Thinkpad Initial Setup Partitioning, One Way to Do It

[rnfolsom]

Prevous Subject: A31: Initial Setup Partitioning?

Now that I have actually partitioned, and converted from FAT32 to NTFS, my wife's new-to-her Win2k IBM-Reburbished Thinkpad A31, I am drastically revising this message to outline the procedure used and the results.

The procedure may interest others, because it did not use Partition Magic or System Commander or similar software (for reasons explained in the P.S. to my original message, available far below at the very end of this message). Instead, the procedure relied only on resizing backup images.

My original message is at the end of this one, below the ==== line. It was a series of questions, and I have inserted answers (based on my current understanding from my new experience) in curly braces {}.


PROCEDURE TO REPARTITION USING BACKUP IMAGES: PRELIMINARY COMMENTS

This procedure saved backup images to an external hard drive (in this case, to Apricorn's PCMCIA card connected Ez-Backit Pro 1.8" 30gb hard drive). But any external drive would do.

The backup imaging software was Apricorn's EzGigII (which appears to be a simpler version of Acronis), run from its installation CD. But any backup imaging software that allows backups to an internal secondary hard drive (on a laptop, a modular bay drive) or to an external hard drive, and that allows images to be reduced in size (either when created or when restored), should work.

I could have used Drive Image 5.x DOS, but I could not get it to "see" the Apricorn Ez-Backit Pro.

I could have used Norton Ghost 2003, but I think (but am not sure) that its resize partition facility works only with images of an entire hard drive, and not with images of individual partitions. If that is true, Ghost 2003 would have required not only backup but also restoration of the A31's IBM_Service hidden partition, and I was not willing to take risk of losing that partition, or of moving it from its current position at the "end" of the hard drive.


PARTITIONING WITH BACKUP IMAGES: STEP-BY-STEP

1. As an initial precaution, backup the entire hard drive, either in two images (C: and the IBM_Service hidden partition) or in a single image that includes both. I did the latter. Verify the backup image, if your imaging software includes that option.

2. Backup the C: partition again. Verify the backup image, if your imaging software includes that option.

3. Restore the C: partition (which will automatically delete the C: partition and turn it into unallocated space). When starting the restoration, use the imaging software's option to reduce the restored size as needed to leave enough unallocated space for the to-be-created-later new D: partition.

4. After the C: partition restoration is complete, verify the restoration, if your imaging software includes that option.

5. Right Click My Computer, select Manage (aka Computer Management), Disk Management, and confirm that you now have a smaller C: partition, enough unallocated space for a D: partition, and the same IBM_Service hidden partition.

(At least on my A31, the C: partition and the IBM_Service hidden partition both were FAT32. The C: partition can be changed from FAT32 to NTFS later. The IBM_Service hidden partition will remain FAT32.)

6. In Disk Management, change the drive letters as needed for the secondary or external hard drive, to make D: available for the new partition.

7. In Disk Management, confirm that the internal hard drive (rather than the secondary or external hard drive) is Disk 0. If not, use the system tray "Unplus or Eject" icon to "stop" the secondary or external hard drive, and then physically remove or disconnect it. Exit Computer Management (and thereby Disk Management), and then re-enter Disk Management, and confirm that the internal hard drive now is Disk 0. If not, reboot, and check again.

7o. Option for the paranoid (e.g. me): In Windows Explorer, right click on the C: partition, select Properties, Tools tab Error Checking, Check Now button, check both options and use the Start button, and say "yes" to scheduling a check on the next restart. Then reboot.

8. In Disk Management, right click on the unallocated space and format that space into a new partition D:. After examining the results, exit Disk Management and reboot.

8o. Option for the paranoid (e.g. me): In Windows Explorer, right click on the new D: partition, select Properties, Tools tab Error Checking, Check Now button, check both options and use the Start button, and say "yes" to scheduling a check on the next restart. Then reboot.

OPTION: You now have a C: FAT32 partition and a D: NTFS partition. You can go on to the next step, and convert the C: partition from FAT32 to NTFS.
Alternatively (recall that the current C: partition was restored-and-downsized from a previous backup), you can reboot and use the F11 Restoration so that your C: partition comes directly from the IBM_Service hidden partition. If you do so, the F11 restoration will not disturb your new D: partition, but will use the exact same space as your existing C: partition. [Note: Even if you delay this F11 restoration until after converting C: from FAT32 to NTFS (step 9) below), F11 will restore C: as a FAT32 partition.]

9. Convert the C: partition from FAT32 to NTFS. Open a Command Prompt window, enter the command convert c: /fs:ntfs, and be prepared to enter the C: partition's label. Because you are using partition C: which is currently in use, you will get an option to schedule the conversion on the next reboot. When you do so, the conversion will be preceded by a Chkdsk of partition C:'s FAT32 structure.

10. In Disk Management, check that partition C: has in fact been converted from FAT32 to NTFS.

11. In Windows Explorer, right click on the C: and D: partitions (one at a time <grin>), and for each, select Properties, Tools tab Error Checking, Check Now button, check both options and use the Start button, and say "yes" to scheduling a check on the next restart. Then reboot.

12. Right Click My Computer, select Manage (aka Computer Management), Event Viewer, Applications, and look for the Winlogon Chkdsk results. In my experience, the C: partition may have a few errors (no matter how often you run Error Checking). My C: partition errors were:

Windows will now check the disk.
Cleaning up 1 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 1 unused security descriptors.

13. Installing the default C: security settings may be necessary or at least desirable. See the Microsoft knowledge base article "The Default NTFS Permissions Are Not Applied to a Converted Boot Partition" at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/237399/


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ORIGINAL MESSAGE (With Answers to Questions Inserted)

Subject: A31: Initial Setup Partitioning?

When my wife first fired up her new-to-us Win2k IBM-refurbished Thinkpad A31, it began installing Win2k directly from the hard disk (we didn't get any Win2k CD), using a hidden "Fat32 (H) IBM_Service" partition of 1218mb, 1019 used (I got that data later, after booting from a Norton Ghost CD).

Unfortunately, I didn't actually see the beginning of the Win2k installation. So I've got some questions.

Not counting the hidden "IBM_Service" partition, she's now got a single partition C:\, with the label "IBM_Preload" (27397mb, 2453 used), formatted FAT32. But ideally, she would have two partitions: C: for Win2k and applications, and D: for data, both formatted NTFS.

Answers to the following questions might help me figure out the best way to achieve that preferred configuration (preferably without using Partition Magic or some similar utility, for reasons explained in a P.S. at the end of this message).


1) What was the likely status of the hard drive before W2k began installing? That is, in addition to the hidden partition, was the remainder of the drive unallocated space, or was it already formatted as a single C: FAT32 partition?

{It was already formatted as a single C: partition. That is, the entire physical drive was either the C: partition, or the IBM_Service hidden partition: there was no unallocated space.}

2) On every boot, function key F11 is available to run a "Product Recovery Program" to restore the original configuration. Would that replicate the initial setup that my wife saw the machine go through?

{As nearly as I can determine, the F11 restored the C: partition contents exactly as it had been after the initial installation (when the computer was first turned on) of Windows 2000 and IBM's additional utilities. But running F11 after the drive had been partitioned into C: and D: --- reducing the C: partition from about 27gb to 10gb, using the procedure explained later --- did not damage the newly created D: partition. That is, F11 used whatever space was available for its restoration of the C: partition.}

3) Is it likely that the initial setup allowed one to interrupt the installation in order to partition everything --- other than the hidden IBM_Service partition --- into C: and D: NTFS partitions?
If so, I'm tempted to boot and use that F11 key to see if I can start all over again, this time taking the time to format and partition into C: and D: NTFS partitions.

{I yielded to temptation and did use F11 in hopes that it would allow me to partition into C: and D: partitions, but it did not do so.
I actually ran the F11 procedure twice: Once to restore the C: partition to its original 27gb space, and once to restore the C: partition to its post-partitioning 10gb space (in the main message above, see OPTION). On neither occasion did I find any opportunity to interrupt the process in order to partition the drive, or convert a partition from FAT32 to NTFS. There were, however, two opportunities (I think) to install "Windows" (which I assume meant Windows 98 or 98se, but I didn't test that) rather than Windows 2000.}

4) If the F11 initial setup would NOT allow me to start over again and partition into C: and D: NTFS, could I do the following?

a) Use a Win2k CD (NOT from IBM, because Win2k CDs apparently weren't supplied with the A31) to remove the existing C: partition (thereby turning it into unallocated space) --- without removing the IBM_Service partition --- and then

b) partition the unallocated space into C: and D: partitions and format each as NTFS, and then

c) reboot and use that F11 key to restore the IBM_Preload to the new (smaller but still plenty big) partition C:.

If the answer to question 4) is "No," then I have in mind an alternative plan that uses backup images to an external hard drive. But I think I've asked enough for now.

[Please note that I have no intention of using the non-IBM Win2k CD to install Win2k. My question 4) proposes using that CD only to partition and format the non-hidden portion of the drive.]

{The answer to question 4) definitely was "No," because Stunt a) did not work. My non-IBM Win2k CD was a complete Win2k CD, but it came from Dell, and it would not boot on the A31 --- it had a protection message that said it would boot only on a Dell computer. And I do not own a "retail" Win2k CD. And after reviewing some documentation about Win9x's FDisk, I concluded --- perhaps wrongly --- that to create unallocated space, FDisk would delete not only the C: partition but also the IBM_Service hidden partition. I do have the Win2k full resource kit, but I'm not aware of a simple "delete a single partition to create unallocated space" tool. So I had to use another approach --- backup images --- to create unallocated space and partition the drive, as explained far above.}


Any answers, suggestions, or comments would be very much appreciated. I hope I'm not the first one to want an IBM Thinkpad A31 to have C: and D: partitions, both in NTFS.


Roger Folsom

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P.S.: I realize that using the Windows Convert FAT32 to NTFS utility, followed by Partition Magic or some similar utility, is another possibility. But doing so strikes me as a bit of a "Kludge" (sp?), and I'm not sure I trust either utility.
When Partition Magic was Powerquest Partition Magic, I never could get a straight answer (despite multiple emails and phone calls) to whether its version 6.0 could be used safely with Win2k SpN > 1 (I'd read or heard a rumor that it could not.) That lack of competent support caused me to lose confidence in the product. Of course, I could buy the current version, but I don't want to do so unless it's truly necessary.