Disappearing partitions Vista is creating partitions to a new plan that is not entirely compatible with previous versions of Windows, see Vista’s New Partitioning Rules. The biggest problem seems limited to only logical partitions, with both XP and Vista in certain circumstances deleting partitions that were created by the other. If you have conventional partitions and you delete the first logical in an extended partition and let Vista recreate it during the install of itself, then any other logical in that extended partition will be deleted. Using the Vista tools manually can also produce the same results. If you have Vista made logical partitions and you use XP tools to create a new logical after a Vista one, then you will loose all Vista logicals back to any other old style logical or to the start of the extended partition. I’ve seen a few other circumstances where logicals disappear, so advisable not to mix and match at all. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/931854. (Vista SP1 has not fixed this problem when using the partition tools manually from inside Vista. I have yet to acquire a slipstreamed Vista DVD to test during install, but the recent DVD of Server 2008 has not addressed this issue, so it is unlikely a Vista SP1 DVD will be different). Third-party partitioning, imaging and cloning tools. Some popular pre-Vista tools are not fond of the new partitions, but the majority will just ignore the different alignments and simply convert the partitions to conventional ones during any operations. This can cause boot problems for Vista but you can repair or even prevent this by editing the BCD – see bootmgr and BCD and Cloning Vista. Some tools won’t accept Vista partitions at all and will report them as invalid or as having errors. Most notably PowerQuest's Drive Image and Partition Magic will damage Vista if you let them attempt to repair what they see as errors. All updated tools I’ve looked at so far do not maintain SATA hard drives can be numbered out of sequence Vista has a problem correctly enumerating SATA hard drives in the same order as the computer’s bios sees them. The displayed order can even change on successive boots, so you can never trust what Vista is telling you from one day to the next. This is not only an issue when you are installing Vista from the DVD, but also from inside a booted Vista when using Disk Management or most third-party Windows running apps that take their reference from the way Vista sees things. Before doing any partition work you need to double check you are working on the intended hard drive. This issue also applies if you have a mix of IDE and SATA drives. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937251/en-us (Neither SP1 or 2008 appear to have improved any on this issue). Vista may unexpectedly take the C: drive letter as its own. If you are only accustomed to using the Microsoft bootmanager to handle your dual/multiboot setup then you will probably expect a new install of Vista to retain the system partition as C: and assign itself some other letter. If you start a Vista install from inside another booted Windows OS then this is indeed what will happen, but if you install by booting the computer from the DVD then Vista will always take the C: letter for itself and any current system partition will then become the D: drive. Other partitions can also not retain the letters you expected and I have read stories of people consequently deleting or formatting the wrong partition. System restore points In a dualboot machine with Vista and XP you will loose all Vista restore points every time XP is booted. If you are using a third-party bootmanager that can hide the Vista partition from being seen by XP then you won’t have this problem. If you are using the MS bootmanager then of course you can’t hide partitions. Microsoft did say they were not planning to do anything about this issue and SP1 has indeed not fixed it, but they did recently offer a couple of workarounds. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/926185 Vista prefers creating logical partitions During the install of Vista or even when using its tools to create partitions you are most times not given a choice of whether you get a primary or a logical partition. If you already have one primary on the drive and you are not given a choice then I’ve found it means you will get a logical (and a new extended partition of course if you don’t already have one). Your options are to use previous Windows tools or third–party apps. You may see several primary partitions on a drive Hidden logical partitions will show up in Vista’s Disk Management utility as primary partitions. Not only that but the extended partition can appear to not include these logicals. It can all be very confusing the first time you see it and can make you think you have a corrupted partition table. This drive has three primary partitions and one extended with six logicals inside it. All but the third and sixth logicals are hidden. Most third-party apps running from inside Vista will see things correctly. (SP1 and 2008 have not rectified this issue).  Windows Setup [EMS Enabled] You may see this on screen message as an apparent startup option when you boot the computer from the Vista DVD. Just ignore it and hit enter to continue and everything will progress as normal. EMS is Emergency Management Services and I thought it was solely to do with Windows Server, but perhaps it can now be used to recover a damaged Vista OS? You will only see this message if the DVD setup detects some remnants of a previous Vista install somewhere on the drive. I have been unable to find any Microsoft comment on this. |