subject :
It never occurred to me and had no idea  that I would have any complications with the drive letters if I delete the D drive I thought pm 8 does it all automatically a no brainer ..
( that’s whats good about learning what to expect and not rushing into things and having unpleasant surprises )
Its pretty much over my head with my knowledge about computers ( not much)  changing the drive letter in xp and I am concerned that I might wind up with something I don’t like as its aftermath it’s a new pc and it’s a very expensive one so you can understand my feelings of apprehension  and since I am doing everything for the first time have no confidence in mysefl and very frightened  and knowing that computers are very unforgiving to novices , I am reluctant to go ahead with the second idea of deleting my D drive , even if I never use it for anything I might be better off keeping it  the reason for wanting to delete the D drive is because I thought it would make things easier and smoother but its just the opposite  .
So I hope I am not being a P.I.T.A but I am inclined to go with my original idea keeping D E and F and I would rather put a ton of gig on C and just keep maybe 5 or 10 gig on E and  D can stay 70 gig and F can stay 24 gig then have drive letter confusion ..
Or else  if its not risky take some gig from E and put some extra gig on D maybe a scenario like this > putting 40 gig on C taking 30 from E so E has 100 gig and taking 80 gig from E and bring 80 more gig to D 150 gig on D , but I need to do it the safest way thats the main priority  .
Thanks for your patience with me ....