Partition Magic lost my 6GB!

Why do I do these things??? Late last night (my first mistake) I decided to use Partition Magic 7.0 to get some more free space into my C:\ drive. Something went wrong.

Some background. Back in Aug. 2003, when I first got this computer, I partitioned my HDD into C (for my system stuff), D (for MS Office and other apps), E (Netscape stuff), and F (copied a few system and utility files there for backup) drives of differing sizes. Everything was fine until what I did last night.

Drive C:\ didn't have as much free space left anymore as the other drives, so I decided to move 6 GB to C:\ from E:\ (my second mistake). I shut down my browser and other programs and got off-line, but didn't notice I'd left ZoneAlarm and Norton AV running (my third mistake). I then ran PM, moving 6GB from E to C. It seemed to go OK, and PM told me to reboot for the changes to take effect. During the reboot, error messages appeared. Specifically, Error 27 (Cannot lock drive) and later, Error 625 (Batch structure has changed). I was told to reboot again. When I did, error reminders (same ones) appeared, and finally I was back up. "My Computer" showed Drive C:\ hadn't gotten any bigger, but Drive E:\ was 6GB smaller and there was 6GB now in an Unassigned area within C:\. Thinking I knew where I'd made my mistake, I decided to try again, going through the same drill again but this time with ZA and NAV disabled. Same result, same error messages. Ggrrrrrr. Went to bed baffled.

This morning I tried using Windows XP System Restore to get everything back to where it had been yesterday morning, but that didn't help. I tried a couple other Partition Magic possibilities (sharing free space being one of them), but no joy. Same error messages and same useless 6GB.

Everything seems to work OK, but I now have 6GB of HDD space unavailable that I'd like back. Any ideas how I can sort out this predicament? My system's specs are in my signature, below.

 

How do I change a BIOS setting?

I don't want to cross-post, but I got into a predicament last night using Partition Magic 7.0 that I think might be fixed if I knew how to do something with my BIOS setting. I'm assuming that's a Windows XP operation and this is the best forum to get help doing that.

What happened was I was using PM to move some free space from one partition to another, Drive E:\ to C:\. I suspect my mistake was in not noticing I hadn't disabled ZoneAlarm and Norton AV. When PM performed the operation and then rebooted to put the change into effect, I got two error messages, Error 27 (Cannot lock drive) and later, Error 625 (Batch structure has changed). Having either ZA or NAV running during the PM operation is probably what caused the operation to fail and those particular error messages to appear. My system seems to work OK, I just "lost" 6GB of HDD space I'd like to get back. That's where I need help with Win XP.

The PM owner's manual says, "A 625 error occurs when your disk geometry is seen differently in your native Windows version of PM than it is in the boot-mode version." And later, "One common configuration that will cause a 625 error is a system that has a hard drive disk ... that is visible in Windows but that cannot be seen in the boot-mode environment. "

One solution the manual suggests is: "Change the configuration of the offending disk ... by changing the BIOS setup for that disk. Doing so will ensure that the native and boot-mode environments detect identical hard disk configurations. "

I don't really even understand what that's saying, much less know what to do or how to do it. How do I change the BIOS setting for my C:\ drive, and what change(s) do I make?

BTW, I earlier opened a thread in the Other Software forum, if you want or need to see what's said there. The specs for my system are in my signature, below.

 

Is there a system file somewhere that contains one or more earlier versions of my BIOS, anything prior to 3 days ago? As I mentioned in my initial post, I tried using System Restore and it didn't help. I have some early versions of some system files in my Drive F:\ but I don't know what file(s) to look for. Advice?

BTW, that "missing" 6GB is in the part of my HDD that Drive C:\ is in, according to PM. When I originally tried to move it there, for some reason it never got assigned or attached to C:\ as it should have. How do I get that 6GB either working with C:\ or back in E:\ where it came from?

 

I think you can resize C:\ to include the unassigned space.

 

Bmoore1129:

That sounds like what I want to do, but how exactly do I do that? When I have PM open and try to do that, it doesn't display the missing 6GB in a way I can get ahold of it to do anything with it. Only Drives C thru F appear.

 

If the unassigned is next to your c drive, Just open c and select resize.

I have just had my eyes dialated and I can't see to go into much detail. I'll be back tomorrow.

 

Bmoore1129: That doesn't seem to work. When I try to expand C:\ from 16 GB to 22 GB, I get asked which partition I want to get that space from, and the only available options are D, E and F.

I tried several things earlier today, and had no success. To clarify one thing, PM refers to that missing 6 GB as "Unallocated." And Drive C:\ is said to be not locked. That may at least partially explain why I can't do anything to it.

PM's "Help" file suggests I run CHKDSK /F as a fix, but I can't get the /F part of it to stick. When I run plain CHKDSK on C:\, it tells me that "Windows found a problem with the file system." Is that the cause or the result of the problem?

Dilated eyes are something I've been through a number of times. Inconvenient, to say the least.

 

Boot to the recovery console. Hopefully it will run from there. If not, you got a major problem.

chkdsk c: /r first and then I'd suggest the same for each partition.

Note that the /f option isn't available from the Recovery Console and you want the /r option anyway since it is the most complete checking option.

 

Newt: I spent quite a bit of time last night setting up Recovery Console (never done that before) and running it on Drive C (took a long time). It fixed "one or more" problems, but My Computer still shows C:\ the same size, not having absorbed that unallocated 6 GB as I'd hoped for. PM shows the same thing.

I wasn't sure what you were referring to by "it will run from there."

PM still doesn't show any way to get at that 6 GB. All its operations seem to apply only to partitions, and the 6 GB aren't appearing as a partition but as "Unallocated" space on the Primary drive.

Now what?

 

BOBBO:

Are you using NTFS? My PM ver.6 doesn't want to work with NTFS. I just ordered ver 8 (The whole outfit is now owned by Symantec, I consider this to be bad news). It is supposed to work with NTFS.

I use FAT32 for this reason. I had NTFS at one time and had a hard time dealing with PM so I reformatted and went to FAT32.

 

Bmoore1129: Yes, Drives C through F are all set up as NTSF.

My 7.0 version of PM worked fine when I orginally partitioned my system. It was only when I did this last job that I got into trouble. I think it was my fault, for 2 reasons: I'd shut down all the programs I had running but didn't notice I hadn't turned off NAV and ZA, and I tried to move that 6 GB from E: to C: rather than from D: to C: (PM wants the shift to be between adjoining partitions). I don't know which one of those mistakes caused the 6 GB to go into limbo.

 

Where is the unallocated space located? Is it between two drives or at the end of the drive. If it's between two drives, which two is it between?

 

Zander: According to PM, it's in the C Drive. For some reason, the drives are shown there arranged in C, E, D, F sequence, maybe because that way they're in order of decreasing size. Or at least the Extended partitions (D, E, and F) are. C:\, of course, is the Primary partition and the missing 6 GB are shown as between it and the Extended partitions. Is that clear enough?

 

Well, I don't know what to say here. If the unallocated space is contained within the c: drive it would seem that there's definitly something wrong. I don't know how experienced you are at this and thought perhaps it was located on the drive in a manner that it wasn't right next to the c: drive. If this was the case I could give you an answer but if it's truely located within the c: drive, I don't know what to tell you. The only answer I would have for that would be to format the drive and start over. I know you probably don't want to do that and I'm not really suggesting you do that (yet anyway). It's just that I don't know any other way around it. I've run into a few odd things when it comes to partitions but can't say that I've ever seen this. Maybe somebody else will come up with something yet.