Cannot Create Partition Error 983

[MorseLady]

I spoke too soon when I said my new XP machine was running well because I now find I cannot create the logical storage partition I wanted. I have done it loads of times on my other machine in ME and XP. I am using Partition Magic 7. I have done error checking/chkdsk, including scan for bad cluster, defrag, closed down NAV auto protect and screensaver and tried both NTFS and FAT32.

Every time I try it reboots and starts up in the partitioning screen then I get a message "Error 983 too many errors found process halted" and I am told to press any key and it returns to Windows. I also had a dialogue box pop up in Partinfo saying "Disk geometry errors were detected on this drive".

This is the message I get on the Partinfo screen

>Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Actual values are:
0 0 80 0 1 1 07 9729 254 63 63 156312387
Error #109: Partition ends after end of disk.
ucEndCylinder (9729) must be less than 9729.

The HDD is 80GB and 512MB DDR memory and 2.2GHZ Intel Pentium 4 and factory installed OEM XP Home 2002 release and the BIOS is Award. I have had the computer 4 weeks.

Is PM7 misreporting because all Windows and other tests show I have a healthy disk and system and the computer is running very well indeed or did the factory do a b***s up? I believe PM7 supports up to 80GB HDD and maybe as mine is 80GB PM7 sees it as too large? The Partition I am trying to create is 5GB Logical NTFS, for storage but I tried FAT32 too.

[shamus]

A couple things come to mind....have you tried a fdisk /mbr to rebuild the boot record? Will fdisk allow you to create a logical drive (FAT32)?

[MorseLady]

There are two things I am really scared of an FDISK is one - the other is NT. The machine is new and under Warranty and I would rather not use FDISK - I thought that was not used with XP anyway, hasn't it got is own GUI based version?

[geoscomp]

When you check the hard drive parameters in the bios, are they the correct ones for your drive? Also, you said you have recovery disks for this machine?..not a hidden recovery partition, correct? Is there any disk overlay software running? such as for Western Digital drives, etc? I would consider running spinrite on it to check it's true nature if you have or can get a copy. www.grc.com is the homepage for that product.

[MorseLady]

Hi geoscomp,

I am not sure how you check hard drive parameters in the BIOS? I know how to run Setup and where to find the settings but what am I looking for?

Yes, I have two recover disks, and was sent an update for disk two only last week.

I do not have any hidden recovery or diagnostic partitions although I do note the system is taking 6GB and my 80GB HDD shows at a little over 74MB before OS etc.

I am running Benchmark and other utilities and one or two have done a hard throttle - could these be the problem? They are Synthmark, Fresh Diagnose, Performance Test, PC Mag(US)Diskpie, Dacris Benchmarks and Belarc Adviser.

[geoscomp]

Parameters in the bios are usually listed under the main screen..primary ide channel, and list the cylinders/heads/sectors that were assigned to your drive. Check the listings here and make sure they are the same as the info printed on your drive, or lacking that, on the drive manufacturers website. Also, check to see if the disk is set to user, or if it is set to auto. Be sure to write down the existing settings before doing anything. The times I have seen this kind of error were times when the hard drive had been used on a different computer, with a different controller, or with manual changes. Are you trying to run the partition creation program from floppies or from an install on your hard drive?..If it is an install on your drive, check the disk diagnostics listed in PartitionInfo and see if the listings for your drive there have the same listed properties for your drive as in the bios and if there is any warning info at the top, or any other info listed. Usually only low level control programs such as Ontrack, Maxblast, etc. cause problems. These programs have to load before partition magic, so you need to run the program from the hard drive. Some soundblaster drivers cause problems, so if you have a soundblaster card, rem them in config sys and autoexec prior to trying the partition. Norton Disk Doctor will cause problems occasionally, as will System Works. Hope this helps

(edit) You said you ran chkdsk as well, did you run it with the f switch to fix errors?..to do this, go to start/run and type chkdsk C: /f the computer will probably restart and run the program at boot up so it can lock the drive.

[MorseLady]

Sorry I posted this to the wrong thread am transferring it to my voiding warranty thread.