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Adding a Partition...

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by cyberghost_1

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I?m running Win7 Ultimate on a Compaq CQ10-120LA Netbook with 160GB SATA-II HDD, 1GB DDR2-800 RAM and an Intel Atom N270 @1.60GHz. It originally came w/ XP Home but I upgraded :-/ For some reason I cant see the RECOVERY Partition anymore since I upgraded to 7 Ultimate, when I installed it I installed over the XP installation and I was left w/ the Program Files folder for the original XP OS... The issue and my Q: is, I want to create another partition using EASEUS Partition Master Pro to create the partition, the last time I did thid to a friends laptop I wasn?t able to recovery any deleted info from the C:/ partition, both RECUVA and EASEUS Data Recovery would freeze and give no results. Could the same thing happen once I create the new partition, will I lose the ability to recover lost or deleted data from my HDD?? I plan to extract an ISO for XP Pro SP3 onto a 2GB USB Flash Drive, my Netbook does have the option and ability to boot from a USB port... so the installation should go smoothly right??

10 replies

by oh smeg

You should not see the Recovery Partition from within Windows you need to look for this partition with a Live Boot Option from Outside Windows. Ideally try recovering from the Recovery partition and see if it wants to start the recovery process.

As far as using any Partition Manager depending on how you use it you can destroy existing Data or you can not have any problems.

I've never used any of the option you are asking about but I've used GParted numerous times without a problem and as it's free and works I find it very useful. ;)

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

However you may find Parted Magic a better option which is the same application on a different GUI.

http://partedmagic.com/download.html

However no matter what you need to understand that you should never alter the Primary Boot Partition just a Secondary partition or you run the risk of destroying the ability to easily recover any Data on the drive.

Col

by cyberghost_1

U are right I saw the recovery partition when I was installing Win7 Ultimate, when it asked me where I wanted to install to... Now, using one of the programs that u mentioned I shouldn?t experience any problems as far as being able to recover data from my HDD in case the need arrives...right??? Since I?m planning on creating this new partition so that I can install WinXP Pro on it, I believe that I should create the partition 1st and then install WinXP... u should know that I?m planning on installing from a USB Flash Drive...any advise??

by oh smeg

No not really just do as you said above and everything should be OK. ;)

Col

by cyberghost_1

Well I successfully created a new partition... and successfully created a bootable WinXP USB Flash drive... The problem is that during primary installation XP only detects C: Partition1 (MBR) FAT32 approximately 2GB in size and nothing else!!! Doesn?t even detect the Win7 installation partition or the partition I created... I checked and the partition that its detecting is the *:HP_TOOLS. Also XP won?t run and install from within Win7 environment...any tips or ideas??

by seanferd

If it detects the empty partition needed for installation, that is all it needs.

Why is it formatted as FAT32? You should be using NTFS.

by cyberghost_1

The only partition that the installer detects is the MBR thats why its FAT32... but its only about 2GB. It doesn?t detect the Win7 installation or the *HP_TOOLS area of the partition.... It says C: Partition1 (MBR) and thats all... And the HDD is NTFS... even when i create another partition formatted in NTFS, FAT32 or unformatted it XP installation still doesn?t detect anything except the partition I mentioned above...and XP won?t run from Win7 sooo...any ideas...

by oh smeg

All that the XP Installer is seeing is the HP Tools which should be the Recovery Partition.

So it's actually seeing the HDD but only the Recovery partition.

If that's the case it's got to be something on the Recovery partition and the way that the remainder of the Partitions where created that is blocking the Installer here.

It's OK to have the Recovery Partition as a FAT 32 but none of the other Partitions should be that format. Actually with the way that these Recovery Partitions work they have to be FAT something and will not work with anything newer than FAT32 some even need to be FAT16 but they are from older systems. ;)

When you created the new partition how did you shrink down the Win 7 Partition to create the free space? That's the only thing I can think of here that could possibly be at issue. Also I'm supposing that the Win 7 Partition is actually intact and that the unit boots to it when you turn it on without attempting to boot from the USB Device.

Col

by cyberghost_1

I used EASEUS Partition Master Pro to shrink the Win7 Partition and make space for another partition... and yes Win7 is intact it boots normally when i turn on my machine... I was thinking of creating a partition as planned with the same program, but this time using Win98 from a bootable USB Flash drive and using fdisk then install Win98 on the new partition and afterward going to XP... i think that might work...what?s ur opinion...any ideas??

by ic-it

Can not see the Windows 7 partition, because it is a newer type of formatting.

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