Partition Magic 8 error

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mfaerber

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Hello again everyone, this thread concerns hard drive partitioning.

I am trying to partition one of my 2 hard drives on my WinME machine so that I can intall Win2000 on the partition and use dual boot (actually, I allready use dual boot -GRUB- because the machine has redhat on it).

So, last night I tried Partition Magic 8 for the first time. After letting it simmer for about an hour, I went back to my computer to see many error messages, all variations of this:
Code:
ext3-fs error (device ide0(3,66)): ext3_get_inode_loc: unable to read inode block - inode=67847, block 131154
Note that the screen was full of these messages and each time some of the numbers would go up by one.

So, I forced the machine to shut down. I turned it back on, and suprisingly everything seems OK. I have a new drive (E:) just as I wanted, that's 4gb large and I can save things to it just fine. Now, it's REALLY hard for me to believe that everything is really OK. Should I be worried about anything? I have Norton Utilities 2002, so I could run all of it's programs...

Thank you in advance!

EDIT: For what it's worth, I just ran scandisk on E:, but it did not find any errors.
 
Try Google for this error. I know that some PM errors are documented very well, others are very hard to find out what they mean.

To me it sounds like a disk error; but you would have to do some further testing (format a little, do some scandisks, copy some files, etc).

If I understand this correctly, you have Red Hat + Windows Millenium, and now you want to install 2k?
Win 2000 may overwrite the Grub boot loader. If it does, try asking in the Linux forums how to re-install Grub.
http://www.techist.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=97

Also, I am not entirely sure if Win2k detects WinME on install so you can select either on startup. (but you will not need it anyways cause you would want to use Grub, because Windows doesn't support Linux for their boot loader).
 
Yeah, backup your data and reinstall all of it.

Me, then 2000, then Linux.

It won't matter if 2000 will detect Me, or if Me will detect 2000, because Linux will detect both of them.

And don't use Partition Magic for ext3 partitions ... you need something more suited for that ... try Gparted.

Oh, and why are you using Red Hat? That distro is either $4,500 or discontinued.
 
Thank you both.

I ran scandisk and norton disk doctor and neither found any problems. I filled up the entire partion with data succesfully and deleted it all succesfuly. I formated the partition, and that went OK too. I also just learned that PM8 can check for errors as well, so I did that and it didn't find any.

I am still researching the error message, it's a little more difficult to nail down its meaning that I thought it'd be.

This statment has me worried though:
Also, I am not entirely sure if Win2k detects WinME on install so you can select either on startup. (but you will not need it anyways cause you would want to use Grub, because Windows doesn't support Linux for their boot loader).
For the record, I am only doing all of this because I want to run a program that does not work under ME, but I am afraid to actually upgrade to 2000 because because of the seemingly high potential for failure. I have made boot disks, but I do not have an ME instal disk.
 
Thank you The General!

How would you suggest I backup everything? I have read so many methods...

I do not have an ME disk and if I loose redhat that is OK with me. This machine is a hand-me-down and I have never used redhat, so I would actually kind of like to get rid of it. I initially tried the Gparted LiveCD, but I am a NOOB when it comes to partitioning (example: i had to look up "ext3 partitions") and it frightened me greatly.

So, according to you, assuming my newly partitioned drive is A-OK, I should be able to instal win2k on it, and GRUB will automatically detect it on the next boot, so I can choose?
 
No no no ... if Linux is already installed it will not work, Windows has this "nuke and pave" attitude ... it will actually erase GRUB and put it's useless bootloader in there.

You have to install Linux last.
 
Ahh, OK, that doesn't really suprise me.

If it's going to nuke linux (i.e. GRUB and redhat), I'm OK with that, since I don't use redhat. You say that it's own bootloader is useless... aren't there other windows-based dual-boot programs out there, or am I really best served by downloading GRUB and some form of linux again?

Also, were you suggesting before that I have to re-install winME (which is what is there presently)? I don't have a winME cd and I don't want to loose anything on my system.
 
If you don't need Red Hat, you can format the Red Hat partitions.

Then install Win2k. However, formatting the Linux partitions may stop WinME from booting. You don't have a WinME CD, so it's kind of risky.

And I am not sure if Win2k will detect WinME properly.
I know that there's a Windows version that wasn't capable of detecting another Windows version, and I think it was 2k --> ME. Please tell me if im wrong about this, though.

Also, assuming Win2k is indeed capable of detecting ME, I don't know on which partition Grub is installed, and what it would do to ME if Grub is removed, and if Win2k would still be able to detect ME if ME's boot files had been removed or something.

You could delete all linux partitions, insall Win2k, see if both ME and 2k work. If not, download some third party boot loader and install it. Always backup important files (audio, video, docs).

It looks like you have Partition Magic; there should be an option somewhere to install the Boot Magic bootloader (ask EricB). Long time ago that I installed PM.

My personal favorite is BootSTAR Bootmanager. Don't know if it is still supported; but it's not that user friendly, so see if you can get Boot Magic.
 
Alright, I found another method that appears to be a lot safer than what I was proposing at the start of this thread: I have created a bootable win2k CD ( http://tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=297 ). The creation of the CD seemed to go well, and I have restarted the computer with the CD in it and it detected it correctly.

Now, after a couple of screens I am at the "Win2000 Pro Setup" screen. It says:
Code:
Welcome to Setup.
   This portion of the Setup program prepares MS2k to run on your computer.
      - to set up win2k now, press enter
      - to repair a win2k instal, press R
      - to quit setup w/o installing wink2, press F3

Now, I just want to make sure that if I press "enter", it does not actually instal win2k on my system, because that would defeat the point of the boot CD. I know it says "setup" and not "instal", but this process is new to me, so I just would like someone to confirm that this is normal for a boot CD and nothing will get installed or deleted.
 
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