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[O/T] PC hardware forum

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HI all,
Would anyone recommend a busy hardware forum where I could ask a
question about hard drive configuration?
I need to make a ghosted hard disk show its actual capacity but can't
fgure out how.
Thanks.
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
 
Roman,
What software are you using for creating the ghost images? Surely that will give you the image data?
Generally in my experience the ghost images only provide info on the amount of data they contain, not the size of the drive they came from - they tend not to monitor empty space.
Cheers,
Julian
________________________________________________________________
Sent via the WebMail system at landcruisers.info
 
Julian,
I am using Paragon Partition Manager Pro 7.0.
I have dumped a FAT32 60GB hard disk to a file sector by sector. Then
I restored the file to another HDD but bigger - 80GB. Everyting seems
to be fine and I can now boot the HH3 machine from the new disk under
Win2kPro. The one problem remains that in Win2k the new disk is
reported as 60Gb, not 80Gb. Some disk management tools report the
correct size, some other not. This, I suspect, will lead to propblems
in the future.
How can I edit the HDD MBR and/or FAT to correct the problem?
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/4/06, julian <[Email address removed]> wrote:
 
Hi Roman,
If you go into disk management (control panel ->admin tools->computer
management) is the extra space you are missing showing up as unpartiioned?
If so then my guess would be the restore process has partitioned your drive.
The software you used may be able to extend the partition such as what
partition magic can do.
Regards
Martin.
 
Martin,
The MS WIN disk managment recognises correctly the disk size, but
shows the whole disk as one partition formated as FAT32. Another
interesting point - when trying to run chkdsk it says the file format
is RAW and quits
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/4/06, Martin Naylor <[Email address removed]> wrote:
 
Roman,
As Martin has pointed out you have created a 60Gb partition on your 80Gb hard disk.
Your partitioning software should enable you to extend this to fill the whole disk - if not, you need Partition Magic which will be able to do it for you.
Cheers,
Julian
________________________________________________________________
Sent via the WebMail system at landcruisers.info
 
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Julian,
OK. Paragon Partiton Manager recognises it as an 80Gb disk but shows
no unpartitioned space. Windows explorer just sees the disk as 60GB.
So where is the 20Gb gone and what is telling the OS what size the
disk is?
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/4/06, julian <[Email address removed]> wrote:
 
<what is telling the OS what size the disk is>
BIOS? Check it is set to Auto.
Anjam
-----Original Message-----
From: [Email address removed] [mailto:[Email address removed]] On
Behalf Of Roman
Sent: 04 October 2006 15:16
To: [Email address removed]
Subject: Re: [ELCO] [O/T] PC hardware forum
Julian,
OK. Paragon Partiton Manager recognises it as an 80Gb disk but shows no
unpartitioned space. Windows explorer just sees the disk as 60GB.
So where is the 20Gb gone and what is telling the OS what size the disk is?
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/4/06, julian <[Email address removed]> wrote:
hard disk.
whole disk - if not, you need Partition Magic which will be able to do it
for you.
 
Anjam,
Thanks. It is.
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/4/06, Anjam Sohail <[Email address removed]> wrote:
 
Roman,
I don't know if the software can convert raw to NTFS partitions, I would
give that a go first as it look like the drive is not formatted with any
particular format (fat,fat32,NTFS for Windows) and has overwritten the
drives (cluster size/sector size) and it is acting as a single 60gb
partition.
You could possibly loose all the data on the drive as well, so make sure you
have a backup or whatever.
I would format the drive with the manufactures partition tool to make sure
you clear it back to factory defaults (Seagate,Maxtor ... all have
downloadable tools) then reinstall windows.
Its possible the tool you are using to recover has some options to do with
destination format etc... but I don't know the software.
Martin.
 
Martin,
Part of Windows thinks the file format is is RAW while another part of
Windows (Disk Manager) correctly reports it as FAT32. The same refers
to disk size. A bit schizophrenic, isn't it?
Unfortunately, I can't reformat the disk and reinstall Windows from a
fresh copy because I won't be able to run the pre-installed
proprietary software.
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/4/06, Martin Naylor <[Email address removed]> wrote:
 
Roman
I'd agree with Julian: "Partition Magic" is the only tool I know of that
can re-allocate partitions at run-time on a FAT32 Windows disk ...
Reliably! But it is expensive.
A quick web search turns up other freeware solutions, so if you are
feeling brave (and I suppose with the image still on the original 60GB
disk you have nothing to lose but time and hair) you could try something
like this http://partitionlogic.org.uk/
I also had a quick read of the blurb on the Paragon Partition manager
software you are using, which I've never come across before. It seems
able to resize NTFS partitions upwards, so while I understand that you
need the disk image in FAT32 format when first booted couldn't you do
this:
Boot system from new FAT32 disk
Convert that disk to NTFS (which shouldn't lose any data) ("convert C:
/FS:NTFS" at a command prompt, assuming drive C)
Then increase partition size using the Paragon stuff.
I accept that FAT32 =3D> NTFS is a one-way process, but surely that won't
matter if it all works!
Good luck
Christopher Bell
Ps: If it's any consolation growing disk partition size is a complete
PITA on every Linux and Unix system I've ever come across - except,
surprisingly, IBM systems.
| Martin,
|
| Part of Windows thinks the file format is is RAW while
| another part of Windows (Disk Manager) correctly reports it
| as FAT32. The same refers to disk size. A bit schizophrenic, isn't it?
|
| Unfortunately, I can't reformat the disk and reinstall
| Windows from a fresh copy because I won't be able to run the
| pre-installed proprietary software.
____________________________________________________________
Electronic mail messages entering and leaving Arup business
systems are scanned for acceptability of content and viruses
 
Hello,
I followed the advice about Parttion Magic and here it is:
In the main window it reports the disk as FAT32 and capacity as
On 10/5/06, Christopher Bell <[Email address removed]> wrote:
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
 
Hello,
Sorry, I hit the wrong key...
I followed the group's advice about Parttion Magic and here it is:
In the main window it reports the disk as FAT32 and the disk capacity
as 76,3479 MB
In Properties it says the disk is FAT32X and the disk capacity is 60, 011 MB
It does not show any unformated or unpartitioned disk space.
Go figure!
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
 
Hi Roman,
You say you did a sector by sector image?
Sector-by-sector copy mode lets you copy all sectors of source
partition/hard disk including those which are marked as unused or bad.
What you need to do is take the image again but using the quick copy mode,
or similar. This will only backup the sectors with data.
With programs I use for instance Altiris or Symantec Ghost you can then set
the size or use the full disk when you deploy the image to another drive.
I hope this helps.
Let me know if you require more help.
Regards
Marinus
 
Marius,
Thanks. I did try Norton Ghost to write a disk image to a new disk I
but did not go far. The problem was that the machine refused to boot
from the ghosted disk throwing up error message "NTLDR not found".
Dumping the whole disk sector by sector, on the other hand, did work
and now booting from the new disk works every time.
I suspect the BIOS must have been tricked in some way by the
manufacturer but they won't reveal how. It probably searches for a
signature on the disk which can be copied only sector by sectror.
The reson I want to copy the whole disk is to make a backup copy of
the proprietary software as the installation files are not supplied
and the vendor wants me to send them a new hard disk to the States
just to upload their software.
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
On 10/5/06, Marinus van Deventer <[Email address removed]> wrote:
 
Hello,
I've just discovered something that makes me think:
Viewing the source disk under Parttion Magic I received an error
message which did not appear on the cloned disk.
It said that an error was detected in sector 63 (which I understand is
the first readable disk sector in MBR). Incorrect length values were
reported:
CHS 39069072
LBA 39070017
FS 39070017
Partition Magic suggested correcting the CHS value to 39070017.
Why does the vendor's disk show this error (and works OK) while the
cloned disk does not?
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
 
Can't you just obtain or download the proprietary software install files
rather than go through all this malarkey?
I've never been happy with Ghost or PM, every time I've used there's always
been a glitch so now I just make sure I always get install discs or files.
Pete
 
It sounds like the imaging software created a full drive partition but
wrote the FAT sectors as per the image, which would make some sense, but
means you have a FAT that doesn't account for the increased free space.
It sounds like just an issue with the free space recorded in the FAT.
Try shrinking the partition by a few gig. In the process PM will check
the data integrity and hopefully correct FAT statistics. Then resize it
back to full disk size.
Even better would be if PM has something for scanning & fixing a
partition, bit like a PM version of Chkdsk?
Best regards,
Jon.
-----Original Message-----
From: [Email address removed] [mailto:[Email address removed]]
On Behalf Of Roman
Sent: 05 October 2006 10:15
To: [Email address removed]
Subject: Re: [ELCO] [O/T] PC hardware forum
Hello,
Sorry, I hit the wrong key...
I followed the group's advice about Parttion Magic and here it is:
In the main window it reports the disk as FAT32 and the disk capacity
as 76,3479 MB
In Properties it says the disk is FAT32X and the disk capacity is 60,
011 MB
It does not show any unformated or unpartitioned disk space.
Go figure!
--
Rgds,
Roman (London, UK)
'92 HDJ80
 
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