PowerQuest Norton Patition Magic 8 error, HELP NEEDED

[fiestataz]

hi everyone,

i've done a very stupid move...so my XP doesn't start...

i've been using powerquest's patition 8.0 to partition my HD....I have a dual boot systems, 2 Xps on 2 partitions: C: and E:, C: only has the OS on it, nothing else, very clean, so this is the backup OS that i can access my data when sh*t happens. where E: is the one installed all the sh*t on it.

i recently upgraded to xp sp2, where everything runs fine, and i uninstall my 2004 norton system works & internet security in order to install the new 2005 version, and all these have done well and no problems, but remember i still have to 'old' powerquest's partition magic 8 which is now norton partition magic 8. THEN, i ran speed disk from system work overnite, but didn't work well, since my E: has very tiny free space for it to defragment. THEREFORE i stopped the processing, and RUN partition magic to move some extra space from F: the way i have been adjusting btw my HDs size.)

PLOBLEM: ONCE DONE, I DO 'APPLY' THE HD CHANGES P.M. MADE, THEN IT WILL REBOOT BY P.M., UPTILL THE DUAL BOOT MENU ARE FINE, THEN I CHOOSE THE OS ON E:, IT GOES TO AND HALT AT A BLANK BLUE SCREEN(THIS ONE SHOULD BE THE P.M. BLUE SCREEN, NOT WINDOWS.)!!!!!

i'm sorry i don't have the P.M. rescue disks, and i've tried booting from "last known good config" which is exactly the same as normal boot, it even halts at "safe mode" file extracting.....however, i can boot in C:'s backup OS from the dual boot menu(that's y i can come here to get help), by the way, i'm using FAT32.

PLEASE ANY BODY, WHAT'S THE PROBLEM, WHAT'S WRONG AND HOW CAN I FIX AND RECOVER THE BOOT TO E: AS NORMAL????? GREATLY APPRECIATED!!

[Paul Komski]

I'm very tired and ready for bed so I hope I've grasped this right. You can boot OK into C but the PM resizing changes were never applied on the first reboot into E (almost certainly because of a very full partition - which is the one thing that seems to regularly cause problems with PM).

It sounds like it is repeatedly trying and failing to fulfill its tasks so one thing that might help would be if you could directly move some files from E to F using your C installation and thus create a reasonable amount of free space on E. You can always move them back later.

If you have a way of backing up the partition as an image file then that would also be a good move. If you can do that and verify the image I would think that then simply restoring it to a large enough area of unallocated space would be likely to be successful.

You could also maybe install PM into C and then run its PartIn program, save the text file it generates and upload it here for perusal. You could also use PM to first shrink F a bit and then expand E into the liberated space from within windows; but do this after you have physically moved or deleted some files so that E is not brim full before you make these changes.

[szmartby]

Option 1. Blue screens at boot-up are usualy due to conflicting drivers or missing ones. Moving your stuff to the other partiton may have caused this. Boot E in Safe Mode by pressing F8 before XP starts to try loading and try to identify the corrupt or missing dll/sys/ ... file. If you succede booting in safe mode uninstall the app that uses the dll. If you still can't boot from E boot from C, make a backup of that dll from E in C, and delete it from E. Try then to boot from E.

Option 2. Since you have Norton Installed try to use Norton Ghost to make an image of your XP for backup purposes.

Option 3. Use the CD from which you've installed XP and try to bot from it and repair your XP installation.

Option 4. Get rid of the sh*t. Back-it up on C if you like. Sometimes starting over is the best solution.


Good luck.

[Paul Komski]

IT GOES TO AND HALT AT A BLANK BLUE SCREEN (THIS ONE SHOULD BE THE P.M. BLUE SCREEN, NOT WINDOWS)
I would largely agree with you szmartby if this was a BSOD but I had understood this was the "blue screen" that partition magic itself brings up (when if reboots under WinXP) in order to complete or do actions it could not do while running in windows; sometimes such screens are white on black and sometimes they are silver on blue ones. Its a similar screen to the one that scandsk brings up when this has been scheduled to run prior to the next running of Windows. If it is a BSOD there should be some stop message or similar to read.

A repair might work but would take it back to its pre-sp2 condition AFAIK.

In some versions of PM these reboot options are run by modifying boot.ini so it is worth looking at boot.ini and either editing it manually or running bootcfg /rebuild from the recovery console after booting to the WinXP CD. Use bootcfg /? to see all its options.

[fiestataz]

...thanks a lot paul and szmartby for your hints and leading me thru...i really wanna try paul's approach first, move some files to other partition first and try boot into E:...since lower risk...

talking about backup images, it's been the prioritized task for me and with issues too, i like to use ghost to do it, however, ghost 8.0 couldn't run normally(couldn't initialize) even i uninstall and reintall it...no good, so i install the latest ghost 9.0 which the basic code are from powerquest...it's been running well, however it just couldn't complete any backup images to my dvd+rw rom either one partition or all partitions.....
i digged into symantec's web tech support, they have both of these 2 issues for these 2 versions respectively, BUT still under investigation!!!!!!! damn!!!!! then i uninstall the single ghost 9.0, then install system works 2005 in order to have a better integrity to run ghost....and then was the beginning story of this stupid PM problem.....

so backing up my whole or E is sth that i have been trying hard to pursue...so now:
paul, 1) do u thing windows' backup can do the work well? or i should try installing/running ghost 9 for a better try, since my C: is so clean only the OS.

2) do you think my partition table is dameged? to install PM to C: is ok, what is the PartIn program? is it the same that i have to do the same things (move space from F to E then apply??) if is that case, i won't dare to risk, i have too many important stuff in my PC and i have to go online everyday too.....szmartby, if i can start over, i would, but it may take ages to be back to the stage where i am now, sorry, i really wish i could do that too.

3) this is my boot.ini, it won't tell a lot here (my computer->properties->advance->start & recovery settings->edit):
[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + Service Pack 2 " /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + Service Pack 2 [Backup System] " /fastdetect

4) should i go FIXBOOT or BOOTCFG under recovery console???
And should i go for C: or E? this problem seems to me that i should choose E: since C's OS is running perfectly, but one is the boot code on the partition, the other is the boot manager code, and they may be on different partitions. How do you choose which to run? this is the treaky part.

5) szmartby, i've tried boot into safe mode, but as i said, when you boot into safe mode, you'll c the system keep loading the drivers and stuff like that on the screen, my case was it halts midway when loading these things.....

cheers guys, paul take a good rest......to be continued.

[fiestataz]

hey, now i see sth in boot.ini for my E's XP

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + Service Pack 2 " /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

do u guys think if i get rid of this.......and reboot....i'll wait your adwise first, then try....too many sh*t already......

[Paul Komski]

There are a lot of boot.ini switches (http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/bootini.shtml) and there seem to be a lot of references to this switch being added by sp2. Rather than remove it, (because it may perhaps be necessary), just add another line without the switch and see what happens if you try and boot to it.

eg

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + SP2 with no OptIn " /fastdetect

partin just gives you partition information - it doesnt do anything to your system; you should find it in the PM installation folder. It may tell us very little of any value but wont do any harm.

By all means try fixboot but I am always happier to only edit any partition structures with any partition utilities if you have a backup of the partition or at least of your data. I also think running fixmbr would be more likely to be successful. I know PM has to put its "reboot information" somewhere and some boot sector overlay would be an obvious place. I had thought it was via boot.ini but now I'm not so sure and the mbr sort of "rings a bell" that this could be the problem area.

I don't particularly like MSBackup but anything is better than nothing - and I agree there's no need to tinker with the C installation at all.

PS
And I see that ixl seems to have fixed the bug that used to put a gap between the W and S of WINDOWS in such boot entries!! http://www.pcguide.com/ubb/icons/icon14.gif

[fiestataz]

sorry to keep u wating, i'm SO busy at work lately....

i've tried adding "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + SP2 with no OptIn " /fastdetect", however, it is EXACTLY THE SAME as with the "/NoExecute=OptIn", then i boot back in C: and the system didn't add "/NoExecute=OptIn" to it by itself....so the problem is still going on....

i couldn't backup E: with windows's backup, since using FAT32, the limit for backup is 4GB, besides, i don't have any drive will fit this back up file...it seems to me i have to install ghost on C: and give a shot....by the way, can i safely move MEMORY.DMP first? that files is 1GB alone within E: !!

are these 3 commends FIXBOOT, FIXMBR and BOOTCFG all run under recovery console?
i really afraid that once i try any of them i would even mess up my C: or boot manager then I CAN GO NO WHERE!

paul, sorry, i'm lost with the PS you wrote:
"PS
And I see that ixl seems to have fixed the bug that used to put a gap between the W and S of WINDOWS in such boot entries!!"

[Paul Komski]

The PS reference was for ixl (who's forums these are) and who has fixed a bug that has been a bit irritating for some time; don't you worry about it.

All three commands are run from the recovery console; fixmbr and so on are safe as long as the mbr's disk signature is AA55

You can check this with diskprobe.exe (which should be able to extract from the support\tools folder of the installation CD or be downloaded from the web).
Open diskprobe:
Drives Menu || Physical Drive and double click on Drive0 so that it appears under Handle0. Then choose to set it active.
Select Bytes in the View Menu.
Select Read in the Sectors Menu then Hit the Read button with the starting sector being 0 - you should now be looking at the MBR's hex code and the last two values should be 55 and AA - on the bottom row indicated as row 01F0 in the leftmost column

[fiestataz]

paul,

the situation now is the even worse before i have a chance to extract and use 'diskprobe.exe' by the way, can i use this under DOS?.....

after i use win98's boot disk and give E: a scandisk, Microsoft ScanDisk


Log file generated at 11:33AM on Friday, October 08, 2004.

ScanDisk checked drive E for problems, with the following results:

Directory structure

ScanDisk did not find any problems.

File allocation table

ScanDisk did not find any problems.

File system

ScanDisk did not find any problems.

Surface scan

ScanDisk did not find any problems.

i then installed ghost 9.0 to backup 2 drives image for C: and E:, it ran well, and both image made successefully, sounds good.

then i moved 4 big chunks of files E:\windows\memory.dmp, and 3 acdsee's database files which are not important at all tatally 2.2gb to another partition in order to give some space to E: for a better attemp to boot again, see if the PM complained about the limited free space and rejected to work.....

then now once i boot to my C: when windows start booting (saw windows booting logo and the running bar) after a few seconds, it automatically reboot the machine, i tried safe mode then, the same result........now i really have 'no' where to go and really have to start digging deep.......... :'(
what can i do now? i now have to use my friend's pc to post.....:'(

[Paul Komski]

Since you have backed up you have much more freedom to experiment.

Scandisk seemed quite happy with the file structures and surface so the most likely source of the problems is with the boot processes.

Boot to the installation CD and go to the recovery console and try fixboot and fixmbr. If that fails to help then start a new inatallation from the installation CD but dont go to the recovery console instead go to the point when it detects previous installations - then get it to repair the installation on E.

AFAIK you will have to reinstall sp2 if you do this but that would be "small beer" in comparison to getting your OS functioning normally again.

[fiestataz]

pauls, cheers, before i really to expreiement i have the final question for you:
...i really couldn't find my PM8's emergency disks, so do you think it works if i borrow someone else's or dowload from the web(althought i don't know where to download)???? i.e. someone else's emergency disks work/fix??? if we do it that way, it may save a lot of work or troblem.....

also, i used ghost v9 to image the drives this time, i imaged to dvd+r, but v9 is sucks, it does provide the way to make boot disk and i've tried boot from the image, and it ain't work either...so my 2nd question is does ghost v8(2003) boot disk can extract/restore the image?? if it doesn't....then.......my images are = nothing!!

one last thing, is it because i installed ghost v9 (it requires the .NET framwork 1.1 to run, so have to install that first) on C:, and ghost tried to play around with the partition tables????? so even my C: failed to boot now???

deeply appreciated, mate

[Paul Komski]

Sorry but Ghost is a program I haven't used in ages and have never liked. Only trial and error will give you the answers. Generally programs are backward compatible but often not forward compatible.

I would suggest you begin a new installation of XP onto the C drive. Either delete the partition and install new or repair the existing installation or do a second (parallel installation) into a new folder (say wintemp) if there is enough romm on the partition.

Any of these three installs might also fix your earlier boot problems - though if you do the first of the three above you would need to just add the line for the installation on E to the new boot.ini file.

PM will run fine from floppies made on any system; just dont use any bootsector copies from that pc onto your own pc. The program should run quite normally and you may be able to run it from the bootable installation CD - can't remember if this is the case or not. If you have access to another pc then you can certainly make the floppies from the CD without actually installing the program itself.

[rond36]

hey, now i see sth in boot.ini for my E's XP

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + Service Pack 2 " /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

do u guys think if i get rid of this.......and reboot....i'll wait your adwise first, then try....too many sh*t already......

I too have copies of XP installed on C: and E: and my boot.ini looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional C:" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional E:" /fastdetect


multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) would be your D: partition not E:

The correct line for E: would be:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)

/NoExecute=OptOut is a switch added by SP2 that tells Win XP not to check for anti-virus status.

My anti-virus software is not detected by SP2 and I kept getting a message in the sys tray saying my computer was not protected even though my Vcom System Suite 5 with AV by Trendmicro was updated and running.

[Paul Komski]

partition(3) would only be correct if two other HDD partitions were in place physically in front of this second installation at the start of the drive. partition(3) doesn't necessarily equate to an E partition. The CD could for example be D and the E drive could be partition(2) (or somewhere else altogether). We were never informed of the partin (partition information) structures.

[rond36]

You are right Paul. I didn't think about an ATAPI device as D: if that is the case multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2) would be correct.

[fiestataz]

thanks rond36's concern, and thanks for paul's correction, yes, i do have 2 hds, so my partition3 is D:

....here's the latest report of my orginal problem and experiments....now i am in hell!!

i tried the followings in orders:
before i started, i got a chance to browse the options for those commands from the web.

1) FIXBOOT E (sucessfully)
result: reboot, choose E from dual boot menu, SAME as before: blue screen with nothing and 'halt'!

2) FIXBOOT C (sucessfully)
result: reboot, choose C from dual boot menu, SAME as before: starting booting, see windows logo and bar, loading drivers in the backgroud, suddently automatically reboot!

3) MAP ARC
FIXMBR \Device\HardDisk0\Partition2 (sucessfully)
result: reboot, choose E from dual boot menu, SAME as before: blue screen with nothing and 'halt'!

4) FIXMBR \Device\HardDisk0\Partition1 (sucessfully)
result: reboot, choose C from dual boot menu, SAME as before: starting booting, see windows logo and bar, loading drivers in the backgroud, suddently automatically reboot!

5) boot from xp cd, 'enter' to install new windows. it only detects that i have 1 windows which is on C:, so i have to choose C drive, and let it repare from it.
the repare ran well, and successfully.
result: reboot, it automatically choose the C windows from daul boot menu to continue 'installation', and now system halt adn the windows blue screen shows:
driver_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
Tech:
Stop: 0x000000D1 (0x00000041, 0x00000006, 0x00000000, 0xF7894FE0)
hpt.3xx.sys - address F7894FE0 base at F788E000, DateStamp367d8406

6) reboot, tried to boot to E:
result: reboot, choose E from dual boot menu, SAME as before: blue screen with nothing and 'halt'!

7) reboot, before going to C: F8 to safe mode:
result: windows setup cannot be finished under safe mode.

8) since ghost 9 don't come with boot disk options, so i tried to boot from ghost 8's boot disk with dvd, usb drivers ready on disk, and tried load the C: image i made from ghost 9, surely, it couln't reconize it which the was originally from powerquest!

......my puzzle and questions: is this because i installed the SP2? or i have some devices' drivers the installation don't have?
paul, when you said, delete the partition(C), do you mean under console and use delpart? but can i just use fixdisk to format C and reinstall xp?.....
for E:, i can't not think of any way to safe boot into my E: unless use partition magic 8's boot disk, but i don't have the cd, nor my friends have it. so is there any ways that i can have it........to be continued

[Paul Komski]

The easiest way to delete the C partition is by using the installation CD itself. Choose new installation and carry on till you get to the part where you get to choose where to install it. Choose to delete an existing partition and then confirm that you want to delete the first partition on the drive. Then install into the unallocated space it will have created for you.

I would avoid using fdisk - its too easy to delete everything - but if you do not have access to a new installation of PM try downloading the trial of BootIT NG from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/ and copy it to a floppy. When you run the floppy just don't bother to install it on the HDD, press cancel at that stage and go into the partition work area on the floppy.

yes, i do have 2 hds, so my partition3 is D:
This is very confusing. Do you have a second hard drive or just a second partition as indicated at the start?? If you have a second hd with xp installed onto it then boot.ini is incorrectly referencing it. If the XP (on E:) is on the first partition of a second hdd the referencing line would be:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + Service Pack 2 " /fastdetect

With all that has happened so far a clean install onto C would seem like a good idea.
is this because i installed the SP2?
I just don't know - nor why you are getting a setup not completed message. But I myself would never install any SP until I had first made a backup image file of the partition somewhere.

[fiestataz]

sorry for the confusing, paul, my fault, you are absolutely right for that. i have 2 HDs, but both XPs are on the same main HD. but once you have 2 HDs, D: must be assigned to the 1st partition to the 2nd HD....anyway, this is not important here.....

i hear you, so you recommend me to use BootIT NG to boot into E: or fix the problem that PM caused? do you think this would be a bit complicated? coz the start of ALL my problems was that PM sh*t mess up everything with windows, the boot, the fat...and if i use one more 3rd party app. do you think it will make me easier to boot into E:? of course as you said if i don't have PM, this could be an option.....

be back

[Paul Komski]

In the absence of PM I was just recommending BootIT NG as a 3rdParty partition manager in preference to using FDisk. It can also make and restore its own image files. I wasnt recommending it to fix previous problems but to let you delete partitions if you didn't want to use the disk management that comes with an XP installation.

[fiestataz]

paul, i managed to delete partition C: and reinstalled xp on C:, so now i can access some data on other partitions - i extract the PM8 rar file, and make myself the PM8's rescue disks.

i boot in with the rescue disk, and ran well, then i used it to check errors on E:, and reported no errors found.....of course the partition size are still the same, since PM never have done the resize job then it was the this whole problem at the begining....

so now what else should i do within the rescue disk's console? or what is my next step to boot back to E: as before?? cheers.

here's how my E:'s root look like:E:\>attrib -r -a -s -h e:\*.*

E:\>dir
Volume in drive E is WINDOWSXP 2
Volume Serial Number is 3A5B-1DE4

Directory of E:\

10/03/2004 03:09 AM 1,073,270,784 hiberfil.sys
03/17/2001 02:56 AM <DIR> WINDOWS
03/17/2001 02:59 AM <DIR> Documents and Settings
01/10/2003 02:34 PM <DIR> Program Files
08/01/2004 01:25 PM <DIR> SafeGuard
1 File(s) 1,073,270,784 bytes
4 Dir(s) 4,124,229,632 bytes free

E:\> ps: safefuard is the program for LEXAR's JumpDrive (the thumb-size USB keyring storage), it was automatically installed to that location when i started to use....

[Paul Komski]

The first thing I would try is to just add the problem partition's reference as a new line onto your new boot.ini file.

add:-
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional + SP2 with no OptIn " /fastdetect

... if E is still on the second partition of the first HDD of course ;) and see what happens when you try to boot to it.

[fiestataz]

....sorry man, it's EXACTLY THE SAME BACK TO THE START OF THIS THREAD !!

[Paul Komski]

Though it is of little comfort, you now know that there is nothing wrong with the boot processes themselves. Sounds like you should retrieve any data you need and do a clean or repair installation of the E installation. Repairing might work OK but doesn't always sit well over a service pack - particularly sp2 (of which the bugs are only beginning to be well known).

The only lesson to be gained is to make an image of your system before using ANY partitioning utilities and prior to installations such as sp2 which change the whole infrastructure of the installed OS.

[fiestataz]

.....greetings dave, much appreciated for your help, here's some follow up and new question for what i have been working on....well, actually to fresh install XP and everything but still have all old data on.....

...i have bought a 200gb ata eide drive for sometime, however have been failed so many times to install it...i have upgraded my mboard BIOS, so it supports >137bg, the reason i failed was i used fdisk to partition it, and tried to install windows, but always windows blue screen and halt, so couldn't install at all. (my hard drives are sit on IDE3 and IDE4 controllers, but i DID NOT active the RAID config....this made the problem more complicated)

....since the problem we have NOT fixed yet, i try a lot more experements to install my new 200 gb hd, and luckly, i DID! the reason why is: i removed ALL partitions, and made it only primary C: left, then install XP, so now, i have this 200 gb baby as primary, and the old one as slave....i can boot to the new 200gb XP, also can boot to the old but new installed C's XP, remember? the E:'s XP is still waiting for solution......

now here's the new concern: how do i partition the NEW formatted 186gb drive??

i have tried:
1) install PowerQuest's PM 8.02 on new 200gb's C: and on old hd's C: and other partition, but once i click the program, windows' blue screen and halt! so i uninstalled it completely.

2) actully the SAME thing, Norton's PM 8.05 on new 200gb's C: and on old hd's C: and other partition, but once i click the program, windows' blue screen and halt! so i uninstalled it completely.

3) boot from PM 8.02 rescue disk, well, it can see all my hds, and partition well for the new hd, but i could NOT boot back to windows, since the partition table has been changed.....

so now i need ur advice....

cheers

[fiestataz]

sorry paul, i mean paul, i was writing a mail to another guy... ^_^ .....greetings dave

[Paul Komski]

now here's the new concern: how do i partition the NEW formatted 186gb drive??
I would try to avoid creating partitions and then resizing them after the OS is installed. Try to decide in advance on how you want the drive partitioned and then let the WinXP's disk management do the partitioning. Fdisk shouldnt be necessary at all and if using PM I would tend to prefer using it from the boot floppies or better still from a bootable CD; it runs very well when installed on an EBCD (http://ebcd.pcministry.com/). PM doesnt come with the EBCD download but can be built into it.

The other issue with partitions greater than 137GB is to do with needing 48bit LBA support (http://www.48bitlba.com/partitiontools.htm) so presumaby you were using a slipstreamed version of WinXP to install onto a 186GB partition.

[fiestataz]

.....that's what i've done first, partitioned the drive then install OS, however as i experienced (see last reply), OS just couldn't be installed once the drive was partitioned, that's Y i left the new drive behind for a long time...

....so for now, you mean i can partition it with disk management?? or i have to format C: then use PM's boot disk partition first, and reinstall XP on it? i don't know if i can install it back once partitioned!! i am so tired of it now......

besides, what is slipstreamed ver? what's the difference between others? sorry, i really don't know.

cheers

[fiestataz]

...i've read some info from the link you gave me - 48bitlba.com, and i went in disk management figure it out that i can not creat any partitions unless there's some unallocated space....

so i boot into PM's boot disk, resized the 186gb into 2 parts, primary and an unallocated.(not like last time, i partitioned all the partitions i wanted, and XP didn't boot) this time, XP boots up!!! so now i can go to disk management to create logical and some partitions....

the problem is: before i did this, XP was SP1 patched already, so within disk management, we saw 186gb......HOWEVER, now, XP only sees 137gb limit in tatal with the unallocated.....i am puzzled again.

[Paul Komski]

XP was SP1 patched already That is effectively a slipstreamed installation CD. When you do this manually with an ordinary installation CD and a service pack (sp1 or sp2) this is called slipstreaming (http://www.windows-help.net/WindowsXP/winxp-sp2-bootcd.html)

BTW you don't need large partitions for WinXP 5-10 GB should be more than enough, especially if you install your programs and store your data on other partitions.

i can not creat any partitions unless there's some unallocated space
True; you would need to delete or shrink other partitions if there is none. Splitting can also be done but I don't recommended it; its more reliable to shrink and then create a new partition in the newly created unallocated space.