Someone with Partition Magic experience - merging

I just installed Partition Magic. I have XP SP2. I currently have 2 partitions; C: at 81gb and D: at 26gb. I want them merged into one large C: drive. I have backed up my data and the D: partition is currently empty.

I tried to merge D into C this morning. I went through the merge partitions wizard in Partition Magic 8 and rebooted the computer. It went through its blue screen process. At one point it told me that there was an error. I wasn't thinking or I would have written it down. I will write it down next time if I get it again.

Then it told me to push any button to continue. After an internet search this morning (I'm at work now), apparently there is a point in the reboot process where it tells you to push any button to cancel. However it can be confusing and if you don't read it correctly, you may push any button thinking that you need to do it in order to continue.

I did push any button at that point, but I of course thought at the time that I was telling it to continue. Perhaps I told it the wrong thing.

I will try to merge again when I get home this afternoon.

My question for you all is this: Am I going about this the correct way? Should I merge the D into the C? Should I instead delete the D partition and resize C up to fill in the space? Is there an entirely different strategy that I should employ?

Thank you for your help.

Drew

 

I guess I should add this. When the computer rebooted it went through the drivemapper to replace instances of D: with C:. But, the partition was still there, so the merge failed.

 

Got it.

I deleted the partition and resized C to fill all unallocated space. So easy. I guess I got myself confused trying to use the merge function.

Drew

 

If anyone is still reading my own personal thread, I have one issue.

Everything seems to be working fine, however, when I run AVG (Scan system areas) I get a warning to change the Partition Table (MBR). I confirm changes, but if I can again, I get the same warning. I know I can choose to ignor this, but does this signal some problem? Can I correct this?

Thanks!

Drew

 

hi,

only just spotted this,
i use partition magic and found the easiest way to merge partitions is the way you have done it (delete one, resize the other),

i have avg picking up the change in the mbr as well, i just choose to ignore it, but i did need to uninstall avg once and found all ok after a reinstall

 

Hey hawklord, thanks for the response.

That's interesting that your MBR warning in AVG went away after an AVG reinstall. It's as if AVG is expecting the same Partition Table each time from now on; if changed, it will continue to give the warning.

I will continue to ignor the warnings in AVG.

One thing that I thought would happen after running Partition Magic was that I thought my DVD drive would get re-letter to D: from E:. It did not. I went into disk management and manually re-letter the DVD Drive. I then ran Parition Magic's DriveMapper to replace instances of E: with D:.

I don't know if that makes any difference.

Thanks,

Drew

 

In respect of AVG giving a warning that your MBR has changed, this is correct you have changed the disc's 'geometry' by removing a partition and AVG would draw the fact that your MBR has changed as viruses are know to attack that way.

I am surprised that you say AVG cannot accept these changes. On my AV I get the same MBR warnings if I do partition changes/work but I select the option which says "save the new MBR record".

In respect of the drive allocation, windows will allocate drive letters starting from your 1st hard disc and in order of your primary & then extented partitions. It will then alocate drive letters to the optical drives.

So in your case you had C: and D: on your HDD, your first optical would therefore be E: when you removed D:, windows then allocated the optical drive D:.

The easiest thing to do is to have the opticals begining with R:, then if you add or remove partitions from the HDD the opticals stay put.

Good Luck

 

risk,

Thanks for the reply. I haven't seen an option to save new MBR record in AVG. I have selected "confirm changes" during the scan, but I get the same warning again next time. I guess if all continues to work, then I'm okay.

I may re-letter the drives as you have suggested. That's a good idea.

Drew