Partitions and magic
 

Just when I thought I was getting ahead. Forgetting the printer for a moment, so if the mods will allow a separate space I'll tidy up to save bandwidth tomorrow...GMT -6

Again, this is just for learning, so only read in if you've some spare time. At least this is a bit more interesting.


Since the installation was c:mad:p, I thought I would practice with partition magic and get them the way that I wanted.

The thing about that program, is it seems to need to do its stuff after reboot. So since the OS is now in the wrong drive, it can't see it a few seconds after the start. How daft is that? Worse still, the drive letters are still wrong, so to get it going I've got to load an OS, then mess with P-M again, then with more care, when I'm sure the drives are where I want them, load the OS yet again.

Several things have come to light. Nothing says that it's showing the drives in the right physical order. Properties divulged the cylinders for me, but nowt in windows or P M actually said which logical drives were in a physical place on the disk. To get the perifery as the boot area, I had to shuttle the letters about. But here's another thing. There was a scrag-end of 7mb lurking on the first cylinder. I spent and hour trying to merge it or lose it or just plain kill it...In the end I left it. Very unprofessional.

So, now I've got a tit-bit, C D E and F G as the opticals.. Okay, but what I really needed was a simple utils disk. Start and F-Disk - format etc., just like the old days. Can anyone recommend such a util. The start of an installation works on a good day, but I had no control over it.

The old recovery disk finally came to life. Funny how you can look at something hitherto useless on the shelf, and just know that it's going to work.

I notice that the sectors are showing 512, is this correct right across the entire range of cylinders? anyone know if they're logical/ virtual sizes, like the first attempts at modern drives.?

The Partition Magic installation CD is itself bootable, assuming you have a recent version, so you can you can do your stuff from there without worrying about drive letters changing.

Ultimate Boot CD has a collection of tools on it, including around 10 or 15 different partitioning tools.

Thanks, just what I wanted to know. It's not that I can't find these things, but when I do, I just don't know if I can trust them. Best they come recomm ended.


The P-M wouldn't boot, I'll try to get another later one.


Having put the Recovery disk in, Sooooooooothing music played at me while I ran an instal. Just what I needed.

The laser 4 loaded in 60 seconds. :hmm: However, I would like to get it going on Pro, but no hurry there. It seems that I'm going to have to shell out on the soft cos that's what must be wrong,

I have a legal copy of Vista 32, so may just be tempted to become an all Vista house....erm, except for the printer machine which will have to dual boot I guess. What fun.

However the Re-install layout was cast in stone. First thing it did was to format the drive...All my partitions are gone, and the Recovery space is back. Ah well, Fair Dues...It's what it's supposed to to I suppose. It would have been nice if it hadn't bulked the first coulple of tries. Furthermore, I could never see any files on that CD...not even with all the file view restrictions off. One of those mysteries.

Drooping onto the keyboad again, so thanks again for all the help. One is catching up with the modern world, but sooooooo slowly compared to my yooof.

LR

If you mean that driver discovery stuff, then I wouldn't bother. If you mean PM, then I've pretty much transferred my allegiance to Acronis. But for most stuff, UBCD gets the job done just as well. Your HPLJ4 driver is in your XP Pro CD, unless you've got some odd bastardized product. Since the driver was part of the XP distribution and was never updated after that by HP, the driver is not on the HP web site. However, it is available for W2K. You can check HP LaserJet 4p/mp Printer series- Download drivers and software - HP Business Support Center if you wish.