Partition Error - Please Help

[I3ornfree]

Before I begin, I just want to thank in advance anyone who is able to help me with this problem. I’m currently using Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0 build 2,160 on an XP system with all the service pack updates. My main HD, which is a WD 500GB Caviar Green drive, was partitioned into C: (35GB), F: (45GB), G: (65GB), and H: (320GB). C: was my boot drive, F: held my programs, G: held work files, and H: held entertainment files.

And now for the problem. I was going to install a second OS so my plan was to move the data on G: to a external HD; then take 5GB from G: and give it to F:, take 25GB from G: and give it to H:, and finally rename G: to E: (E: was my media card reader and could easily be disconnected to allow the drive letter change without causing issues). After copying the data from G: to my external HD, I figured it was a good idea to reformat G: prior to making any other changes which I did without error. Then I attempted to move 5GB from G: to F: using Partition Magic which was already installed on my system. When I rebooted to allow the size reallocation to process, PM reported error 1611. I searched for this error and came to the belief that it was a PM error and my search lead me to Acronis which was reported to be able to make the change when PM reported error 1611. So I purchased Acronis and started the process again.

I then went about moving 5GB from G: to F: using Acronis and my system went through reboot without error. However, this is where problems started. I checked my new partitions and realized that F: had acquired the additional 5GB which brought the partition size to 50GB but G: was no longer being recognized by windows and oddly enough my media reader which was listed as E: had now become G: but functioned properly when a card was inserted. The other 3 partitions, C:, F:, and H: were fine and were accessible.

I then moved on to trying to figure out what happened. When I opened Acronis again, it was able to recognize what used to be G: and recognized the correct size, but it no longer reported the drive letter as G:; it actually reported no drive letter but it did show the drive label. I also tried to check the drives using PM but PM reported the entire physical drive as “Bad” and gave error 160 which based on searching indicates Bad Disk Geometry. Of course, I put little faith in PM or what it reports at this point considering Acronis appears much more robust than PM. I then checked the drives using Windows disk management software and it does recognize what used to be G: without the drive letter but it does report the correct size.

So at this point, 3 of the 4 partitions are working and have no issues, but what used to be G: is non accessible and not reporting correctly through Windows. Since it is 60GB, I can’t just let the space sit unusable moving forward. I haven’t made any additional changes except for backing up C: and F: since they are my boot drive and program drive using Norton’s Ghost just in case I ultimately have to lose everything and start from scratch. Right now, my only thought is to delete what used to be G: partition via Windows Disk Management and hopefully get it back as my intended 60GB G: drive and continue on my intended way. But I figured it was best to come here and ask for any input as my main concern is that if I delete what remains of the G: partition, do I run any risk of corrupting the other partitions or losing the ability to bring what used to be G: back?

So any thoughts or input as to the best way to go about restoring G: to working function would be greatly appreciated. If anyone needs any more information, please let me know and I’ll do my best to provide the specifics.

[MudCrab]

If Disk Management and DD are both showing no errors for the partition, you're probably okay to delete it. It's good you have a backup, though.

Can you post a screenshot of what Disk Management shows and what DD (in Manual Mode) shows?

Why are you taking space from G: and applying it to other partitions instead of using the unallocated space (from deleting the G: partition)?

[I3ornfree]

MudCrab,

Thanks for the response because it reaffirmed what I thought. First and foremost, when I was going to take space from G:, I had not unallocated space. In hindsight I should have just deleted the partition and worked with unallocated space and then created the new partition once I was done reallocating space but hindsight is always 20/20. I did go ahead and delete the partition with no errors and now I'm sitting with unallocated space which I can reallocate as needed and then make a new partition with the remaining space.

I also figured out what the error was. I suspect I had a problem when I created the partitions originally because the G: partition began on sector 5 and not sector 1 which is what was causing the error message to be thrown. Now when I run disk management or Acronis, I receive no error messages. When I run Partition Magic I get error 116 which is that the LBA and CHS values aren't equal and offers to fix the error. Of course I'm reluctant to let any app just randomly mess with my partition tables.

So now I'm doing some searching to see if letting Partition Magic fix the error is relatively safe and also searching to see whether or not I should be concerned about the error Partition Magic is giving considering it appears that Acronis has no issue with the tables and can run normally. My main concern at this point is if there is a slight error with the partition table that I don't want it becoming a major problem down the road.

[MudCrab]

If it were me, I'd go ahead and resize the partitions and then check if there are any errors. Something may have gotten messed up the first time around that the resizing will correct.

[I3ornfree]

Yeah, that's what I'm going to do and just get rid of partition magic. To be honest, it's just too temperamental. I know it's given me a lot of problems with Linux builds in the past just because it's not Windows. But from my reading, Acronis isn't nearly as picky.

So I'm going to go about what I started off hoping to accomplish using Acronis to do the management and then I'll run checks on all the partitions once I'm done and see what Windows thinks. If I don't get any errors, I'm satisfied.

But I'm on the East coast and it's a little after 1:30 now, so I'm off for the night. But I'll poke my head back in tomorrow once I'm done just to let you know the outcome.

So thanks again for giving me somewhere to bounce ideas around, it's greatly appreciated.

[I3ornfree]

I just wanted to pop my head back in and thank MudCrab for his help even if he just confirmed what I was thinking as having a confirmation of beliefs always makes making partition changes less laden with apprehension.

And as of now I have all the partitions reconfigured as I would want them and have no errors being reported by Windows or Acronis. Of course Partition Magic reported one last Bad Geometry error right before I happily removed the program from my computer. As odd as it is, I hate all Symantec security solutions and always recommend against them but I always felt the need to defend Partition Magic. Well they've lost one supporter over this weekend and a Symantec product will never touch any of my systems again. Crappy products with good marketing is all they are in my eyes at this point.

But regardless, my system is back in pristine condition and I have my 2 HDs partitioned 6 ways, 4 and 2, and have a dedicated Ghost drive with a barebones XP install so any future problems will be remedied in under an hour which I should have had in place all along.

So now I'm sitting at a HD setup as follows:

C: XP Boot Drive
E: Windows 7 Boot Drive
F: Program Drive
G: File Server Drive
H: Entertainment Drive
I: Recovery Drive

So once again thanks to MudCrab for the help. It was greatly appreciated.