If you DO leave at least 8mb free at the end of the drive, the utilities I mentioned do not have any problem with the drive. NOTE that both drives were Maxtor, and when I prepared the drives with their MaxBlast using the Dos version on a floppy (apparently the Windows version of that knows it should leave free space at the end of the drive) and partitioned the entire drives, when I then tried to use PM 5.0 to just look at the drives, I got an error message in PM, and PM couldn't deal with that or the partitions or even read them. Maxtor's PowerMax (on a bootable floppy)diagnostics tests had a problem looking at the drives - it gave a reason, but it wasn't about there no being free space at the end of the drive (I may have recorded the message somewhere and could dig it up, but it really doesn't matter what it was). A third party utility that I was going to use to reformat NTFS partitions to FAT32 refused to touch the last partition. At first I thought that might be because both drives were larger than the 64gb limit that I eventually found PM 5.0 can't exceed and handle properly, but later I tried the same things with a drive smaller than that - same error message in PM, etc. I don't know whether that applies to newer versions of PM or to PM 8.0. Eventually I figured out how to do it, and have all the utilities and programs see the last partition as normal. I wanted all the partitions to be FAT32, but this method also works if you use NTFS. I partitioned and formatted the three partitions in XP, and XP automatically left the tiny bit of free space at the end of the drive. I then used the third party utility to convert all the partitions XP had made from NTFS to FAT32 - it had no problem dealing with the last partition. PM 5.0 was able to look at the drives normally; there was no error message when it started up. Maxtor PowerMax diagnostics tests no longer had any problems with the drives and that last partition. So - I don't know if that applies to PM 8, but I would NOT use Maxtor's MaxBlast (at least the Dos bootable version on a floppy) to prepare a drive that I would like to use PM 5.0 on. I also tried using that version of Maxblast to prepare drives and leaving the space at the end of the drive, but PM 5.0 still generates the error.

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If you find the XP partition won't boot after being moved (it should boot), I believe you can fix that easily. Use the Boot Manager to select the XP partition so that it is active. Shut down the computer, and with the Windows XP CD in a CD drive, and the bios set so that it will boot a bootable CD first, start up the computer and let the CD boot. It will load a lot of files, then ask you something similar to "....if you want to Repair Windows, press R" - do that. You will then go to a Dos like screen. It will ask for a password. IF THERE ARE NO X'S beside the password prompt, you have no password - just press enter! IF THERE ARE X's, the password is the same one you use in Windows when you log on as Administrator - it is case sensitive - that is, all of it must be typed as you type it in Windows for that purpose, upper or lower case of the letters the same way. Type FIXBOOT (Enter) (DO NOT TYPE FIXMBR if you are using the Boot Manager partition for PM) Type EXIT to get out of there, and the computer will reboot. Let the hard drive load normally, don't boot with the CD. XP should now boot fine. If you try that and it doesn't work, let me know. e.g. You may also have to hide the partition Boot Manager is in in order for the above to work, or delete it and re-make it later.

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"(DO NOT TYPE FIXMBR if you are using the Boot Manager partition for PM)" If you are NOT using the Boot Manger partition and XP is at the beginning of the drive, you can type FIXMBR there, but don't do that unless you are NOT using the Boot Manger partition and XP is at the beginning of the drive, and FIXBOOT alone does not make XP bootable.

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I don't mean to confuse what others are trying to help with but there is another solution you might wish to try also. You should have Bootmagic along with partition magic. Bootmagic can boot any number of OS's. You just install and boot whatever whereever. (well, almost.) What ever you do you need to make a backup of xp before you go any further.

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Partition Magic already has a Boot Manager, or whatever it is called in PM 8 (that's what it is in PM 5) - same kind of thing. See Response 6

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Thanks for the help, Ive gotten alittle further. I have moved the FAT 1gig partition to the front of the disk, and put XP 2nd. Doing this I was ableto choose msdos at the bootup menu and install MSdos from the installion disk. It installed great. But now MSDOS freezes on bootup. It says starting msdos, lists all the copyrights and lastly says mouse driver installed. Then it just hangs there forever. I wasnt sure how to check the 1st partition with msdos is within 1000 or not. Maybe that might be the problem. [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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A little bit of an update. I managed to start my second partition(winxp) at 1030cylinder, instead of 136(where it was before). This did not fix the problem either. [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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Little complication. I'm guessing you moved your XP partition up by 1 GB then created another primary partition in front of the XP partition. This placed the first partition location in the partition table at the second entry. What you just did was create a system error by making the partition table out of order. The first partition must be first in the table then the next and so on in order as they occur going up the disk. If you can boot into XP, use the PTEdit32 tool to move the numbers into the correct locations. The "sectors before" column numbers must get bigger as 1,2,3,4. Having only 2 partitions, swap all the numbers between 1 and 2. Best to write them down first! In DOS the tool is called PTEDIT which can be found on the floppy pair or booting the CD. Best

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Okay guys, now Im screwed up pretty good. I rearranged the nubers from smallest to largest(wrote them all down) and windows will not boot up anymore. Unfortunately Dos still freezes. I get this message"file is missing or corrupt <windows root>\system32\hal.dll" Would I just be better off formatting the HDD, reinstall Xp, then putting PM, and finally installing dos?? Fern [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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jubalsams: What the HELL are you talking about? Partition Magic does everything according to standard rules! Your STUPID suggestion may have caused fern to trash her hard drive!!!!! ....... fern: "But now MSDOS freezes on bootup. It says starting msdos, lists all the copyrights and lastly says mouse driver installed. Then it just hangs there forever. ....." "I get this message"file is missing or corrupt <windows root>\system32\hal.dll"" That is in XP. It cannot be in Dos, because there is no System32 directory in a Dos installation, at least not initially. FIRST, get yourself a free hard drive diagnostics utility from the manufacturer of your hard drive's web site, and test your hard drive thuroughly! Your symptoms sound like you have a flaky hard drive more than anything else to me! .... It sounds you still don't "get" how to use PM in any case, at least not going by what you've posted. " I wasnt sure how to check the 1st partition with msdos is within 1000 or not. " 1024th cylinder! No higher than cylinder 1023! "I managed to start my second partition(winxp) at 1030cylinder, This did not fix the problem either." The dos partition has to end before the 1024th cylinder! The first possible one is 0, the last possible one 1023! It would start higher than that because of the first tiny partition boot Manager is in! "This did not fix the problem either." You fixed the first problem of not being able to install Dos! What problem did you mean in that post? All the stuff I told you about is in the PM manual. I thought if I outlined it step by step I could make it easier for you, and if you needed to fill in the gaps you would try to find the ansers in the manual! Obviously you don't "get it" yet. READ THE MANUAL! If you don't understand ask us some questions before getting yourself in trouble. ........ "Okay guys, now Im screwed up pretty good. I rearranged the nubers from smallest to largest(wrote them all down) and windows will not boot up anymore. " If you did as jubalsams suggested, you may have trashed your hard drive. It's not surprising XP won't boot!! That was just plain bone headed to do that without asking someone else's opinion! ........... "Would I just be better off formatting the HDD, reinstall Xp, then putting PM, and finally installing dos??" NO! In normal circumstances I would tell you how to get out of the mess you're in so that you don't have to start over, but I've no idea what situation you are in, at least not from what I read here. If you don't want to lose what you have in XP, your only option at the moment is to get someone who knows how to use PM to go to your place and see if they can get yiou out of your jam! But if you want to start over... 1. Use PM to delete all the partitions and their contents. You will need to use the Dos version of PM on floppy disks to do that. On my PM CD, you go to \English\Dos-Os2 In that directory is a file Makedisk.bat I simply double click on Makedisk to make the two boot floppies. If your CD is different, search the CD for Makedisk.bat or similar, in an English directory. You need error free floppies. FULL format two floppies in Windows - full format is the default in XP - then when the format is finished, RIGHT click on the floppy icon, chose Properties, and make sure there are no bad bytes - there should be 1,457,664 bytes available. 2. In PM Make the first partition the one for Boot Manager (FAT), the second for Dos (FAT), the third for XP (NTFS, if it's > 32gb; NTFS or FAT32 if it's < 32GB), and leave a small unallocated space at the end of the drive, at least 8mb. More later. It's 2:30am where I am.

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Perhaps... What you might have done/do...? Using PM8x (or preferably another similar util - e.g. Acronis - for the job since PM8x has some issues with XP for some folks...; personally I wouldn't like to risk it with a working installation...) you could have created the dos Primary at the physical start of the drive. Then installed dos there (set partition to be active at time of creation). As Valerie "et alii" have indicated, dos must be first Primary on the drive; must not exceed 2Gig and is fat16. But "first" boot to XP and copy the XP boot.ini (and the ntldr/ntdetect too won't hurt) to a floppy; edit the copy of the boot.ini on the floppy so that the partition(1) entry reads partition(2); then lock the floppy. Do NOT edit the version of the boot.ini that exists on the hard-drive... i.e. Edit only floppy boot.ini copy that reads: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)Partition(1) so as to read: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)Partition(2) Once you have established/installed dos... all you need to have done was to copy the contents of the floppy to dos root; then run XP setup and start a basic installation to the dos partition... Cancel/abort it at first reboot; remove all disks and allow reboot too go thru' to boot-menu. "Boot to dos!" Verify you can... Then reboot to XP using the XP entry that you copied to dos root from the floppy.... Do NOT allow XP setup to repair the current version; there's no need... Also XP repair sequence does not create the required bootsect.dos via which dos boots from the XP boot-loader. When booted OK into XP, set it as default OS to boot (as it's probably your preferred OS most of the time?). Also delete the unwanted XP folder and other temp XP setup items from the dos Primary; defrag that partition to tidy up the space. Those items will probably have the $ sign at the start of them. These temp items normally removed by XP once setup is complete; you have to do it manually this time... You can later remove the entry for the incomplete XP installation from the (dos primary) boot.ini so as to clean up the boot.ini in the dos primary... Job done... If you prefer to use an add-in boot util to choose which Primary and thus which OS to boot... then there's no need to copy XP boot.ini etc. to dos primary and run the basic/aborted XP installation etc... Just create the dos primary and install dos; then install the boot-util as per its instructions... Personally I tend to avoid any add-in boot-utils unless absolutely essential... The less you have involved in the boot sequence the better? Running the basic/aborted XP installation to the dos primary allows it to automatically create the required bootsect.dos by which dos can boot from the XP boot-menu. You can manually create this too - but it's bit of pain and not really necessary to go that route when XP can do it for you? If your dos partition is not large enough for XP to go in even as far as the reboot/abort... then point it to the XP partition - as z:\temp\xp-temp (z = whatever drive letter is assigned to the XP partition at time of XP temp installation). Abort etc. as before; then proceed as for XP to the dos partition. But this time you delete the z:\temp\xp-temp folder from within XP and empty the recyle-bin thereafter; then defrag the partition to tidy up the space...? Again - do not accept any repair offer from XP setup; nor to change/reformat any partition... Also ideally backup all data "before" you go any of the above routes... (safer than sorrier...) If you really want to start afresh... then first backup/copy off all critical data etc - from the system entirely; verify you can access it too on/from the external storage media... Then wipe the drive (remove all partitions); repartition to have the required dos Primary; format as fat16; then create the Extended partition; subdivide this into at least two logical drives; one for XP/apps/utils, t'other for data - only... Install dos as per norm. Then run XP setup and point it to the first logical-drive. Install apps/utils etc. to XP... Job done. Use a '98 bootdisk (Fdisk) to remove all partitions on the drive intially; then to create the fat16 dos primary; and also the Extended partition and sub-divide into the logical-drives. You can preformat the logical drives as fat32 via '98 bootdisk (format util), or allow XP to do it during setup... Remember too that XP cannot format a partition in excess of 32Gig - defaults to ntfs if it finds it has to go over that barrier...; so if you want in excess of 32Gig as fat32... use the '98 boot-disk format util/option for that area. A fresh start as immediately above does NOT require PM etcc. or any add-in boot-util... XP has all you need for the dual/multi-boot...

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It was my fault for jumping to things. I have just downloaded a compaq HDD utility and have deleted all partitions. I will install Xp fresh and do things properly this time. Thanks for the help. Basically the steps I shouls take. 1.Install Winxp 2.Install Partition Magic 3.Make a 1gig FAT partition and have PM installed in there, on the first partition 4.Make a second FAT 1gig partition and install MSDOS 5. Have xp on the last partition. 6. The dos and win xp partition will be both primary 7.Make sure the 2nd partition with MSDOS, is before the 1024 cyclinder. Hopefully I have this right now, please add if I missed something. Thanks Fern [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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"Hopefully I have this right now, please add if I missed something. Thanks Fern" It all depends on who you want to listen to - myself or others who are very familiar with Partition Magic, or other people such as trvlr, who seems to know what he's talking about, but is not familiar with Partition Magic. You can't do both. You've got to realize that although there are many who answer questions on this site who know what they are talking about, there are ten times as many who don't. Who of those people answer your posts is random. If you listen to everyone you are guaranteed disaster. I'm asking again - what size is your hard drive? You DO NOT have to install XP first if your PM CD has the Dos version of PM on it!

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Install dos first to the "only necessary Primary" on the drive - which will be fat16; balance of drive = Extended partition; so then install XP into a logical-drive; balance of Extended partition as another logical-drive for data. I have used PM (a couple of versions/generations) a little...; but tend to avoid using such utils if at all possible... Even very recently there were folks here who were having serious problems with it and XP... Thus I suggest avoid it - avoid problems you don't need by not going down that road to start with - especially as you are now willing to start afresh; i.e. wipe the drive and reconfigure etc...? Use a '98 bootdisk (no large drive support enabled) to create the dos fat16 partition - 2Gig max; use same bootdisk (with large drive support enabled) to create the Extended partition, and to sub-divide into at least two logical-drive. First logical-drive for XP/apps/utils; other(s) for data. Format logical-drives fat32 (via '98 bootdisk util) if you want to use that format for the Extended area(s). If you want ntfs, you can either preformat as fat32 as immediately above, and then allow/use XP setup to reformat as ntfs, or leave unformatted and allow XP setup to do it as ntfs; if an area is over 32Gig then again use '98 bootdisk util to format as fat32 if you want it as fat32. Use '98 Fdisk to remove all partitions on the drive, or use PM as you have it already to remove all partitions. Then revert to '98 bootdisk to reconfigure/format the drive as outlined above; again leaving PM out of the loop. If you still have access to XP, then first back up/copy all data etc. off the drive - to removable media; verify those backups/copies are useable before you actually wipe the drive etc.

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Okay Tubesandwires, You seem to be very knowledgable with PM, if you could guide me through that would be appreciated, so I dont screw things up again. The computer is a compaq laptop, with a 30gig HDD. I have to check if my PM 8.0 CD has the DOS version. Thanks Fern [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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A bit of a glitch, and some explanation. I have to go troubleshoot my brothers computer in a short while (XP Pro, SP2 updated by Microsoft CD)- I can type a bit now, but will have to continue later. I'm a terrible typist - it takes me forever. I have used PM 2, 3, and 5 extensively with Dos and Win98/98SE. I have found them all to be excellent - they have made no mistakes that were not caused by me not understanding something, and when I have had them MOVE partitions with data on them, they have moved them flawlessly. However, I cannot use PM 5 with drives larger than 64mb other than to just look at them, and I have not tried moving an XP partition with PM of any version. I am well aware that when you copy an XP partition the result isn't necessarily bootable, and you may have to take steps to enable that again. I know a lot of things about XP, but I certainly don't know as much about it as I know about Win98/98SE, other than things that are done similarly in all of them. So - if you want to get this done as quickly as possible, or you have a problem with anything in the above paragraphs, please feel to abandon my slow suppport at present and to try trvlr's suggestions, as he seems to know what he is talking about, and can explain things well. If you do put up with me, I will try moving an XP partition on a hard drive small enough that PM 5 can handle it, so I can better see the kinds of things you are seeing, and discover the problems that might entail. ......................... "I have to check if my PM 8.0 CD has the DOS version." On my PM CD, you go to \English\Dos-Os2 In that directory is a file Makedisk.bat If you don't see that, search the CD for Makedisk.bat or *.bat, a simlar name - there may be several - you want the one that is in a directory with other files and English - RIGHT click on it, choose Edit to make sure it is in English. My PM 5 Dos version requires you use a PS/2 or Serial mouse - that is often the case for Dos utilities and programs. If you don't have one, borrow one - a USB connected mouse is not recognized. You can use keyboard keys to do everything, or sometimes Alt and a key, and can toggle or select things with the Tab key and cursor keys, but it is rather clumsy to use it that way when one is used to using a mouse. ..... I tried Makedisk.bat this morning - it will not run in Windows. In Win95/98/98SE you can run it MsDos Prompt mode - that is on the Start - Programs menu. If you make the floppies in Win95/98/98SE they will work on any computer. See below for MORE. However the Makedisk.bat I have with PM 5.0 does not get along with XP. I tried to run it in XP - by booting and pressing F8 repeatedly after the drives were found, choosing Safe Mode and Command Prompt, then going to the drive letter of the CD drive ( typed e: (enter) in my case) - then went to the directory Makedisk.bat is in (cd\english\dos-os2 (enter)- and typed makedisk a: (enter) but it does not work correctly. It will not format the floppies (XP won't let it?), and seems to get confused. ...... MORE If you use MsDos prompt in Win95/98/98SE: In Windows, go to CD drive and the directory on the CD Makedisk.bat (or whatever it's called) is in - in my case L:\English\Dos-OS2 , click on the directory it is in - Dos-OS2 in my case - leave it that way. Choose Start - Programs - MsDos Prompt At the resulting C:\Windows prompt, type the drive letter of the CD drive the PM CD is in, followed by a colon - in my case L: (enter) - you will automatically then be at the same location you were at on the CD in Windows, in my case L:\English\Dos-OS2 - you are required to type the drive letter and a colon along with the command - makedisk a:(enter) in my case - you must agree to the license afreement by typing YES (it will quit if you type Y, or N, or NO, or anything else). - the batch program will then full format the first floppy, you answer N when it has finished formatting when it asks if you want to format another, then files are copied to the floppy, then it does the same things for the second floppy. If either or both floppies are found to have bad bytes on them after the formatting, or the prrogram can't read a faulty floppy while formatting, you will be asked to insert another floppy. Boot the computer you want to setup with PM with the first floppy - it asks for the second floppy and starts Partition Magic automatically. If you quit the program, then realize you want to start it again, type the PM program's name - it my case pqmagic (enter). If the name is different from that, type dir (enter) to see a list of the files in that directory - it should be obvious what the name of the PM program file is. The Dos PM has all the features the Windows version has, but it has only a limited amount of Help available. To find out which cylinders are first and last in a partition, in my version you choose Operations - Info - the is a pause an it will check that parttion for cluster waste - then choose Partition Info. More later, if you're willing and patient.

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It occured to me there is a chance I can help you rescue your existing XP, and fix your situation, if you haven't already wiped out the drive. If you have the Dos PM version, start up the computer with the floppies, start up PM. If you don't have the Dos version, install PM 8 on another hard drive, connect your drive as slave to that hard drive, or as whatever is appropriate on your or that other computer, and look at your hard drive with Windows PM 8. I want you to write down what is in each column, in vertical order from the top down. What do you see under each of: Partition - Type - SizeMB - UsedMB - UnusedMB - Status - Pri/Log Post it here. I may be able to tell you what you need to do. ... If you use the Windows PM, an alternative is to do a partial screen capture of what you see, save it as a *.jpg, and post it here in these pages, within one of your posts - e.g. you could use Printkey.exe, available free on the web, and capture a rectangular area with it, of the part of the screen with the information I would like to see. I don't know how to include an image in a post here yet, but someone else here should be able to tell you how to do that. ....... Continuing with Dos PM, assuming you haven't already wiped the drive in some way, and want to start over. (If you don't have Dos PM, do the same things as in the paragraph above to use Windows PM, then follow the steps below.) You don't have to restart the computer after you do each thing in PM, whether the Dos or Windows version - it can do all you want to do in one go - when you are finished setting up the steps, it will run all the things you have selected in a series. The Extended partition is also a Primary partition, but that was not what I was talking about before, because you can't use an Extended partition directly - it must have Logical partitions within in - those Logical ones you can format and use. Any partition in the Extended partition is Logical by default. The primary Partitions I was talking about are listed, eventually if they aren't yet set up, as some partition type - FAT or NTFS or FAT32 in this case - on the same line as Primary (or Hidden). 1. Use Dos PM to delete all the partitions and their contents. Select the last partition first, work back to the first one. If you have an Extended partition, you delete the Logical partitions within it first, then the extended partition. Operations - Delete 2. I said Boot Manager before - that is the older program label - in PM 5 it is called BootMagic. In PM 5, you run BootMagic AFTER making your Primary partitions. 3. Make at least two partitions, both of them Primary - one for Dos, no bigger than 2gb at the start of the drive, one for XP second, leaving a small unallocted space at the end of the drive, of at least 8mb. Tip: A 1gb partition will have a lot less cluster waste (slack space), percentage wise, if 1gb is big enough (it has been for me). It is a good idea to also make one more small Extended partition after the two Primary partitions, with a Logical Partition within it, if you would like to be able to copy things to it from either operating system, and so that it can be used by both of them, for transferring files from one op system to the other (e.g. documents). It's size? - whatever you think you would need - say 1gb (1024mb), or 2gb maximum (2048mb)for Dos compatibilty; the larger size if you are going to be putting larger files in it. 1. for Dos Operations - Create Create As: Primary Partition Partition Type: FAT Label: e.g. Dos 6 - you can label it now or in Windows, or change it in Windows. Size: no more than 2gb (2048mb) Position: at beginning of free space (beginning of the drive, for now) Drive Letter: C (for now) Click OK If you made any mistakes, there will now be two icons in the top toolbar that were greyed out before - the one that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. 2. For XP Operations - Create Create As: Primary Partition Partition Type: in your case, NTFS or FAT32 Label: e.g. XP - you can label it now or in Windows, or change it in Windows. Size: it depends whether you want to also have the small Extended partition I was talking of or not. If you don't want the Extended partition, use a size that is just short of what is listed as available, by at least 8mb. If you like the idea of an Extended partition, the size should be what is listed as available, minus the size of the extended partition, minus the free space of at least 8mb. Position: at beginning of free space (second on the drive, for now) Drive Letter: D (for now) Click OK If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. 3. for an Extended Partition if you like that idea. Operations - Create Create As: Extended Partition Partition Type: not applicable Label: not applicable Size: The available space, minus at least 8mb. Position: at beginning of free space (third on the drive, for now) Drive Letter: not applicable Click OK If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. Now you need to make a Logical Partition within the Extended partition. Operations - Create Create As: Logical Partition Partition Type: FAT (so both op systems can see it) Label: e.g. Dos 6 - you can label it now or in Windows, or change it in Windows. Size: the listed available space (the free space of at least 8mb is outside of, and after the Extended partition Position: at beginning of free space (third on the drive, for now, within the Extended partition) Drive Letter: E (for now) Click OK If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. .................................. Format the partitions. 1. Dos, first Primary partition Select the first partition. Operations - Format - Partition Type: FAT Label: whatever, same as before. type OK to confirm format if that is not greyed out. Click on OK If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. 2. Second Primary Partition - XP select the second partition Operations - Format - Partition Type: NTFS or FAT32 in your case, whatever you selected when making the partition before. Label: whatever, same as before. type OK to confirm format if that is not greyed out. Click on OK If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. 3. Third partition if applicable - Logical partition within the extended partition. select the Logical partition within the extended partition. Operations - Format - Partition Type: FAT (so both operating systems can use it) Label: whatever, same as before. type OK to confirm format if that is not greyed out. Click on OK If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. ......... Set one of the Primary partitions as Active. Select either the first or second Primary Partition. Operations - Advanced - Set Active Click on OK? The other Primary partition should now say Hidden in the Status column. If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. ....... When you are sure everything is set right, click on Apply at the bottom of the window, or click on the circle icon in the top toolbar. If you have made settings that won't work, you will now get error messages about them. If your settings were okay, PM will run a series of programs at this point, applying all the settings (or changes of settings). PM will probably ask you to reboot. Remove the floppy if prompted to do so, or remove it just after the computer reboots. Shut down the computer. .......... Install your operating system, of whichever one you want to put on the Primary Partition that is Active. If you are installing Dos, boot with the Dos boot floppy, and do the typical Dos install. If you are installing XP, make sure your bios Setup is set to boot with a CD if it is not already that way, start the computer so that you can insert the XP CD in the CD drive, shut down and reboot if you miss the CD booting phase, install XP. Either way, after installing the Op system, the computer should boot the Primary Partition that is Active at the time, no problem. To set the other Primary partition Active so you can install the other operating system, start up PM again, Select whatever Primary Partition was Hidden. Operations - Advanced - Set Active Click on OK? The other Primary partition should now say Hidden in the Status column. If you made any mistakes, the icon in the top toolbar that is a curled arrow allows you to start over. When you are sure everything is set right, click on Apply at the bottom of the window, or click on the circle icon in the top toolbar. ......... Then install BootMagic, or whatever your boot manager is called - see your manual, or I may add some notes later. ....... My brother has a PM 8 CD that I can borrow next time I'm there.

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You would be very wise to first backup/copy off the sytem entirely "all" data - before you go any further... Also to confrim that you can access/read all the removeable media copies you make - before going any further... Whilst they are are not as many as once was... there are still problems with PM8x and XP reported by some folks; as I said in my earlier post even very recently here at Comp.net there was a problem reported with it... Play safe at least in that regard. If, via PM8x and the installation as is..., you fail to achieve what you want and have to start afresh, then it can all be done with recourse to any add-in utils... A '98 bootdisk (Fdisk/format utils) will set up the drive for you; install dos, then XP; XP setup completes the dual-boot for you.

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tubesandwires, if you create a primary partition in front of a current primary partition: the partition table WILL BE OUT OF ORDER: even if you don't like it. Try it yourself. The table can be put back as it was with PTEDIT, although the OP has other problem. Just because your posts are rambling, longwinded and incomprehensible does not mean you know everything about PM8. ALSO: YOUR INSTRUCTIONS ARE NOT FOR PM8!!!!! You are using some old version. Hint: put a line of say stars at the bottom of your post and it will get wider instead of a mile long. And don't be so stupid in the future. _______________________________________________________________

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You can "create" a dos Primary ahead the current XP Primary (using any suitable util - and as long as you shift the XP one a little along the drive acccordingly in the process). It will boot OK and it can be made the controlling Primary allowing both dos/XP to boot from and XP boot-loader therein... Partitions (all) will be still accessible etc... Having done it myelf, and also went thru' the whole sequence a year or so back with another poster here (he had a similar situation re' wanting dos after XP already installed)... I can say it does work; and there was no recourse to an add-in boot-util required either. But again if a fresh start is viable - after backing up all data etc. first - off the system entirely... then it would be an easier resolution overall, with/without need of add-in boot-utils as preferred (I prefer no utils); and much more reliable...?

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Tubesandwires, Thank you for the help, but unfortunatly I have deleted xp and dos. I think it would be wise to just start fresh and let xp do the duel boot. I tried reinstalling xp, and dos, with all the proper partitions with PM8, and the same thing, dos would freeze. Im really fed up with PM. One question I have is when I fornate the blank drive, will it format all the partitions I made from PM?? And give me back all my original HDD space of 30gigs?? Thanks [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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Yes I could have made my posts wider - another way is to compose them in notepad first, then paste them in, like I did with this post. My posts tend to be verbose because I want anyone who reads them to be able to understand what I am trying to explain without having to have a huge amount of background knowledge beforehand. If you do not comprehend them (though most others with enough actual knowledge seem to), just tell me what you don't "get". In this case, fern obviously wasn't "getting" PM 8, inspite of the fact that everything I have talked of is in the manual for PM 8, or extremely similar to it, if she would only dig around in it, so I was more verbose that usual, trying to make the whole process clearer to her. ..... PM uses standard rules in the background. What it does is not proprietary or oddball. It just gives you an interface to use the standard rules to do the things it does. That said, no software is perfect, PM may have glitches, but in examples I've seen of people having problems with PM, most of them were caused by the user not understanding how to use the program. I have had no problems with PM 2, 3, and 5. The changes I have seen over the years in PM have to do with adapting to current standard rules and situations. What you see as an interface hasn't changed much, except that as each newer version comes out, you have more choices as to what you can do. There is little difference between PM 5 and 8 except that PM 8 can deal with hard drives larger than 64gb properly, and PM 8 has also been adapted to other newer standard rules that have been added since PM 5 came out. When PM 5 came out there were very few if any hard drives larger than 64gb being manufactured. There may very well be minor cosmetic differences between what you see as an interface in PM 5 vs PM 8, but it is of little consequence. Hiding primary partitions is nothing new, and not unique to PM. When a partition is hidden, the operating system in the Active partition cannot see it at all. Brand name system builders have been hiding primary partitions for many years - all the original software is stored on the hidden partition, in one form or another, as well as a backup of the operating system. They supply a means of accessing that hidden partition by means of a custom made CD that comes with the system, or one that can be obtained from their website in one form or another, often called a recovery CD or similar, and for every day use there is often a program installed on the drive that can access that hidden partition as well, but of course if something goes wrong with that program or being able to access that program, you can't use the latter program, and must resort to using the recovery CD, or download or otherwise obtain that from the builder. When you have a multiple boot situation, the information that controls what you have access to is stored in the MBR - master boot record - at the beginning of the drive. Whether it is by means of PM's BootMagic, or PM's dos utility that can switch which partition boots, or PM itself, or another boot manager program, or I assume whatever way XP does it, the info in the mbr is slightly altered when you change what you are booting, so that the other primary partition(s)/op system(s) is (are) hidden. .... I've already done these kinds of scenario's before with Win9x and Dos, and I don't see that it would be much different with XP at all. When you MOVE a partition that has XP on it, it may not boot, just like when you copy a partition with XP on it, it may not boot. That is easy to recover from, you have lost no data, but these latest directions do not involve that. I happen to have a hard drive about the same size as fern's available, and I can borrow my brothers PM 8 CD. If Fern isn't comfortable with my directions, I can easily try out my procedure over the course of the next few days. I don't anticipate any major problems. ........ If anything I have said strikes you as wrong, and you have the actual confirmed knowledge to back that up, rather than you just THINK I am wrong, let me know - I'm not perfect.

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Oops. "Yes I could have made my posts wider - another way is to compose them in notepad first, then paste them in, like I did with this post. That only works if the notepad document has something in it that forces the wider display, such as a very long web address, apparently.

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Fern: Now you have a blank drive... you can start afresh and achieve it all without PM etc... Use a '98 bootdisk (without large disk support) and create/format a dos fat16 Primary partition; make it as large as you need - but upto 2Gig max. Then with large disk support enabled (for the '98 bootdisk), create the Extended partition; subdivide into at least two logical-drive - the first at least 5Gig for XP/apps/utils etc. - upto 10Gig is usually more than enough; second can be balance of drive, or further subdivided... You can preformat the Extended area/logical-drive(s) as fat32 (via the '98 bootdisk format util) if you wish, or allow XP to it during setup - as long as the XP logical-drive is not in excess of 32Gig. If you then decide you want XP as ntfs you can reformat the logical-drive for XP as ntfs during setup. Any other(s) can be later reformated via XP disk manager utils. Run XP setup (CD or 6 floppies + cd boot) and point it to install to the newly created logical-drive (the first on the Extended partition drive). Decide on file format you want for XP at this time. Upto 32Gig it can be either fat32 or ntfs when (re)formatted via XP; over 32Gig it can only be ntfs... Allow XP to install as per norm. It will go in and detect dos in the process and create the bootsect.dos via which dos boots from the XP boot-loader. dos will now be part of the XP boot-menu Job done Things to remember... dos can only address/access fat16 to a max of 2Gig; XP can address/access fat16 upto 4Gig, fat32 in excess of 32Gig and ntfs likewise... If you want data accessed/shared by dos - either store it in the dos Primary, or in a separate logical-drive in the Extended partition (remember to keep this fat16 area max of 2Gig). This data area can be created/formatted (as fat16 - 2Gig max) via XP disk-manager in the Extended partition once XP has been successfully installed. Fdisk tutorial: http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q255/8/67.ASP M$ tutorial for dos etc. multi-boot.. (not unsimilar to the outline I've gievn immediately above): http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q217210/ Need more details/clarification... post back...

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trvlr, A couple questions. 1. I created all the partitions and like you outlined, you then go to say install windowsxp and dos will be detected. But, I havent installed dos as of the newly formatted hdd. So should I install Dos before creating all the partitions you mentioned?? 2. If the make the xp partition a fat32, will I be able to tranfer files over from windowsxp?? I know fat32 cant have more than 32gigs on it. Thanks for clairifying [img]http://www.yahoo-help.com/images/yahoo!!.gif[/img][url]http://www.yahoo-help.com[/url]

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dos goes in first - once you have created/formatted and set as "active" the single (in this model) Primary; then install XP. ****************************** To clarify fat32 and XP issues. XP (also W2K) can happily access/read a fat32 area in excess of 32Gig; XP (also W2K) just cannot create/format an area in excess of 32Gig... '98 can create/format etc. fat32 areas well in excess of 32Gig - which is why one uses the '98 bootdisk (Fdisk/Format) utils to create them - even if they are for XP/W2K use... If you have files in ntfs, fat32, fat16 XP can access them all. As you probably already know, dos can only handle/access a fat16 area if it's no larger than 2Gig, thus it cannot access a fat16 area that might be over 2Gig and as large as 4Gig (whereas NT/W2K/XP can)... Hence my advice in an earlier post re' ensuring that data etc. to be shared with dos be in fat16 area(s) that do not exceed 2Gig. **************************** Incidentally, if you were to install XP first to its own logical-drive, and then add dos, running a repair routine to regain access to XP, would not pickup dos and create the bootsect.dos, and complete the dual boot. (For whatever reasons M$ disallowed this ability for XP, whereas it is present in NT/W2K.) If you went this route (dos in after XP) you either have to create the bootsect.dos manually (do some creatvie editing...) and then run the repair routine; or do a temp installation of a second version of XP - which "will" pick up dos etc... Then, if using the temp installation approach, once the dual-boot was established you would simple dump the temp XP version, clean up the boot.ini and the junk from the temp installaion... Doug Knox (along with and many others) details the manually creating a bootsect.dos routine. I prefer the temp installation approach rather the manual routine - usually. Matter of personal approach - in this regard? *************************** As before..., ensure you do have current/regular backups (copies off the sytem entirely) of all data etc. Then if disaster strikes you still have that data... Also the gurus will advise that CD/DVD media be regularly checked to see to it still reads OK; even better to replace/create new copies every 2-3years. max gap of 5years... The Pros still use tapes...; and/or hard-drives which are kept safe/secure and used only when needed (in external-cases these days...?). ****************************** re' file formats for data area(s): I tend to encourage staying with fat32 for data areas (and a mix of fat32 and fat16, but with the 2Gig fat16 limit imposed - if dos involved). That way if the OS goes down one can still access data via a '98 bootdisk and get it off the system...; or attach the drive to any fat32 compliant system (internally as a slave, externally via usb/firewire). If security is a serious issue then logically/obviously one goes to ntfs; data recovery is still possible but it then requires another working ntfs compliant OS to be involved - which may not be convenient?

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I'm curious fern. Do you have an actual original set of Dos install disks (a lot of the files are compressed, as in the file names have an .xx_ extension), or just a bunch of floppies with all the Dos files on them that a particular version uses? In any case, have you tried installing Dos from that disk set before, and had a resulting successfully booting installation? If you haven't, it is quite possible one or more of the essential files is corrupted, and that's why Dos freezes - floppies can deteriorate over time, and if they are original install disks they are quite old. In addition, if they were copies of Dos disks made to fairly recent floppies, the quality control when floppies are made and formatted has gone down the tubes, and you will often get floppies that appear to be error free, but when you Full format them in Windows, which thuroughly checks them for errors while formatting as opposed to a Quick format which doesn't, they have bad bytes on them. I recently had two boxes of 10 new MEMOREX floppies that I ran Full format on to check them out - 15 of them had bad bytes, never have being used before! And it isn't just that brand - I have floppies like that of many brands. And some of them passed the Windows Full format with no bad bytes, but developed them a short time later! My old floppies rarely have bad bytes when I run Windows Full format on them. So it's quite possible for you to have corrupted files if they were copied to fairly recent floppies. ........ Dos PM in PM 8. I took a look at the PM 8 CD. The manual calls the Dos floppy disk set Rescue Disks. It mentions a Makedisk.bat in an \English\something directory, but it is not on the CD. After examining the CD contents, I found there is a \Rescueme directory, and if you run the Setup in that directory, it makes a two floppy set of Rescue Disks (Dos PM disks). I can only conclude that there was an earlier version of the PM 8 CD that did have Makedisk.bat on it, and a later version that did not, and they neglected to revise the manual in the later version CD. I examined the contents of some of the other files in that directory and its subdirectory and it appears that the Setup will automatically select which files it installs to the floppies according to the operating system you execute it in. It really doesn't matter which one, for use in XP. I ran Setup in Win98SE to make the Rescue Disks (Dos PM disks). I tried the Rescue Disks (Dos PM disks) on a computer with XP on it, booting with the first one - it displayed "Starting Windows 98", then the initial graphics are different from PM 5, but when the interface loads, it looks identical to that of PM 5, and all the menu items appear to be the same. Therefore the directions I posted for fern here previously should work fine.

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Addendum to my last post... ...XP (also W2K) just cannot create/format an area in excess of 32Gig... should read: XP (also W2K) just cannot create/format (as fat32) an area in excess of 32Gig... Both XP/W2K can create a partition in excess of 32Gig and format it - if it's ntfs. A little (but important/critical) bit got lost in the editing... trvlr

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