Problems with Partition Magic 8.1.

[Zokir]

Hello!

I decided to divide my hard drive into two discs so that i could install windows xp on C: disk and could format it anytime when operating system infected with a virus. But i haven't succeeded in installing windows xp.

First, I run bios setup and run the Partition Magic 8.1 program. I divided the hard drive into two and formatted the whole hard drive. THen i tried to install windows xp. Windows xp installation program copied all the files to C drive and rebooted the system. After that windows installation program continued installing a bit and then stopped showing some mistakes in an encoded language.

I tried to divide the hard drive with different ways: created one disc, two disks, three disks. Always set up the disk on which i was going to install windows as a primary and active disk. But it didn't work.

I tried another windows installation CD. The other CD even didn't see the hard drive.
What amazed me much i was able to install windows 98! Installing windows 98, i tried to update windows for xp. Again the same things happened: it copied all the files and after rebooting it showed a mistake.

Could anybody tell me the simplest way of solving this problem please?

Best!

Zokir

 

[RealBlackStuff]

Whatever you do in PM8-1, do it one step at the time.
Do not select a number of operations and then execute the commands that are waiting all in 1 go, that spells disaster!

 

[raybay]

You need to carefully read the Partition 8.1 manual... It is a very good but very persnickety program. You don't control it. It controls you.

 

[Zokir]

Thank you very much for the answers!!!
I was able to solve the problem though not sure what the real problem was. I got a "modified XP bootable CD" from a friend of mine. He told me that he had a similar problem. Bootable XP CDs did not see his laptop's hard drive at the outset. He even didn't use any partition programs and didn't try to change the format of the hard drive. Then he used this modified bootable XP CD. He modified the XP CD though some "enlighment" program. I truely do not know what program is that.
As I understood, I had a problem with installing XP not because I divided the hard drive but because ordinary XP installation CD cannot install Windows. Through this modified XP CD all went very smooth and could install Windows XP!

Thank you one more time for the responses!

 

[raybay]

Interesting if true. Interesting if not true.

Never seen anything like it or heard i before. Was this modified CD only for this Partition Magic 8.1 install?

 

[Zokir]

No, this modified installation package has nothing to do with Partition Magic 8.1. My friend needed to use this special CD because other installation XP CDs did not see his hard drive. He's never used Partition Magic.

And in my case, I think, I couldn't install Windows not because I divided the hard drive but because Installation CDs I used were not viable for my laptop.

I bought my laptop recently and haven't had experience with installing operating systems on it yet though i have tried on my desktop computer for dozens of times(but I never tried to divide my desktop computer's hard drive).

In two days, I will try to get to know from my friend exactly what this modified XP CD is like.

Thank you for your interest

 

[RealBlackStuff]

sounds like a 'stripped-down' XP-version where nLite http://www.nliteos.com/ was used. Using that pgm, you can suppress loads of useless Windows stuff, such as Internet Explorer, all those crap games, etc.