I’ve partitioned hard disks since the Good Old Days of DOS, largely from the command line. “sfdisk” in Linux is similar to fdisk in DOS and works quite well. PartEd is a Gnu app most commonly, nowadays, seen as GPartED that does partitioning pretty much like Partition Magic, Acronis Disk Director and other apps used in both Windows and as CD boot disks for installing new hard drives. Indeed, the Acronis product is used by several hard drive manufacturers in a brabded version keyed to their company’s hard drives as the recommended method for installing hard drives.
Of late, although I have a licensed copy of Acronis Disk Director on hand, and an older version of Partition magic, in addition to familiarity with command line partitioning, I’ve sort of standardized on a live CD of GPartEd as my preferred method of managing partitions.
Well, I stupidly decided to test out a different product, Partition Wizard (yeh, kinda cheesy riffing off the Partition Magic name; I should have taken the warning that sent up seriously) on the computer I’m customizing to give to someone who might read this post, so I’ll not name that person, yet. 🙂 Anyway, really stupid. Hosed the Windows XP Pro partition. Unbootable.*
GPartEd to the rescue. Not the easy route though. Since a repair install of WinXP had no effect, I simply repartitioned and formatted the drive all over again with GPartEd and reinstalled a fresh install of WinXP Pro, then reinstalled the limited set of software I’m customizing the install with. Bob’s your uncle.
A couple of hours’ work, all-in-all, but now everything’s as it ought to be. Windows now sees and can use the space once taken by a hidden partition (a “restore” partition that was almost entirely useless, given the fact that all the computer had originally was WinXP Pro installed–no other software), and things are working well. I’m toying with adding an external drive to the gift that’s the same size as the on board drive, simply for imaging the thing to once it’s complete (I still have to do a “Windows Easy Transfer” of files and settings from the old computer to this one). I’ve not decided yet whether I’ll add that to the mix, though.
At any rate, avoid Partition Wizard. It doesn’t seem quite ready for prime time. The (also) free GPartEd is much better, and costs no more. In fact, it “costs” less, because it has yet to hose a drive in my use of it. 🙂
*see after the jump