Made the BartPe boot CD according your advice. Custom: C:\Program Files\PowerQuest\Partition Magic 8.0. The CD boots ok and I may take the Command Prompt X: Using DIR I can find the PMagic.exe as well as the PQMagic.exe in the DOS directory. The latter does not start. The former starts the PM opening page, but ends up in an error 'Can not create batch file'. Tried switching in another CD, which contains the PM files, but getting similar results.

Ok, you say you made a BPE disc. Is it just a plain BPE disc with no plugins?? You also mention "advice", what advice? Also you mention "Custom:"?? What advice did you get for using "custom"? Did you use "custom" instead of creating a plugin for your application?

I'm just a bit confused, you mention several things but really don't elaborate on it. I'm not sure what advice you are talking about.

I think you really need to create a plugin for that program.

Just a plain BPE according to the advices on the two web pages (BartPe and UBCD4).
Build:
Source: H: (CD-rom drive containing the WinXP SP2)
Custom: c:\..\Partition Magic 8.0 (as I want to use it)
Output: Bartpe
ISO checked, Burn to CD checked
Device: G (CD-rom drive containing the empty disc)

So you ARE trying to make the UBCD4Win, or just a vanilla BartPE CD? And when you say "custom", I'm assuming you mean the custom option in pebuilder. DON'T use that if you are trying to include that program into your build. You need to get a plugin instead. Also, don't have the "burn to CD" option checked as pebuilder isn't very good at burning .iso files and I would suggest first copying your XP CD to your HD and then pointing pebuilder there as that tends to solve several errors. Thanks.

Do NOT attempt to use Partition Magic from within PE. Though I have successfully used it to perform some funtions, there are other functions for which it attempts to create a batch file and write it back to where the OS is located - in this case the CD - to finish its operations. Obviously, this fails, and you lose any batch file it created in memory when it reboots. I would NOT use Partition Magic in PE. You can always use the DOS version from a bootable floppy or CD.

The best solution for partitioning and managing hard drives in PE is to use Paragon Hard Disk Manager 6.0. It works flawlessly in PE, does not require a reboot, and is able to mount the drive while still in PE. It is stable, proven, and a superior product - as well as reliably performing all functions while in PE. You can read more about Paragon HDM HERE.

My experience has been that, most people still hang on to Partition Magic, because they "grew up" with it, and it worked reliably. This is still true when run from your hard drive within your operating system, or from DOS (via floppy or CD) - but heed my warning - DO NOT USE PM WITHIN PE ON ANY DATA YOU CARE ABOUT. Get Paragon HDM and you'll never look back.

DW

Thanks Digi for your wisdom. I am not that familiar with the program so I didn't know. All I figured was the program was being setup wrong (not within a plugin).

We all greatly appreciate your advice/wisdom/help!!!!!

I've got Paragon Partition Manager in my PE disk, it's a very good product.

This is a VERY GOOD piece of advice, Digiwiz! If only I had read that 2 days ago...
I'll give a try to Paragon HDM. Carefully...

I've got pbs with DriveImage, too. Drive Snapshot works fine.

jph

have you used this parameter to start PMagicNT.exe ?



here my PMagic8.xml

Joshua

I run PM from the RAMDrive using the SFX_RAR technique with the following parameter:

Path=.\%temp%\PartitionMagic
SavePath
Setup=PMagicNT.exe /pqb=B:\pq8.pqb
Silent=1
Overwrite=2

Which is essentially a slight modification of paragliders script as posted HERE... I and others still get an occasional error when performing some functions - most of which understandably are benign - but I have had reports of PM trashing systems when used in PE. Rather than take any chances, I've switched to using Paragon HDM which has proven to be reliable.

There are so many PM plugins around, each with their own little "twist" it is difficult to decipher which are 100% safe and working and produce no error messages for all functions. I realize that many error messages actually cause no real problems, but I still hesitate to use PM in PE when a known safe alternative exists.

DW