Disk Partition assignment letter fails
Using DD11 update 2 installed in an HP Pavilion g6 notebook.
I have a 'silent' (as in, does not have an assigned drive letter recognised by windows) HP Tools partition on an HP g6-2002au notebook. This partition came configured on the machine when delivered and until now I've not see a reason to change that. Now, I want to at least make the partition visible within the system drive structure.
So, I opened DD11, selected the relevant partition, chose the letter function in the left hand pane and selected H. See screenshot DD11_assign_letter1.jpg attached (HP Tools partition visible at extreme right hand end of the disk partitions bar, no drive letter displayed).
That completed OK, and screenshot DD11_assign_letter2.jpg shows that the relevant partition now has the letter H included, with operation awaiting committal.
I committed the operation, and DD11 then said re-boot was required to complete. Which I did.
And the reboot generated a failure reported in the Black and White boot level text screen as follows:
quote
Acronis Disk Director Home Update 2
Version 11.0.2343
Error occurred:
text: The command uses a missing object
code: 0000000000360198 441E730962703F63
Suberror:
text: The command contains an incorrect ID
code: 0000000000360197 58A1AE92511B0306
Press to reboot
unquote
I've re-tried this once after the original failure (but I only wrote down the details on the 2nd event).
Why won't DD11 change the drive letter assigned? and how can I achieve that end (change the assigned drive letter)?
David
Hi Colin,
I recall seeing the windows disk manager some time ago - very like the DD11 tool in fact, but it took me quite a few minutes to actually find it on the computer system. And having (finally!) found the tool, the silent partition was happily displayed. Select it, right click with mouse and choose the change drive letter option, and select H (the next letter in sequence). Ok, and the screen blinked at me, but otherwise did not seem to change. The partition is the last on the drive, did not before or after he operation show a drive letter. The thing that indicated success was that the DVD drive changed it's letter to I.
Opened explorer and there it is in the drive structure, as defined. And a re-start also showed that.
So, yes windows did allow me to change the drive letter. Odd that DD11 would not.
Can you clarify your comment about special partitions and non-standard sectors? I had backed up the HP partition some time ago with TIH 2012, and recovered it to a USB drive as a test, before posting this so Acronis backup tools seem able to recognise anything 'unusual' and work with it.
David
David,
Could you post a screen shot of what you see when in Windows Disk Manager and what DD shows please?
If you are running Vista and above as an OS, the Snipshot utility is the best tool to use, found under the Accessories folder off the start menu.
Colin,
The DD screen images of the machine (showing this tools partition before the DD attempt at drive letters and after selection but before committal) are attached to the original post. The relevant partition is called HP Tools and is shown in both screenshots.
The screenshot of the windows disk manager showing the disk partitions on the same machine tonight is attached to to this post. It's a full screen image, and the tools partition is at the extreme right of the (only) drive partition display and while the name is discernable, sort of, the drive letter isn't. Have to go to explorer to confirm that it is indeed assigned one (H).
David
I think you may have hit the nail on the head. It is not common to have a primary partition after a logical one.
It is possible that DD11 has been hard coded to ignore this type of setup.
I wondered if maybe due to the size of this partition maybe the sectors don't end where DD expects them to be, which causes it spin out. Does the DD log show anything of interest?
Interesting comments . . .
1. there is nothing in the DD log for the dates involved. Totally empty. Even back as far as the 1st May, well before I posted this thread.
2. The drive structure. How did that structure you see (last posted image, that has logical drives in the middle of active ones) come to be???
Now, when the notebook (Win7 64bit) was 1st delivered, there were 4 partitions on the single hard drive (system, Local, factory image and HP tools) and all were active (using all of the 4 active items allowed by MS for windows). I was a bit surprised by the separate existence of the named but unlettered system partition, as the windows help description of it indicates that it is often/mostly combined with the programs in the C drive when the OS is installed or upgraded. Another notebook I have (Toshiba, purchased new with Win7 installed) and a desktop (system built, upgraded to Win7 from XP/Fat32) have these requirements combined in the C drive partition.
3. Now, I try to minimise the amount of software and data stored in the C drive: ideally I think C should just be for the OS, and any apps and their data stored in a separate partition(s)/drives. I know MS did not think that way, and even if they do so now (there have been some forum posts elsewhere that suggest MS has thought about this), the horse has long bolted. So I was looking for a a way to create the 'active' hook that logical drives require in order to do that, and I had to remove one of the HP active partitions to do it. Since the factory image was going to change as soon as software was installed and data loaded, and would become outdated as soon as the 1st backup occurred, I opted to delete that partition and use it's space and the related active hook for the logical drives I wanted. DD11 did this without blinking. The tools partition was retained, no positional shuffling (on the drive) done. But first, using True Image backup software on a usb drive, backed up the entire 'as delivered' machine and copied the files 1 per partition/drive to a local network store. And I still have them. And I left the tools partition in its original state (silent, unseen). Until a I had (recently) a reason to review using it to update the bios, and then making it visible in the drive structure became desirable . . . and here we are.
David