PPM 10 gets stuck on restart

System: New HP computer with Vista Home 64bit (with RAID controller, does that make a difference?)

I am TRYING to use PPM 10 to add partitions to my large HD. Drive C: is 685Gb and Drive D: is the recovery partition at 14Gb. My goal is to shrink C: to a 100Gb partion, create an extended partition of the rest of the 685 and break that up into smaller partitions. (This is what I did on an XP 32bit machine and am hoping it's the same procedure for the 64bit Vista. XP machine didn't have a recovery partition though.)

So I use PPM to change the size of C: and it tells me I have to restart. Upon restarting, it looks like it's using memdisk to create a virtual floppy drive and then it says it's booting but it just sits there. I've waited 20 minutes with no disk activity.

I've turned off the computer and turned it back on but it just boots normally with no changes. I've booted from the Recovery Media but the only choice is to resize the partitions. If I shrink the size of C:, D: expands and I don't want the recovery partition to do that.

Can anyone tell me the proper way of accomplishing what I want?

Thanks

 

Hello Milusos,

Sounds like you’re doing everything correctly from Vista but the computer is having troubles booting into the Paragon "Blue Screen Mode".

I'm assuming the Recovery Media you are using is the WinPE based one, which defaults to the express launcher. If you select the 5th menu item "Switch to Full Scale launcher" you will find that it is almost identical to the Windows version and works in the same way. This will give you the full control that you need to do your resize and create new partitions.

RAID doesn't make a difference as far as Paragon is concerned. In the WinPE Recovery Media environment you will have to add the Vista 32bit version drivers for your RAID controller. That is if it doesn't recognize you drives. This can be accomplished by selecting from the Express Launcher “Tools\Add Drivers”

I will look deeper into your original issue and post the results.

 

Thanks for responding

I created the Recovery Media from the Recovery Media Builder in PPM 10 Personal. When I boot from the Recovery Media, the screen is blue but I don't see the menu option you mention. I get:

• Normal Mode
• Safe Mode
• Low-Graphics Safte Mode
• Hard disk 0 MBR (Paragon)
• Find OSes on your hard disks

Clicking on Normal Mode gets me to another menu:

• Express Resize Wizard
• Restore Wizard
• Bood Corrector
• Network Confiurator
• Log Saver
• Install Vista OS Wizard
• Eject CD/DVD
• Reboot the computer
• Power Off

Safe Mode has 4 of those options.

I'm using PPM 10.0, build 7893 (20.03.09) Personal if that helps.

Am I using the right RM?

 

Hi all,

My computer too is having troubles booting into the Paragon "Blue Screen Mode".
PMPro 9 used to do it well, PMPro 10 now do it bad... I'm waiting for a Paragon answer.

By the way, the same problem occured when upgrading from Drive BackUp 8.51 to v. 9... and no one at Paragon could tell why...

i think the "bluescreen" folder in c/prog files/paragon has something bad...

 

Hello Mallet and Milusos,

Cisco described the WinPE recovery environment which is a separate download included with the professional and server editions. In the personal edition Linux/DOS recovery CD, you can go into the advanced mode by hitting: Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Backspace in the normal mode menu. First thing I would check is if your hard drives are displayed properly (for instance, raid 0 should show one hard drive instead of two physical)

 

Viola!!!

Thank you Tommy for the information about the key combo. It worked and I now have a partitioned C: without making D: bigger.

Now I need to start another thread on deleting the boot manager...

 

Hi,

I have Dell Studio XPS 8000 with Windows 7 64bit ultimate (1TB drive) The drive is allocated as follow:

Disk 0 (Basic) - 55MB (OEM Partition) / RECOVERY (8.73GB NTFS) / OS (C: ) 922.73 GB NTFS

I wanted to create a partition in OS partition and used Create Partition in PPM 10 Personal 64bit (demo).

I had exactly same problem as milusos's (got stuck on restart after excecuting to create a new partition). It just sits there and shows "loading boot sector...booting..." with no disk activity.

I waited for an hour but nothing happened, so I've turned off the computer and turned it back on and it gives me an option to use "Recovery" drive or OS drive. When I select "Recovery" drive, it boots normally with no changes. With OS drive, it hangs and screen shows "loading boot sector...booting...".

So I've booted from the Recovery Media (created from the Recovery Media Builder in PPM 10 Personal). I was able to get into the menu and selected Normal Mode.

Now, problem is when I select Express Resize Wizard, the program says "Error: No HDD installed. Program will be terminated". When I go into advanced mode by hitting Shift+Ctrl+Alt+Backspace, it doesn't display hard drive. Basically I cannot do anything from Normal Mode.

When I select Safe Mode and select Express Resize Wizard, it recognizes hard drive and gives me a control of how you want to resize the partitions but only to resize between recovery partition and OS partition, not within OS partition. I just want to resize the OS partition without changing the size of recovery partition.

I don't know why the program doesn't recognize hard drive in Normal Menu even though it recognizes in Safe Mode.

I don't know what else I can do to fix the problem.
Please help.

** revised regarding resizing partition in safe mode because my explanation was not clear.

 

Hi,

The normal mode appears to be having difficulty recognising your hardware - that is why the alternative Safe Mode ( dos) environment is also supplied.

The WinPE disc would be much better - but is only available with paid versions - PM Pro and up.

You can only create a partition if you have Unallocated space to create it from.

To get Unallocated space - you need to Resize (reduce) the partition first.

If the Pargon boot menu is still there - it can be removed by rt click the HD on the Disk Map and select Update mbr.


Because you have the Demo version - there are some limitations to that - I would suggest waiting to hear from one of the Paragon Team as to what you should do next.

Hope it helps.

EDIT : The New System Upgrade Utilities looks very good value - it includes PM10 pers and WinPE disc http://www.paragon-software.com/home/suu/features.html

 

Well,

I ended up rebooting from "Hard disk 0 MBR (Paragon)" on the Recovery CD and selected OS drive for starting up, it started processing to next step. BUT, because it was "Demo" version, it stopped processing at moving partition stage and message showed "you must purchase software to complete. What a waste of time.

I was planning to buy this software after trying anyway, I purchased it and started it over again. This time the process went smoothly with no problem.

It seems to me it works better if running from Recovery CD.

Now I have 300GB of space for OS and two 300GB of spaces for the other purposes. I'm very happy with it.

I was a little bit disappointed that no one from Paragon Team tried to help me or gave me even a tip.

 

Glad you are happy with the program . Did you get the PM10 personal , or the New System Upgrade Utilities?

 

Hi SIW2,

I got PM10 personal (just to be safe). New System Upgrade Utilities is certainly great value but I'm not familiar with these products and I didn't want to get into any more troubles.

I appreciate your help and suggestions.

 

You're welcome.

The full versions are vastly better than the demo's , as you found out. I am sure you will be very pleased with it.

The PSG staff come here as often as they can.

This is additional to the support that is provided when you buy a product. They give their time here for everyone - even those using the free versions.

You don't get that elsewhere. ( Not at weekends , of course)