Whenever I attempt to copy certain partitions (so far, all of them are partitions that contain an installed operating system), Partition Magic 8.0 (and 8.0.1) for DOS will generate error #701. Oddly, copying these partitions in Windows mode (where it does not need to drop down to pre-boot mode) causes no errors and works just fine. However, there are some operations I need to perform that require pre-boot or DOS mode. According to Symantec's KB article, it is due to Windows' "dirty flag", SMART, or an INT13 error. I have run CHKDSK /F on the partition I attempted to copy and also disabled SMART in the BIOS. Niether change made any difference -- I still get the error. The only thing I haven't looked at is INT13, and it's only because I know very little about what this actually is and don't see any reference to it in the BIOS. Is there some other terminology that the BIOS would refer to INT13 by? Or maybe this is something caused by an entirely different setting?

Is your HD SCSI? i_XpUser

No, my hard drive is Parallel ATA

OK, I've gotten somewhere: copying one of these partition will work without error if IDE DMA is disabled in the BIOS, albeit understandably quite sluggishly. I copy my partitions quite often and would prefer not having to change BIOS settings and wait such a long time every time I copy one of these partitions.

How about using Ghost instead of Partition Magic? Sorry, I do not check for private messages

Partition Magic 8.0 has bugs in it - you can eliminate all or most of them by upgrading the Windows version with the patch avalilable at the Symantec web site (which upgrades it to 8.01?). However, I'm not sure whether that also fixes bugs in the Dos version that you can make the two floppy disks for - that on the 8.0 CD certainly has bugs. After you have applied the patch, look in the Program Files\Powerquest\Partition Magic (or similar) directory and make the Dos floppies from the utility on the hard drive, not the one on the CD (it's in the RescueMe subdirectory, if it makes one). Both the Windows and Dos versions use Dos batch files to actually make the changes.

Eh...for starters, I already have PQPM, which I spend > $100 on, and Ghost doesn't serve quite the same purpose as PQPM...or, at least, not as well. I've never had this problem before recently, I see no reason why it shouldn't work. IIRC, this started happening since I had my motherboard replaced with a different model on warranty, which explains why changing BIOS settings fixed it (at least, for now).