Dual boot partition problem

[Adamas]

Guys, I have a AMD 64bit running xp64, 2 x 120gig drives set up in raid0. I originally has the drives partitioned into 3, 1st partition 30g holding my OS, 2nd had all programs & 3rd all my own data. I then decided to mess things up by doing a dual boot with linux.

Firstly I tried PartitionMagic 8 hoping to do a non-destructive partition, did not go down well with xp64, so tried Knoppix partition software, sorry the name of the program has slipped my mind, any way it was ment to do a non destructive partition on NTFS. It could not resize one of my partitions claiming that there were errors on it. No problem, time to back up and start from scratch. I really have two questions that I need help on. Please bear in mind that I have little experience in raid so might be asking a stupid question!

1) After trying to delete the partitions with fdisk, I could only see the first 30gig partition holding my os, I could not delete all partitions to then re-partition the drive into 4, how can I do this? (The 4th is to hold linux)

2) Now that I no longer have an OS on the PC, I thought I had better format the 30gig partition to re-install xp, it is going sooooooooooo slow, I am at 23% of the format on a 30gig partition after 5 hours, should only take 20min or so! Any ideas?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[XeoNoX]

use partition magic, or a program similar too it that might be free.

 

[LordOfLA]

Acronis Disk Director suite.

 

[XeoNoX]

Or if you want to do it the free way, go to http://distrowatch.com/ and download a "linux live" CD with tools that format hard drives. Its pretty neeto.

 

[Mainframeguy]

I have to agree with XeNox that I would have gone the Linux way to format the drive first, making that my default OS and overriding whenever I wanted to get to XP - you may have your own reasons for starting out with an XP install/format (probably because you already have Partition Tragic! I can understand that because I also do). I should seriously consider Lords advice if you are sticking on the XP track though - I have not made the jump to paying for the Acronis product set for mey partitioning/backup needs but I can tell they are superior - TrueImage recently managed to make the final image from my dying Maxtor ATA when DriveImage could not cope. Plus remember Symantec will have "functionally stabilised" these product (basically they are dead with existant functionality and bugs).

No one has so far answered your point 2. though. I would be worried about that - sounds like something is up with the drive, probably something like a cruddy partition table. Anyway if that were me I would have jumped ship from the install format and gone to a Linux live CD. I find the Ubuntu formatter pretty idiot proof once you get used to it - but most are probably up there so any distro should do.

Let us know if you discover the answer to ?2 - I am curious now!

 

[XeoNoX]

Sorry forgot about your 2nd question as i got caught up in the 1st! Yes, it should format alot quicker. You could also try downloading your MANUFACTUR'S hard drive diagnostic tools and reset everything back to how the drive was when you 1st got it, if it still acts up, it might be your SATA/IDE cable you might want to try another if it still messes up, try in another computer, and if it still slow in another computer you better start looking into manufactur's warranty.