Hi all. The other day I bought a secondhand laptop IBM T21 ThinkPad from a secondhand computer retailer. The program that they installed was Win 98 SE. I bought the laptop home and happily went about loading programs and data. At about 6 Gigs into my 20 Gig HD I remembered that I had not Partitioned it giving me a location as to where I can Ghost my backup to. I have Partition Magic Pro 7, but when I read the literature, they stressed that before any partitions are made I should backup all data in case all went pear shaped. There lays the problem. I do not have access to an external CD burner and I forgot to partition the HD to accommodate the back up. Bummer! Has anyone used this program to make a partition without backing up their data? In other words, what are the REAL chances of things going pear shaped? To partition or not to partition and just trust in GoBack instead. Regards

Hi Janset, hello everyone, I have used Partition Magic dozens of times without having to resort to a backup. My luck would be the first time I tried without a backup is when I would need it. :-) Best Regards, Mesich

I have also used partition magic a lot of times with no problems. Usually if you are not confident about the state of your hard drive or hardware then a backup would be advisable. I suggest you scandisk your hard drive first which will give you an indication of the health of your hard drive. Defragging your hard drive would also be useful thing to do.

I used Partition Magic two days ago. I created a new partition. Unfortunatelly I lost some of my files such as my Favorites and other text files and PDF files. I would strongly reccomend to back up your impotant files. For small files you can use floppy disks. Good Luck

I've used PM7 several times with no ill effects. Since you just got this laptop a few days ago, there couldn't be too much on it to worry about anyway (assuming that you have your Win98 CD & Product Key). The worst that could possibly happen is that you will need to reinstall everything, but that is doubtful with PM7. HTH Dave

Hi guys. Did it today. So far so good. Un-installed GoBack, as that program has roots deep in to the OS. Scan Disk'd and Defragged afterwards. Thanks for all the advice. Much appreciated. Now all I have to do is to Ghost the C drive across and then re-install GoBack. Just as a point of interest. I tried some time ago to Ghost without un-installing GoBack to CD's on my desktop and I had all sorts of problems. Worth keeping in mind for those who have as yet not gone down that path. Regards

ALWAYS back up your data. I've been using Partition Magic 8 for months with no problem. Today I resized my data drive (without backing it up, of course) and now I have folders and files with names like [||{{}[[[_)([], folders that have turned into files and folders that have disappeared. Anyone else have these problems and how did you fix them?