Newly built computer Boot problem

I'm building a new PC to put Vista on. It's Intel core duo 6300 with
ECS P965A-T mobo. To check it out I put XP Home on it just so I could
make sure it's working. It installed XP fine but is only at SP1 at
this point. I have one SATA HD in it (maxtor 200 gig but SP1 only
recognizes 137gig). I have a floppy and an ATAPI Samsung DVD/CD RW+-
combo drive. It's also got a sapphire PCIex16 radeon video card but I
have not installed any of the drivers for anything yet, just whatever
XP installed.

Here's the problem. I installed Partion Magic 8 to see what the HD
partition looked like when I thought I lost part of the space but then
googled and found the issue was a limit on XP sp1. But to check to
see if I could use Part Magic in an emergency and I booted from the PM
CD. It starts up like everything is ok and gets to a DOS prompt where
it wants you to select either 1,2, or 3 with 1 being to start PM and
it says it will create a Y: drive. But it doesn't, it just lists a
string of error messages about path not found and drops out to a DOS
prompt.

Any clues on why this is happening??? It's bugging the heck out of
me. My old computer boots PM properly.

Ashton Crusher <Hello@nowhere.net> wrote:

> I'm building a new PC to put Vista on. It's Intel core duo 6300
> with ECS P965A-T mobo. To check it out I put XP Home on it
> just so I could make sure it's working. It installed XP fine but is
> only at SP1 at this point. I have one SATA HD in it (maxtor 200
> gig but SP1 only recognizes 137gig).

You've got a problem there for starters. Try wiping the drive with
something like clearhdd and starting over, that should fix that.
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Hard...s/clearhdd.htm

> I have a floppy and an ATAPI Samsung DVD/CD RW+- combo drive.
> It's also got a sapphire PCIex16 radeon video card but I have not
> installed any of the drivers for anything yet, just whatever XP installed.

> Here's the problem. I installed Partion Magic 8 to see what
> the HD partition looked like when I thought I lost part of the
> space but then googled and found the issue was a limit on XP sp1.

No there isnt. SP1 fixes that problem.

> But to check to see if I could use Part Magic in an emergency
> and I booted from the PM CD. It starts up like everything is ok
> and gets to a DOS prompt where it wants you to select either
> 1,2, or 3 with 1 being to start PM and it says it will create a Y:
> drive. But it doesn't, it just lists a string of error messages
> about path not found and drops out to a DOS prompt.

> Any clues on why this is happening???

Dont worry about it, the problem is that you are either not installing
XP SP1 or the drive has the geometry detail in the MBR from a
previous partition with something that doesnt have 48 bit LBA support.

> It's bugging the heck out of me.
> My old computer boots PM properly.

PM is an obsolete dinosaur that isnt supported properly anymore.

What's a good replacement?

Joel

Rod Speed wrote:
> PM is an obsolete dinosaur that isnt supported properly anymore.

WannaKatana <GiveMeChocolate@gmail.com> wrote:

> What's a good replacement?

Acronis Disk Director Suite.


> Rod Speed wrote:

>> PM is an obsolete dinosaur that isnt supported properly anymore.