hello, this is quite long to explain, so let me do it step by step 1) I installed Norton Ghost 2003 from Symantec (hint, will never use anymore those stupid products) 2) Tried to make an image of my c drive on a dvd 3) After rebooting, Ghost froze 4) Re-boot again, without being able to access the partition where XP was installed 5) Read tech help from symantec, and found about the Gdisk command (http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/ghost.nsf/docid/2002110115000025?Open&src=&docid=2002092510522725&nsf=ghost.nsf&view=pfdocs&dtype=&prod=&ver=&osv=&osv_lvl=) 6) As described on this page, i used the following commands: gdisk 1 /i gdisk 1 /i /-act /p:2 /i gidsk 1 /i /act /p:1 /i Note: Obviously my pc was trying to boot on partition 2 while it had to boot on partition 1 (Symantec hint's was to delete the partition 2, but didn't want to do that, for obvious reasons) 7) After that, I re-booted, and it worked fine again 8) I did several backups with XP running and retried to create an image with Ghost 9) Same problem happened, Ghost created another primary partition 10) At this stage, I had another error message at boot, ie "Boot disk Failure" 11) With a bootable diskette (thanks god, I bought a pc with those old diskette drive), I could see the content of the C drive (with 4 files and 1 directory (obviously not the one partition on which XP resides !) 12) I copy the gdisk.exe file to C: 13) Ran a gdisk 1 command (the /i switch was not working anymore) 14) This is basically the result of that command (gdisk32.exe): GDISK (W) Fixed disk 1 has overlapping drives Disk Partitions Cylinders Heads Sectors Mbytes Model 1 7 14589 255 63 114440.9 ST3120026AS Partition Status Type Volume Label Mbytes System Usage C: 1 A PRIMARY 28607.9 NTFS/HPFS 25% I: 2 PRIMARY 23.5 FAT16 1% J: 3 PRIMARY -VPSGHBOOT- 15.7 FAT16 1% 4 EXTENDED 85823.8 75% F: 5 LOGICAL 28607.9 NTFS/HPFS 25% G: 6 LOGICAL 28607.9 NTFS/HPFS 25% H: 7 LOGICAL 28607.9 NTFS/HPFS 25% 15) If i reboot the pc, put a bootable diskette and try to run the gdisk 1 /del /p:7 command (on winXp the two partition are numbered 2 & 3, while in the dos they are numbered 7 & 8, ???) I'm getting the following message: "Gdisk (W) Fixed disk 1 has overlapping drives, Gdisk (Q) You are about to delete the primary DOS partition while and extended DOS partition exists, Continue [YN] 16) Obviously I want to delete both of them, so my question is, can I proceed without crashing my pc for good ??? 17) I search a little bit the internet to find answers but could not find anything relevant to this problem From a Microsoft point of view, I shouldn't delete a "healty" partition (http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkd_tro_jqjy.asp) If I go to Control panel, administrative tools, computer management, disk management, I can see these two partition (one has a FAT file system, the other one has no description related to the file system). It seems also that I can delete them from there. Any suggestions ? I am really afraid of impacting the main "extended" partition by doing so. What would you favour, deleting or not deleting, which way, the dos-way or the xp-way ? Any impact on the MBR and or the partition table ? Many thanks in advance for your help. Again, my pc runs now, and what I would like to avoid above all, is to loose everything and re-install everything from scratch. I can live with these two partition, but really would like to get rid of them, not to mention the crappy Norton Ghost 2003 from Symantec. Anyone has an idea ? Thanks in advance. Please take into account that I am not a PC guru or programmer. Good4U

I can understand the frustration which gave rise to your comment "will never use anymore those stupid products" but the fact is that Ghost has long enjoyed a position of high regard in both the private and commercial sectors and is pretty simple to use for the novice whilst also being extremly powerful for the expert. Having said that ANY software which manipulates partitons or works at this sort of level must be handled with utmost respect. I personally used Ghost for many years (since Windows 95 in fact) only abandoning it recently in favour of Acronis TrueImage for the simple reason that, at the time anyway, Acronis was the only imaging programme which would image a running instance of XP without having to drop out into DOS which is what I required. The very few times I encountered problems they were always of my own making. I don't know exactly what caused your problem but, with respect, I strongly supect it was not Ghost's fault! In answer to your actual question: Under normal circumstances you should be able to delete primary partitions in XP Disk Management (except C:\ of course) without affecting your extended partition but after all that has gone on I would do a thorough Chkdsk of the whole drive first and repair any errors found. Oh, and by the way, VPSGHBOOT is a Ghost virtual boot partition but how or why you created it is not clear from your post. Good luck

Hi Kinel, thanks for your comments and answers. I will try the chkdsk command and will let you know. Regarding Ghost, the user interface is sometime unclear, you don't really know what you are about to do, and on top of it, you end up with a non-working environment. If I were gone in a panic mode, I probably would have formatted the drive and restart everything from scratch. My point here is that Symantec lure peoples with "easy to use" product, which in fact are not, and on top of that, give users the impression everything is lost on their pc. I run a business and I can't afford loosing my data or wasting an entire weekend to try to be back on track on monday. If I were a super-user or techno freak, fine, but that's not the case, hence my very negative impression on this product (I should charge Symantec my daily rate for keeping me busy with their lousy product, that would be fair I guess). Anyway, thanks again, will let you know about the chkdsk results... Best regards, Good4U

Hi again, the chkdsk command returned no errors . From windows explorer, I've also checked the VPSGHBOOT "drive". No errors either. (I: 2 PRIMARY 23.5 FAT16 1% J: 3 PRIMARY -VPSGHBOOT- 15.7 FAT16 1%) If I'm trying to click on the other (I) partition, I'm getting the message "The disk in drive I is not formatted. Do you want to format it now ?" And here is the content of my J drive: J:\>dir Volume in drive J has no label. Volume Serial Number is 3F1B-15DA Directory of J:\ 01.01.1601 01:00 4'276'087'043 >å& 01.01.1601 01:00 <DIR> Φ{"r°┐☼'.3╔ï 28.11.2004 00:19 189'536 GDISK.exe 01.01.1601 01:00 666'215'214 ╬"x▲.┼▲m.☻ëg 01.01.1601 01:00 649'163'280 ï╚è⌠&èU.èΓ☻ 01.01.1601 01:00 <DIR> n·Çⁿqt♥Θ.(☺Φ 18.02.2044 15:29 1'178'993'269 %.ï▬╦%.ï.♫d♥ 01.01.1601 01:00 <DIR> Φ█∟r°┐9&.3╔ï 19.02.2070 00:48 243'279'393 ♫♠S┤R═!&.Ç♫å 6 File(s) 16'141'772'265 bytes 3 Dir(s) 39'626'752 bytes free Looks strange, isn't it ? Any additional help most welcomed ! Cheers, Good4U

I know that tune!......lol The presence of those characters seems to indicate corruption, have you really got 6 files totalling 16gb on there, I think not. I think you're just going to have to bite the bullet and delete your unwanted partitions, I would be very surprised if there was any adverse effect to the remaining partitions.

Hi, thanks for your reply. It seems from the properties windows of disk j, that the used space is 16.9 MB, ie 17'819'648 bytes (free space, 37.7 MB, 39'626'752 bytes) totaling 54.7 MB, 57'446'400 bytes. I guess I will first do a full backup with an external disk drive (ie the 4 NTFS partitions), then delete these two primary partition, then let you know about the results !!! Many many thanks for your help. Cheers, Good4U