XP no longer recognizes partition but Windows 7 does

[dannyodare]

Hi,

I've got a dual-boot set up, with Windows XP 32-bit and Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit. I have a 2TB Samsung hard drive which is split up into three partitions - drives 'C' (XP 64.56gb), 'D' (7 Ultimate 65.3gb) and 'E' (data, music, games, etc 1.69TB), and I also have four other small hard drives: F, G, H, J, K (one of which, obviously, has been partitioned into two (ie, G and H).

A few days ago I resized my 'E' partition using Acronis Disk Director Suite under Windows XP (my main O/S), making it 30gb larger by taking the space from 'D' drive (ie, reducing it from 95.3gb to 65.3gb). After re-booting though, to my shock and horror , XP promptly told me that my precious 'E' drive was "corrupted and unreadable"! However, when I went over to & Ultimate it recognised the drive as normal (NTFS, etc) and everything works fine; all the data, etc is there and totally functional.

XP tells me that 'E' drive/partition is RAW - which obviously is untrue. When I ran good old Partition Table Doctor it said: "If PTD cannot find the correct partition for you, you may may try to access CMOS setup programme and change the LBA Mode setting". So as advised I went into the BIOS and changed the setting - from Auto to LBA, but it made no difference.

So I'm a bit stuck now. Acronis Disk Director, for example, thinks the 'E' partition is fine - though I do note that the partition no longer has a drive letter ("none") and I am unable to change it back to 'E' as the drive letters on option only begin from L onwards.

Any ideas as to how I get XP to recognise my 'E' partition again?

Thanks,
DANNY

 

[kwspony]

we have had simular problems with external drives at work. We use them for loading images. It seems the switching between windows 7 and XP randomly causes one of the drives to become corrupt in XP. We haven't figured out why yet. I would say use windows 7 to move the data off that partition and then format it.

 

[Mugsy]

A few days ago I resized my 'E' partition using Acronis Disk Director Suite under Windows XP (my main O/S), making it 30gb larger by taking the space from 'D' drive (ie, reducing it from 95.3gb to 65.3gb).

I can't say for sure, but Win7 is much more tolerant of odd partition/block sizes. It is entirely possible you just resized your partition to an unusual block size.

Try resizing your D: drive to "64" GB (or 65536 blocks).

 

[gbhall]

Another black mark for Acronis. Unfortunately (my own personal opinion I should emphasise) Acronis seems to be going the same way as Norton. Great software in it's day, sold out to new owners who quite quickly reduced it to scrap......

Even though some may argue the root cause is MS continuously moving the goalposts, it still speaks poorly for Acronis testing procedures I suspect.

 

[DelJo63]

Even though some may argue the root cause is MS continuously moving the goalposts,...

Let me first in line on that point. IMO, it is mindless that Win/7 has incompatiblity issues at the partition table level. How long have we had a formal spec for P.T.'s? NTFS has been frozen for a long time too.

Acronis was very effective in expanding/contracting XP tables, so I point the finger at MS. It should be noted however, that expanding/contracting P.T.s has got to be one of the most difficult operations to attempt.