Fuck!
Mind giving the geeks a few details? Hell, we might be able to help.
(Derleth, forever stuck in the GQ mental set. :))
You can recover from some partitioning errors. So all might not be lost quite yet.
I agree!
Useless, and risky, piece of junk! Stick with the traditional, say I.
You can’t handle the details, Derleth. God knows I can’t.
The piece of shit program has fucked me for the umpteenth time. Every single time I use it, disaster.
I mean seriously, what the hell point is it having a program that DOS, Windows, et al, won’t recognize?
Every godammed time I make a change with PM, PM sees it just fine, but windows sees it as it originally was. That change I made in a partition size? PM sees it just dandy, but when I try accessing it in my fucking OS, which runs the whole goddammed show, it see’s an empty folder with a different drive letter.
Fine, PM can handle a drive change, why not do it throw it.
Why I don’t fucking learn from this shit is beyond me, but I don’t.
Change the letter, make ‘K’, ‘L’. Processing… Processing… Processing… Complete!!
Complete for fucking who, asshole? Windows still sees it as ‘K’, and not only that, but now it won’t let me see what was once in the file.
Got a fucking magic solution for that, assfuckingholes?
“Um, yeah, your program completely screwed my system. I’m using XP, which your literature says it’s compatable with, so why the problems?”
“Ummm, I’m sorry sir, but that’s a problem with XP, your OS, that’s not an issue we can take care of at Partion Magic!. But when you get your system running, please feel free to check out our new products at www…”
Feel free to check this out.
Oh, and the underline score thingy ‘_’? I’m getting better at that shit, the DOS command line business, why? Because I’ve found that if you want something fucking done right, do it the way it was designed to. Wasting your fucking money on a third party product that purports to do it for you, with ease no less, ends up giving a person a fucking migraine!
The bottom line?
Yesterday I decided to re-install XP because I felt things were getting bloated. Don’t ask me why, but at the time I thought a fresh start would be healthy.
Fire up good old hunk 'o shit partition magic and ask it to do a simple fricken task- delete my old partition and reformat it NTFS. And while you’re at it, reconfigure the size of my backup partitions, you know, those partitions on disk 2. I want them more balanced, so as to better protect my critical files that Windows has made me nervous about protecting.
It’s a simple task, you can leave my primary partition, Win 2000, on the front side and play with the secondary stuff while you do the voodoo you do.
At least that’s what you say you can do. As a matter of fact, you thought you could do it so well you charged me eighty fucking bucks to get your ‘magic’ product.
Well magic it was! It wipped out the three partitions of data on drive 2 without a fucking trace! Wooooo! Don’t know how you did that so fast.
And that XP partition on disk 1? Well you decided to make it hidden to noone but yourself. You told me things were fine, it was ready to accept a new copy of my OS. But lo and fucking behold, when I go to re-install my app, it tells me the old one’s still there. Like a fool, I assume it’s lying to me, so I tell it to ignore the other shit and install itself over it.
One hour later I load 'er up and two fucking systems are sitting there. Two users, two guests, two fucking administrators, now what do I do? Try your shit again?
Nope. Nada. Can’t. I don’t have the fucking time! I need to actually accomplish something tommorrow. Something I paid you good cash to try and speed up, but you couldn’t.
So tomorrow, and part of tonight, actually, if I can manage to stay up late enough, will be spent going through the horseshit task of re-installing at least a primary OS so I can see what’s been had of my system. I know what I’ll find, nothing, nada, zip. And I know a call to your center will confirm my worst fears, it lost and there ain’t a thing you can do about it.
FUCK!
Question: what format are these partitions? FAT? FAT32? NTFS? Linux swap?
Also, what are the configuration of your physical drives? Windows will always give the first drive letters c: and D: to the primary partitions of each of your internal ide/scsi drives. Then it will fill up the master ide/scsi drive partitions with drive letters, then the slave drive, then the CD/DVDs, then the network/external drives. If you dual boot Windows any, the boot partitions of the osses will treat its drive as the master.
So it is a good idea to leave one internal drive unpartitioned unless you plan to leave your drives where they are. I learned from bitter experience that the master drive should be multi-partitioned, and the slave drive should be left alone (I have it the opposite way right now- bad mistake because flexibility with the master drive is now reduced as I filled in too much info on the slave). You can partition the other drives all you want.
If you have scsi drives, you can change the drive letters, i believe, through the registry. I tried with ide drives, nope they don’t work.
This has gone from bad to worse- as I sat here typing up a response to my earlier post, my backup laptop, that thing of beauty that she is, froze.
A whole post, lost.
What the hell did I do to anybody?
Capacitor, et al, I appreciate the suggestions and the ideas, but at this point, the thing is so screwed up about the only person who can figure it out, and try to fix it, is me.
It’s seriously hosed.
How it started was this- Win 98 on partition one, c:. Win XP on partition two, d:. Music master on partition 3, e:. The second drive: F- downloaded apps and misc files. G- Music master back-up. H- Full system back-ups w/registry back-ups to boot.
The problem? Win XP acting funky on me. I think it’s a bloat issue due to it being new and my loading untold amounts of shit on it. Solution? Blow the fucker out and start anew.
Choice- enter fdisk and all that and make the necessary changes and adjustments for a new install. Or, try out the fucking hunk of junk program Partition Magic and have it do it for me via the joy and ease of a GUI. Me? GUI!
Enter the hell that is PM and ask it to delete partition d and reformat it NTFS (As it was before). And while you’re at it, re-arrange the size of f and g- make 'em even, baby.
Partition magic- up yours pal! I’m going to crash while you run, but what’s more, I’ll enter DOS mode before I do so! Ha ha ha!
Me- Why? I’ve always been nice to you, I even gave you my hard earned cash when I could least aford it.
PM- Because I want to fuck with you. You always try to take the easy way out. That’s been you’re whole life- easy. Well I’m here to even the score, I’m here to make up for all that fun you’ve had. And what’s more, I got you’re money in the process! Dipshit!
Me- Son of a…
So there I was. It crashed, XP was left in limbo, and the partitions on disk 2 were stranded.
It gets more complicated after that, but my main system’s now asking me questions so I gotta run…
Yep.
Partition magic is a complete, total, utter, piece of festering dog crap.
Unless, of course, you’re looking for a way to make your data irretrievable to even the most dedicated federal investigation.
Nobody on the planet can use the software right; it’s not made that way.
Sorry guys, I see on review you’ve been asking me questions. I didn’t mean to snub the inquries, you just caught me in a rant.
That might explain why my laptop seized up on me, some serious pounding on the keyboard. ::sorry babe, I hope you still love me (At least until my main boy gets running, then you’re that crappy ass thing I bought i…).
I don’t mean to snub anyone right now, I just needed to vent and complain about that horseshit Partition Magic. Why people are goofy about this thing like it’s the second coming is beyond me, I sure as hell don’t see it, especially after losing a boatload of info.
We’ll see where she stands tommorrow. Until then, thanks for letting me rant.
Weird. Not to diminish the hell you’re going through, CNote, but I’ve been using Partition Magic for years (add a Linux partition here, delete a dos partion there, make that one Fat32, change that one to NTFS, etc) and have never had anything resembleing the problems you’re describing.
Maybe they have two versions Evil PM and Good PM but the boxes aren’t labeled so you don’t know which version you get. 
Fenris
Like Fenris, I’ve been using PM for years and have never had a problem. Ever.
Your problems, however, may be because not all versions of PM play nice with WinXP (only Ver. 7 is compatible). And, even then, when it formats NTFS it isn’t XP NTFS but, rather, Win2K NTFS (there are subtle differences). So when re-installing XP, you’ll have to use WinXP format to get a working NTFS partition.
Good luck.
If this had been a segment on This American Life, this is the point at which the music would have started playing.
Sheryl Crow.
“A Change Would Do You Good.”
Sorry 'bout your computer troubles, CnoteChris.
Another PM fan. It’s saved me countless hours of work over the last five or so years. Dunno how it’s happened to be screwing you over, but it’s never failed me.
I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make light of the situation but this is one of the funniest things I have ever read. It had me holding my sides with laughter.
I think I’m going completely insane. I can feel it. Any semblence of control I once had, and spent years trying to garner, is being stripped away from piece by fucking piece!
I’m actually nervous I’m living on the third floor.
“What was that honey?”
“Well I don’t know, but you know that guy who’s been swearing non-stop for the last couple of days? I think he just jumped out the window”.
My God, anything would be better than the slow torture I’m going through right now.
Anything!
After my last post late last night, while XP was being installed for the God knows how many’ith time, I shut down the laptop and start shutting down the apartment.
I’m tired, I’m frustrated, and it’s now two a.m. in the morning. XP gets to a point that I can shut it down and resume stuff in the morning. See ya later bitch!
I crawl into bed to watch a little Law and Order as I nod off, and as God is my witness, the TV screen gets funky on me and starts showing things in almost a hybrid HD-TV format- kinda wide-screen view.
It sounds nice and all, but my TV isn’t an HD-TV set, it’s just a regular old sony.
“What the fuck now!”
I unplug the bitch and plug it back in. The little light that tells me it’s on is in dim mode. It’s on, but it’s off as well. The remote doesn’t work, it won’t turn it on, and smashing the shit out of the front buttons doesn’t do anything either.
Seriously, what the fuck did I do to anybody?
The TV’s shot and I’m not about to delve into that crappola. Fine! I go to sleep in the dark, without my Law and Order.
Enter this morning. After completely abandoning Partition fucking bullshit, and going the DOS command line nonsense, I’m getting XP on my partition but with weirdo problems.
No matter, I’ve installed this thing so many times in the last day and a half that I’ve memorized the product key- KXCR9 :space: YMC3 … It’s etching in the stone that is now my brain.
Configuration? I think I hold the record on getting shit back to where it once was- fifty fucking installs will do that to a person. I don’t even look at the screen anymore- Chris here, no there, yes over there, resize that, fuck you here, up that utility, blah, blah, blah.
And all of it, every single problem, pales to what no perplexes this piece of shit system. My sound card, that thing of beauty that she is when she wants to work, will no longer load.
“The data is invalid- The device could not be installed”
What? What? WHAT?
You fucking loaded yesterday without a problem. I’m giving you the same fucking drivers as before, when everything ran great. “The data is invalid? What the FUCK does that mean?”
FUCK
Someone, anyone, please, pretty please, tell my why this would happen. Why would any and all versions of this driver, up to and including the original install disk, tells me it’s “Data is invalid”.
How? Why? What’s my fucking name?
I’ve tried every variation, a couple of re-installs of XP, anything and everything, including trying it on my new, fresh install of WIN 2000 on the first partition, and nothing. NOTHING. “Data is invalid- Driver cannot install”.
It’s the Hercules Game Theater for those willing to take on this task. But I warn you, with the way my luck’s been going, you might drop dead right before you hit submit.
It wouldn’t surprise me anymore. Really, it wouldn’t.
Help?
CNote:
A) I’ve been where you are. I’d tell you to take a break, get some rest, see a movie or something to clear your head, but what would be the point? We both know that you won’t rest until it’s working (I wouldn’t, at least)
B) I had similar problems but they were all XP related. I generally like Microsoft programs, but XP is the Devil’s Own OS.
C) However, when it comes right down to it, since what you’ve done should have worked, I dunno what to suggest other than a last-ditch solution, but you’re not gonna like it: DEBUG MBR th’ damned drive. (I can post instructions or a link if you don’t know how).
My only guess is that something (or several somethings) are lurking on the disk from various FDisks, Reformats, repartitionings, etc that you’ve gone through.
A DEBUG MBR will return the disk to a blank slate/like new condition: Beware, though! It’ll kill all partitions and information on the disk pretty much irretreviably. Nothing will survive (it’s a great last-ditch way to get rid of viruses). From there you should be able to FDisk, Format and install whatever you want, fresh and new.
If you’re not at that stage yet, I don’t have much advice as XP put me through 30,000 kinds of hell and I’ve spent the last three months trying to forget the experience.
Lemme know if you want more info on DEBUGging the disk.
Fenris
I’m damn close Fenris.
“The data is invalid- the device could not be installed” will be the end of me. I’ve done everything in the book, everything I can think of.
What the hell does that mean? Why would the fucking disk version of this driver say that too?
None of it makes sense to me, none of it. Maybe Debug will do it, I don’t know.
I’ve done formats, re-installs, you name it. I’ve cleaned both partitions and completely blown any remaining parts of the OS on it. Hell, I even ran anti-virus software to see if I got a bug. Nada.
I can’t go out. I can’t run around and have fun. All I’ll be doing is ruminating on what I could have missed, what could have happened, what could have been different with this install that wasn’t with the other.
It’ll gnawl at me endlessly until I resolve it.
On the other hand, if I were to go out, I’d have that sulky, deep-in-thought, mean look about me. Women dig that.
Ahh who am I kidding. Even if I were to get action with a honey at the bar, I’d still be ruminating.
“Spank me big-boy! Show me who’s boss!!”
“Hmmm, you know, I wonder if it couldn’t be chipset issue. Yeah, maybe a screwed up error code. Umm, huh, what? Who are you again? Spank you what? Hang on a minute, I need to try something out.”
I’m functionless until I figure this thing out.
Oh, and fuck you partition magic! I’m still mad at you too!
Cnote, I rarely advocate this. I fear being called a troll, a partisan, and a troll. I fear being tarred with the same brush as some real unhelpful people. It usually isn’t worth it, even if it would be a good solution.
But you are in extremis. You have been through a special kind of Purgatory, one that should be reserved for virus writers and script kiddies: Microsoft Madness. It began with The Malicious Spawn’s Damaged Operating System (MS-DOS, although all DOSs deserve the epithet Damaged to one extent or another, being essentially toys for bitty boxen). History is largely irrelevant, but MS-DOS established a long precedent that WinXP takes to the next level: Beyond mere damagedness and shortsighted planning (especially in security and memory management) and into the realm of active malice. WinXP is inexcusable. It actively spies on users, among a laundry list of other maliciousness (Product Activation, anyone?).
My advice? My long-in-coming, much-anticipated advice? Switch to Linux. Jump the MS ship and make like an intelligent rat for the Linux archipelago. You can do officey things with K Office (part of the K Desktop Environment, standard on most end-user-type (non-experimental, non-niche) distros), play computer games (Quake fan? Quake III Arena for Linux is available widely), and use a command line that will knock your freaking socks off (bash is a tool of the Gods, and no DOS command line can compare to its Essential Divinity). Need to run legacy MS software? WINE, my friend. It’s not an emulator but a compatability layer, meaning you can run the programs within a Linux envrionment with full access to the functionality of Linux. It isn’t perfect, but it’s very usable. Or you can go my route and dual-boot with a sane MS OS (WinME is recent enough to run all but the most esoteric MS software, and Win95 is still able to run the vast majority of Windows software without hammering your obviously high-end machine). Linux is the answer. Linux has good disk partitioning software (Disk Druid is a friend).
http://www.winehq.com/ - Wine Development HQ, a good place to download the latest version free.
http://www.linux.org - Information in your quest.
http://linux.com/article.pl?sid=02/03/09/1727250 - Information for the rank newbie. Starts out a bit basic, but it gets useful.
(Really, there are too many good Linux-oriented sites to list here.)
So check it out. I can guarantee you won’t have the same problems, or even problems of the same magnitude.
Yes, you will call me a troll twice. Just for effect.
Here comes my sig…
Get Linux instead of Windows XP. Fshew. For a minute there, I thought you were going to tell me to get a Toshiba TV instead of a Sony next time.
At least we’re all consistent around here, Windows sucks, and Linux is da bomb.
Linux isn’t anything I’m against, Derleth, and it’s something I’ve considered… scratch that, actively looked into, putting on my system. I’m convinced that MS has screwed itself in the sense that people are sick of its shit and are finally seeking alternatives. Great, no arguments from me there. Microsoft’s the gorilla that’s decided to turn on its handlers, and that kind of behavior shouldn’t be rewarded. Let the fucker starve for a day or two and show it who’s boss.
But the immediate problem I face in abandoning MS is the ever growing stack of apps that I own (Or rent, according to various views) that are MS based. I’ve got some serious money invested in these programs, and some serious time and energy in understanding (I suppose you should insert a snicker about here) into how they run.
So at this point, MS is something I want to have as a backup, and as a main platform in running what I want and need. When that gets accomplished, I’ll turn to alternatives and try to get famililar with their quirks and faults. I firmly believe that’s where things are headed, and I’d like to be apart of the crowd that heralds its use, but for now anyways, MS is that security blanket I need to turn back to when things get funky with other OS’s, if that makes any sense.
It’ll happen, and it’ll be sooner rather than later, but for now, for me anyways, it needs to start with MS being sound and stable before I can move forward.
OK, on to today’s new observations-
An interesting tidbit regarding the install problems- As I was screwing around with all the possible problems with the file I’m trying to install, I finally got fed up and aimed the installer, or the driver information, to the Windows XP disk.
Interestingly, the same error message came back, ‘Data invalid, installation incomplete’, or whatever the hell message that is. I guess what was interesting to me was the fact that it looked identical to when it tries to install the Hercules drivers, where it’s heading, what it’s looking for, all of its the same.
So the message appears to be pretty standard, and not particularily involving problems within that file, which is what I had earlier thought. I guess I’ve been under the impression the driver file had become corrupt, or that it was altered somehow, but that same message coming up when I point it off in a different direction tells me it isn’t seeing the info there, or at the least, it doesn’t know what to do with it. Or maybe the installer wants to see it in a different file location, or something like that.
Is that a safe assumption? I think I’m on the right track, but I’m not sure. Any ideas on how to resolve it if it is a right assumption?
Any attempt to resolve this with the manufacturer has been fruitless, if not impossible, because they don’t do tech support (The fuckers), and other outlets, to this point, haven’t led me anywhere.
Think I should toss this- the question part, not the bitching part- over to GQ? I mean, it has gone past the initial bitch at PM.
Nah, you’re just one of those evangelists. Y’know, the kind that knocks on the door just when you’re sitting down for dinner? At least you didn’t jump in and yell “Get a Mac!!”
Actually, I agree with some of your points. XP does spy. Users can fight this with XP Anti-Spy or other similar utils. And yes, you can get most of your computing basics done w/ Linux (although I prefer Star Office to K Office). But, in my experience, WINE is a buggy piece of shit that I could never get working properly with AutoCAD. However, this situation may have changed since I last attempted it. And when the hell is someone going to make a decent web browser?? Mozilla is bloated and crash-prone and Konquerer is just too basic. And what’s with those ugly fonts?
Overall, I wouldn’t recommend linux to anyone who wasn’t willing and able to devote a large amount of time to learning it. That said, I do dual boot between XP and Mandrake Linux but it’s more of a hobby OS for me than anything else.
But, I’m beginning to wonder if Cnote’s problems go beyond OSes. I think wiping the Master Boot Record may be one of his few remaining alternatives. Also, the problem might be hardware related. Time to run a few diagnostics programs and keep your fingers crossed.