Exactly how did you try to do this?
(You should boot from a partition magiq rescu floppy and accomplish this.)

I suspect this problem may be caused by the way companies like Dell load the software at the factory. I had a similar problem with a Gateway a few years back.
The software is loaded from an image which does not take account of the HDD structure.

In the end I decided that as the machine was new, there would be no loss starting fresh, so I wiped everything and set up the partitions then installed the OS.

I should think you would be able to Ghost the partitions first, then restore them to the new partitions, or even to empty space, but that might not cure the problem if it carries the partition structure, but worth a try.

You would need to use the DOS version of PM8 to deal with the partitions, or even try fdisk to delete them if PM8 doesn't want to know.

As far as the primary partitions are concerned, PM8 will keep all but one hidden so it doesn't cause problems. You can see them in Disk Manager, but not explorer.
It is best not to have a drive letter for hidden partitions, because then your next OS install would be to drive D. As everything defaults to the OS being on C, it can cause problems. (I found out having an OS on drive N).
If the partition has no letter assignment, when it is made active the original drive C will be hidden, and the active primary will be seen as C by the OS.
You can remove drive letter assignments in Disk Manager.

Hope this makes some sense

I dont know if this will help any but I recently had a hard drive do the same thing. The only thing that I found, out of 20 something products that i treid, to recover the files from the drive with was 'zero assumption recovery'. this thing will recover anything and beats all the others hands down. anyway, I had the security descriptor error, and i'll be willing to bet that you will develop a media descriptor error too a little later after you try numerous times to recover the drive thru either windows utilities or partition magic stuff. I had been using partition magic 8 on the drive to create multiple partitions with only 1 primary partition. I personally think its something to do with partition magic 8 myself because the problem did not happen until after i used partiton magic 8 to creat the partitions. I've created multiple partitions on this same drive in the past manually without partition magic and never had a moments problem with it. after i recoverd all the data (recovered perfectly with zero assumption recovery) I had to reformat the drive to make it usable again.

This is an easy one.

Pull your important data off, if you haven't backed it up yet...And shame shame if you haven't backed your data up first thing!

Insert the Dell "recovery/restore" or whatever they call it now, reboot, and use the Dell restore cd to FORMAT that thing, and reinstall your apps!!!

You have tried several partitioning and repair proggies, which have only further gooned up your registry and drive for now. I have been through stuff like that DOZENS of TIMES, and the ONLY way to CLEAN IT UP is to FORMAT!!

I know it sounds drastic, but trying other proggies and disk repair/partitioning software will only confuse your PC more!

BTW, if you have a new, fast pc, with XP installed, there isn't really any reason to split that 80 gig into partitions...
Unless you want to be able to boot to 2 different OS's..

Trust me on this one, my friend!



wase4711

You will probably be better off to just REFORMAT the whole disk and start over, after getting the files you need to save off if you haven't allready...
You can make some Boot floppys with Fdisk on them and use these to Clean the drive, then use Partition Magic to set up the new Partitions, It just works easier for me when I am doing formating and splitting up the drive...
If the errors remain even with Fdisk,(you can also, at a dos prompt, booted from a floppy, type "fdisk /mbr" and see if this reinstalls the Partition info on the drive, but I really don't think this will do it in this case)

You may have to use a utility from the maker of your hard drive to "fix" these errors.. You can go to most drive makers web sites and get these "repair" tools... They are Drive specific, so make sure and find out the exact name of the drive and the Model...

I personaly don't use those goofy Dell or Gateway Cds because they put a bunch of stuff on your computer that is un-nessasary, and for me, "gum up the works" and make the computer slugish and NOT optimized...

Just because it a Dell or Gateway, doesn't mean that you can't use it without all the added software that is UN-NEEDED.. These are made from Parts, just like the Home builts that I produce, and DO NOT need to use those "Advertisement Disks" to work properly...

BUT, unless you are very familier with Partition Magic, and how Partitions are set up and how hard drives are structured, you need to just "use the disk"...

If you DO know how to use Partition Magic, and know about the disk structure, etc., then you can set up a Primary Partition for a 9X system, and set up another Logical Partition for XP, (XP just needs to put the boot files on the root dir on the primary partition) and can be installed on a logical partition...

If you want to Run win 2000 and XP, that is easy to do with Logical Partitions also, but the boot files need to go on root directory in C drive (Primary)....
If you know how to use Partion Magic, you can make your Partitions any size you want, and any file system you need, and setup to install you Operating systems, in any order you want..( although you should Always install the Oldest First)...

You can use Other Boot managers, but the one with XP or 2000 works great for 2 or 3 operating systems to choose from on boot up, OR you can use something like System Commander, and boot up to like 100 systems if need be... but again, you need to know about, and have Experience with system boot managers to use this Correctly....

I have built, fixed,repaired and sold Computers for ten years now, and unless you know a little about Partitions and the drive structure, use the disk, but to really USE the Computer, throw the disk away and DO it Right

Working with Computers is like working on cars, some people "think" they can do it, and really mess things up, even though when you watch someone that "knows" how to work on one, they make it LOOK so EASY...

Know your limitations, and when in doubt, ask for help on BetaONE ! !

Thanks for flying BetaONE, be sure to tell ALL your friends....

SeeYa
:)

Monitor! Is your problem solved or are u still having the problems with your Hard disk???

Hi

just want to inform that you can have 4 primary partitions on one physical harddrive. but only one will be the primary boot partition

Mad*}{*