Hi! I don't know what to do about this. Partitions vanish from my computer. When I try to format it, following message shows up: "Data Error CRC". I've got Linux and bad partitions are seen there without a hitch. But only way to see that bad partition is to format it. I must point out that 'vanishing' in XP doesn't mean that I don't see the letter of the partition. I just can't get inside it. Morover system slows down significantly when the problem occurs. Scanned the computer, tried to repair the partition with PartitionMagic, and the only thing I can is to format it and I can format only with this program. Then e few days pass and problem shows up again. I've got 6 partitions and each and every one was affected by that but not all at the same time. Could anyone, please, tell me what's happening?.

From Microsoft help: Working with partitions. Use partitions on a basic disk just as you do with Windows, except changes to the disk take effect immediately; you no longer have to restart your computer for the changes to take effect. You can create up to FOUR primary partitions per disk, or you can create three primary partitions and an extended partition. You can use the free space in the extended partition to create unlimited logical drives. You cannot use it to create volume sets or other kinds of fault-tolerant volumes. Are you sure you haven't actually tried to force 6 primary partitions, when a HDD with an MBR on can only be split into four? If so you need to reduce partitions to 3 primary partitions, and one extended partition in which you can put another three logical drives.

Why on earth would you want so many partitions? lol, what's wrong with folders?

Answer to the first response: I've got one primary and the rest is extended. In this extended space I've got 5 remaining partitions. C- primary, D,E,F,G-logical in extended. Concerning second response: I've got 80 Gigs. I've got two Xp's on C and D and Linux on another. How can you imagine I could do it without partitioning?. What if one system crashes or some nice virus erases MBR?. You lose all data you've got or at least probability of it rises sky high with only one partition.

If a virus erases the MBR, you're more screwed with multi partitions then just one. With 1 partition, you can at least do a Fdisk /mbr to restore it. Try that with multi partitions and you wipe everything except for the first.

That's not true. If MBR is erased it concerns only the primary disk. In my case it's C. I've got only to format this partition and the rest is intact. I know it because I've done it many times before. Besides I've got two XP's and they have to be on different partitions. The only thing I lose when I format primary are all system choosing tables. That can be easily restored. But that's still don't solve my problem: 'Why do my partitions vanish?.'

"If MBR is erased it concerns only the primary disk". True but you are talking about the primary disk if your building all those partitions on it. Never in your original post did you mention having other physical hard drives, just many partitions on the one drive.