Re: Re: Active-Inactive Partitions?
"Jethro" <Wilson@somewhere.org> wrote in message
news:60op939jcelhlmdscinn88v5llj2rev98q@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:27:26 +0200, "Pegasus \(MVP\)" <I.can@fly.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Jethro" <Wilson@somewhere.org> wrote in message
>>news:i1mn93p8ok42b6vaptpcmsphjphd1dkovi@4ax.com...
>>>I have a system someone else set up that now has two partitions on the
>>> machine's single drive. The original OS was ME and XP HOME was
>>> installed on it. He ended up with the old ME portion and all its apps
>>> in partition C, and the new XP portion in partition D. Partition C is
>>> the active partition. At boot-up you get the option of selecting ME
>>> or XP, and both seem to work fine.
>>>
>>> I want to delete partition C and then add it's space to partition D.
>>> PQMagic warns me to be sure to make the remaining partition the new
>>> active partition after partition C is deleted. I am afraid to proceed
>>> because I can find no way to specify (set) whether a partition is
>>> active or not. I remember the old FDISK enabled you to do that, but
>>> with NTFS, that is out of the question. I worry that if I allow PQM
>>> to delete the partition, my machine will no longer boot up.
>>>
>>> Can anyone help here?
>>>
>>> Thanks
>>>
>>> Jethro
>>>
>>
>>With the many questions and replies floating about, it is
>>unclear where you currently stand. I suggest you give us
>>a status report.
>>
>>P.S. You can indeed use fdisk on a Win98 boot disk to
>>mark a partition as active. This is because each partition
>>has a number of properties, "active" being one of them,
>>"NTFS" being another. They are set independently from
>>each other.
>>
>
>
> I have changed nothing yet in the areas discussed. I want to be sure
> I am doing what I should do before doing anything.
>
> I haven't used FDISK for more than a year mainly because I am working
> with XP (and its NTFS now) exclusively. Somebody before I got
> involved had changed the ME partition (C) from FAT32 to NTFS. I had
> forgotten some things about FDISK. I didn't remember that you could
> deal just with an NTFS's partition's active-inactive property. Sorry.
>
> BTW, the ME partition (C) still boots to ME just fine, if I select it
> at boot-up.
>
> Thanks
>
> Jethro
Fine. Here is a safe way of performing the transition, provided
that you are careful and make notes at every step of the way.
The method assumes that WinXP is installed on a primary
partition, not on a logical drive. It also assumes that you have
saved your important data and EMail files.
1. Copy these hidden files from C:\ to D:\ -
ntldr
ntdetect.com
boot.ini
2. Add a few lines to d:\boot.ini likes so:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="1 Windows XP Home Edition"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="2 Windows XP Home Edition"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="3 Windows XP Home Edition"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect
The trick is to give yourself several choices. When things work,
you delete the lines you do not need.
3. Label each of your partitions clearly, e.g. "WinME" and "WinXP".
4. Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk from
www.bootdisk.com, then run ptedit from
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/.
Now change the partition type of the WinME partition to a
number that means nothing to Windows, i.e. neither FAT nor
NTFS. This change is fully reversible as long as you remember
WHAT you changed and what the OLD VALUE was.
5. Reboot the machine with your Win98 boot disk,
then set the WinXP partition active.
6. Reboot the machine normally. Select options 1, 2 or 3 from
the boot selector menu until you know which one works.
7. Remove the unwanted lines from C:\boot.ini.
8. If things fail, reverse Steps 4 and 5.
9. If things work, delete the WinME partition, then use
a partition manager (e.g. Acronis) to increase the size
of the WinXP partition.
If you have a spare disk or if you're willing to buy a
second-hand 20 GByte disk then there are totally safe
ways of performing this transition.