EASEUS Data Backup & Recovery, Partition Manager Software Forum

[LuciferSam]

I recently downloaded EASEUS PM 2.0, and tried to resize (shrink) my
25GB Windows system partition (C:) by about 6GB.

I have experienced the same problem as several other people.
Upon rebooting, the resize operation begins, but then I get a 364
error.

I have run "CHKDSK C: /F" *twice* (once from the command line, once
from the windows GUI). The same error occurs when I try to resize.

I am running XP Pro + SP3.

Are there any other things (log files?) I can look at? Failing that,
can anyone suggest an alternative free tool to allow me
to shrink my partition - I am currently unemployed :-(

TIA
Lucifer

[bujiang]

Dear Lucifer,

We are sorry for your problem.
Error code 364 means there is bad cluster in your hard drive, you should run "chkdsk C: /r".
When running our product, please close other applications. Please do not open any files of the partition that you need to resize.

Activity of free documents repair!
http://www.easeus.com/file-repair-service/free-file-repair.htm

Sincerely,
EASEUS Support Team Q
EASEUS Customer Support Center:
http://www.easeus.com/support.htm

[LuciferSam]

Dear Bujiang,

Thanks for your reply. I made a mistake in my original message.
I said I have run "chkdsk c: /f:" twice. I actually ran
"chkdsk c: /R" twice. I have now run it 4 or 5 times - It did
*not* fix the problem.

I did some research and downloaded the (excellent) free version
of HD Tune 2.55 (from http://www.hdtune.com/) and performed
an error scan, this confirmed the presence of a few bad blocks
on my disk.

According to their web-site, this means that I need to buy a new
had drive, HOWEVER this is not necessarily true!

I read an interesting article "Recovering Hard Disks with Bad
Blocks" at http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/29 which
basically said I would have to back-up all my data and then
perform a low-level format of the disk using a DOS boot disk
and special software from my hard disk manufacturer (Fujitsu
in my case). This would cause the bad sectors to be added to
the disk's bad sector table, so that when the disk is
subsequently reformatted (the normal way), the Windows format
program would avoid using any of the bad sectors. I would
then have to reinstall XP, (making sure the install program
formated the disk), and then restore my backups.

So, I backed up all my work, and prepared myself for a lengthly
reinstall of everything!

I have a Fujitsu MHR2030AT hard disk, and in the course of my
research, I downloaded two DOS utilities that Fujitsu supply.
These programs need to be copied onto a DOS boot disk (images
of which can be freely dowloaded from http://www.bootdisk.com/)

The first program is called FJERASE.EXE, and this is Fujitsu's
Low-level format program. However, I didn't have to use it,
because the other program, Fujitsu's Disk Test program
(FJDT680.EXE), was able to identify the bad sectors, and
add them to the bad sector table on the disk.

I then reinstaled Windows from my XP Pro + SP2 media, and
and used HD Tune to confirm that the bad blocks had "gone",
then I successfully ran Partition Manager to shrink my
partition!! HOORAY!!

Finally, I installed SP3 and restored my backups. The
process from start to finish took a whole day!

Note: that because I reformatted the disk, I could have
chosen to repartion the disk at install time, but I wanted
to make sure that PM would work on my system.

I am posting this detailed information here in case it is
useful to other people who have the same or similar problems.

Anyone who wants to try the same thing (not for the faint
hearted!) should note:

1. You MUST be prepared to lose the entire contents of your
disk! This means that you must back-up your data and have
all the necessary reinstall Media.

2. You will have to locate low-level checking AND formating
software specific to your hard disk (manufacturer). You
should get this from the disk-drive manufacturer's web-site.
The Fujitsu software I used will NOT work for drives from
any other drive manufacturers.

3. For technical reasons, the above mentioned disk software MUST
be run from a genuine MS- (PC-. or DR-) DOS boot disk and NOT
from Windows. It CANNOT be used from a Windows "DOS Window",
because this just emulates DOS, and Windows prevents such
software from accesseing the hardware directly. This means...

4. You must have the technical knowledge necessary to make and
use a DOS boot disk (floppy or CD). Information about this
is at http://www.bootdisk.com/

5. If you follow this route, you won't need PM anyway, because
you can repartition the disk at install time anyway!

I hope this is of help to some other people

Regards
Lucifer

l u c i f e r . s a m m y AT g o o g l e m a i l . c o m

[bujiang]

Dear Lucifer,

Thank you so much for your valuable information!
Sincerely hope you would enjoy our product.

Activity of free documents repair!
http://www.easeus.com/file-repair-service/free-file-repair.htm

Sincerely,
EASEUS Support Team Q
EASEUS Customer Support Center:
http://www.easeus.com/support.htm