Partition Magic questions

[ConLog]

First of all, I'd quickly like to say that I've partitioned new hard drives, re partitioned existing hard drives using FDISK and installed Windows OS's many many times before.

The problem went something like this. A guy gave me his PC saying that when he used Partition Magic, his D: drive mysteriously disappeared.

Sure enough, in his machine is a Maxtor 15GB hard drive and on booting Windows98SE his C: drive was there (10GB) and his E: CD-ROM drive was there but the 5GB D: partition was not showing up in Windows.

He told me he wanted everything wiped and would I create one large 15GB partition. No problems I said.

Anyway, when using FDISK to delete the two existing partitions, NO MATTER WHAT, it would NOT let me delete the Extended DOS partition.
It would also not let me format the D: drive from the setup floppy.

Eventually I got round the problem by hooking his hard drive to my system as a slave to my boot drive. WindowsXP recognised his two partitions so from Windows I formatted both his C: and D: drive. I then ran FDISK again and managed to delete both his partitions successfully and create one large drive. But I still have some issues which are annoying me.

(1) What did Partition Magic do to his hard drive that caused me so many problems using FDISK?
(2) His hard drive is so unbearably slow at Formatting - much, much slower than anything I've came across before. 8 hours to format his 15GB hard drive. Has Partition Magic done something to his hard drive?
(3) His hard drive makes some VERY strange clicking noises - again, something I've not came across before - Partition Magic at fault again?

I don't like third party software such as this so have never had any dealings with it.

[kittyfire]

I haven't used partition magic in years, at least not since the '95 days... But I don't know of any software that can make a hard drive make clicking noises. It's not unheard of for a new drive to go back... sounds like a hardware issue with the drive to me.

[Alex123]

Kittyfire may be right. But one thing that I would like to add to this thread.

What It looks like is that PQ made that partition hidden.

It is always a good idea to have this software available (I know you don't like third party sofware) but for testing purposes you could just run it and see if it was showing as a hidden partition. If so, there is a tool that can convert it back to an unhidden partition.

Use it for future reference.

Good luck.

Alex.

[GaryRouth]

Hi UFO -

If you still have the drive nearby, I'd run PowerMax diagnostics on it just to be sure it's OK. Here's the link to the latest version:

http://www.maxtor.com/en/support/downloads/powermax.htm

Best of luck
. . . Gary

[and it does sound like he made the partition "hidden" by accident]

[K A Hall]

If the drive is clicking there is a 99.9% chance it's RMA time. As long is it is under warranty that is.

[ConLog]

Thanks all,

Got everything working well and no bad sectors were reported in the format process but the clicking noises are still there. Also, the hard drive boots WindowsMe incredibly slowly considering the machine is a P3-600.

I will be sure to run the PowerMax diagnostics software. I believe the hard drive will soon fail though.

[GaryRouth]

Good luck with the diagnostics - something must be wrong somewhere to experience that kind of slowing.

The drives didn't get stuck in "DOS Compatibility Mode" did they? Look in your System Properties under "Performance" just in case (you probably already checked this, but I figured it's good to be thorough). And nothing looks strange under the IDE controllers in Device Manager?

Too bad if the drive is going out - a 15gb drive can't be that old. [I still have some 540mb drives running at my cousins house]

Maybe it's still under warranty? Seems like Maxtor might still have had the 3-year warranty then.

. . . Gary

[ConLog]

Hi Gary,

The guys PC is a Dell OptiPlex so I'm not sure about the warranty regarding his hard drive. I have told him though to possibly expect a total hard drive failure.