I just took delivery of a new system with Windows xp, sp2 and two 120 gig SATA hard drives. Since the os was set up to use all of drive 1 I repartitioned it with Partition Magic so has to have a smaller c: partition and then an extended partition with d:, e:, and f:. The second drive was set up as an extended partition with logical drive g:, to be used for backups. I should mention that the video card is an ATI All In Wonder X600 Pro.
I had no end of problems: The floppy drive wouldn't respond, the video would only play tv for about 5 minutes before freezing and locking up the system and the dvd would only transfer large files (from my old computer to the new using DVD/RW) without locking up and freezing the system after several minutes of downloading. In addition, the ATI configuration utility said that DMA was not enabled on the hard drives (it was).
I took the system back to the dealer, and his suspicion was that Partition Magic had screwed up the system. The solution was to wipe everything clean and start over. After doing so, he claims everything is ok. Because of the holidays I won't be able to pick it up for a week or so.
Since the disk manager in windows xp won't resize partitions, I will have to basically waste most of the c: drive unless I use Partition Magic, but that puts me vulnerable to cause the whole set of problems again--if that was the cause, but I don't know what else to think.
I have heard that Partition Magic can cause problems with SATA drives, and I am also wondering if the ATI card has some issues with SATA drives.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?
Stu Culp
I had no end of problems: The floppy drive wouldn't respond, the video would only play tv for about 5 minutes before freezing and locking up the system and the dvd would only transfer large files (from my old computer to the new using DVD/RW) without locking up and freezing the system after several minutes of downloading. In addition, the ATI configuration utility said that DMA was not enabled on the hard drives (it was).
I took the system back to the dealer, and his suspicion was that Partition Magic had screwed up the system. The solution was to wipe everything clean and start over. After doing so, he claims everything is ok. Because of the holidays I won't be able to pick it up for a week or so.
Since the disk manager in windows xp won't resize partitions, I will have to basically waste most of the c: drive unless I use Partition Magic, but that puts me vulnerable to cause the whole set of problems again--if that was the cause, but I don't know what else to think.
I have heard that Partition Magic can cause problems with SATA drives, and I am also wondering if the ATI card has some issues with SATA drives.
Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?
Stu Culp
