1 Topic by Xodus

  • Xodus
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Topic: Can gparted be used to fix my hard drive?

I believe moving a partition will fix my problem, but just want to make sure. Long story short: I'm using Windows XP and I used a program called Casper to clone my old main drive to a new hard drive. Both the old and new drives are split into 2 partitions now and do not load windows(NTLDR error).

I have C: partition which has a few folders on it that I can not access. The D: partition has most of the rest of my data and windows xp. I want everything on the hard drive on a single partition. Will moving the D partition to C at least get all my data in the same place? This may not fix the Windows problem, but I figure its worth a shot. Thanks.

2 Reply by stormhead

  • stormhead
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Re: Can gparted be used to fix my hard drive?

Hi!

GParted can move entire partitions around - but it can not move the data stored on one partition to another one (so the "target" partition contains all the data that was previously distributed across both partitions).

3 Reply by Xodus

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Re: Can gparted be used to fix my hard drive?

Thanks for the response.

So if I move the partition from C to D, I will have all the disk space in 1 partition now, but all the data that was in the C partition with be lost?

4 Reply by cmdr (edited by cmdr 2008-11-12 21:57:04)

  • cmdr
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Re: Can gparted be used to fix my hard drive?

Hello,

best thing would be to get XP boot again, and then copy the few folders from C: to D:. But you have to keep drive C: (you can minimize it with "GParted") as bootable partition (with NTLDR and BOOT.INI), because Driveletter D: is "coined" to your XP installation (Registry!) and not changeable, unless ... this is the cause of your boot problem.  Usually Windows gets installed on the one and only BIOS bootable device and therefore gets Driveletter C. This must, however, not necessarily be the first primary partition. There might be hidden (recovery/diagnostic) partitions as first primary ! If you change anything on this state, first thing is, that the bootmanager gets confused.

Conclusion:
1. If your XP installation formerly had Driveletter C, just give it its bootflag back and it works again.
2. If it always was on "D:", make "C:" accessible (recovery on Windows installation CD) and copy NTLDR and BOOT.INI (directed to partition 2 ore higher) to its root folder again.

Good luck
cmdr

P.S. : Ouhps, I missed your last post. Yes, you are right, because you have to delete the former C-partition. then you can add the unallocated space to the D-partition and should at last move filesystem on D to its beginning, because extra space is not usable, if it's situated in front of the Volume Boot Record. Such a drive will neither boot, nor be accessible at all anymore.

5 Reply by Xodus

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Re: Can gparted be used to fix my hard drive?

Ok, thanks for your help! smile