Windows 7: Partitioning woes...oh the frustration :(

im really frustrated and disappointed right now after attempting to install win 7 on my desktop (installed fine on laptop). I wanted to create a second partition on my xp machine so i can keep all my files and whatnot, but apparently i have a few bad sectors on my hdd which cant be fixed Having bad sectors means i cant partition, which means i cant install. I even used the inbuilt XP tool twice which searches for and fixes bad sectors but that didnt help.

Anybody have any ideas? Has anybody experienced this before?



Oh and i tried the excellent EASEUS Partition master as my 3rd party partition tool.

Completely WIPE your drive, use the Windows 7 installer to do it, it'll be the most reliable way. Attempt to split the drive down the middle and install Windows 7 to either one. If you have a vista or xp build, you can install that to the 2nd partition, but it'll probably be better if install Windows 7 AFTER the downlevel one.

I ran into a simliar issue, I had to partition, and install Windows 7, install xp, then run a repair with Windows 7 for it to setup the dual-booting.

I know I make it sound easy but doing the above will prolong the life of your drive, and hopefully mark the bad sectors as un-usable so they won't get in the way.

Let us know how this goes

-D

well i was hoping for a response that didnt involve wiping the hard drive, because im not in a situation where i can do that right now. On top of things i dont have my XP install disc (pc never came with one).

Isnt there a way to mark bad sectors as unusable without wiping?

yes, there are several tools out there, I'm sure someone on this forum knows of some repairing tools.

Sorry to say, but in my opinion, all drives need to be wiped at least bi-yearly (every other year) for normal usage. At this point, run the XP defrag, and disk checks. Try to reduce the data on your drive to as small of an amount as possible, and limit any programs that frequently access the disk (torrenting programs for instance).

I know, your probably not going to head my warning until the disk fails

Good luck to you, hopefully someone can help you out as far as a workaround for your issue. Let me know if I can help in any other way.

-D