Are you feeling a strong tendency to monasticism after reading the manuals? Are you still mumbling "All I wanted to do was to install Xyz OS (TM), not to spend the rest of my days reading about partitions and boot sectors"? Have you read the manuals at all? NO WORRY! This is the document for you. This is a step-by-step manual of what you should do in order to use Partition Resizer successfully. I hope you'll find this document easy to follow. You will have to read README.1ST of course, and print it if possible, because you may need it for reference. You should also print this document too. Just remember to take a good look at INCOMPAT.LST, and print TROUBLE.DOC to have it handy in case of emergency. BE WARNED THOUGH: Follow these instructions precisely. If you need to do something that is not clarified here, you have to read and understand all the proceedings described in the other documents. This document is complementary to README.1ST, not a replacement for it. You're supposed to know all the restrictions written in README.1ST before reading this document. It's better that you plan the whole process before actually performing it. This will help you prepare any boot disks or programs needed for emergency. So, before running the program, read this document and prepare your system without running Partition Resizer. START HERE: - First choose which partition you're going to work with. Let's call this partition "the working partition". - OK, let's take a look at your system (you must follow the according step for each Operating system you've got installed): - if you have plain DOS installed, jump to "DOS" section. - if you have OS/2 installed on a fat partition and you're using dual boot, go to "OS/2 on FAT" section. - if you have OS/2 installed on an HPFS partition, go to "OS/2 Normal". - if you have Windows 95 or later installed, go to "Windows 95". - if you have Windows NT installed, go to Windows NT". - if you have Linux installed, go to "Linux". - if you have any other Operating System, go to "Other OSs". DOS: Plain DOS. Let's take a look at your device drivers: - Check your working partition's integrity with a good Disk Checking Utility. Norton Disk Doctor or Scandisk will do fine. If you're not absolutely sure for your disk's surface integrity, perform a surface scan too. - You can now go to the "Defragmentation Process" section. OS/2 on FAT: - Check your working partition's integrity with a good Disk Checking Utility. I don't know if there are any restrictions for which programs you can use. If you're not absolutely sure for your disk's surface integrity, perform a surface scan too. - The following apply only to the boot partition. If you're not going to work with the boot partition, skip this and go to the "Defragmentation Process" section. - To reinstall OS/2 startup files, use SYSINSTX.COM. - Boot with DOS, and delete the "bootsect.*" file. This will prevent any accidents. You'll have to reinstall the file after you've finished (this should be done by running OS/2's FDISK and adjusting the Boot Manager settings from there). - Now, go to the "Defragmentation Process". Windows 95: - Check your working partition's integrity with a good Disk Checking Utility. Norton Disk Doctor 32 or Scandisk for Windows 95 will do fine. If you're not absolutely sure for your disk's surface integrity, perform a surface scan too. - You won't face problems running Partition Resizer with Windows 95. Just remember when following the Defragmentation Process to use a Windows 95 suitable Defragmentation Utility, since any other will destroy the long filenames. Also remember that you can't run Partition Resizer under the multitasking environment of Windows 95. You must first restart the computer in MSDOS mode. - Now you can go to the "Defragmentation Process" section. Windows NT: - You shouldn't move Windows NT partitions (you can't resize them anyway), I haven't checked if there are any implications on the file system integrity, but you won't be able to boot from the partition (probably you can fix this afterwards with the emergency disk). Linux: - No problems, either with moving a Linux partition, or a swap partition. Just create a startup diskette, it may become handy afterwards... Other OSs: - Well, nothing is granted from now on. Things to avoid in general: - Don't move partitions created by other Operating Systems. - Don't move or resize bootable partitions (not even DOS partitions) if you're not sure you can reinstall the appropriate system files and boot managers. - If Partition Resizer gives you errors concerning these partitions, take a good look at the log file if you're an experienced user, or else send me a message with the log file. Don't run Partition Resizer if you don't understand the problem completely. Defragmentation Process: - If defragmenting your disk takes less than 20-30 minutes, read this section. If it takes more than 30 minutes, just skip it and go straight to "Running Preparations". - If this process seems too complicated, skip it and go to "Running Preparations". - Run "attrib -s -h -r \*.* /s" at your working partition. It would be nice to know which files in your disk are hidden or read-only or system, so that you can set their attributes back to normal when you've finished. - If this is your boot partition, run "attrib +s +h +r \io.sys" (it's \ibmio.sys for IBM DOS). - If you're running Windows 3.1, and there is a file named "386spart.par" in your root directory, delete it (the file, not Windows...). Don't run windows again, until after using Partition Resizer. The next time you run windows, you'll have to reinstall your swapfile (Control Panel/386 Enhanced/Virtual Memory). - Run a defragmentation utility (like DOS's defrag or Norton's Speedisk. If you're using Windows 95, you'll have to run Defrag from within Windows; any other defragmentation program will destroy the long filenames. Choose "Full Optimization" as your optimization method. This is not necessary, but it will save time from presizer. - You can now set the file attributes back to normal. - Go to the "Running Preparations" Section. Running Preparations: - OK, it's D-Day. Get a good diskette, check it for bad clusters you might have missed, and prepare it as written in README.1ST. - Print all the manuals if possible. You might need them as reference. - Don't write protect the disk: Partition Resizer has to write things on it. - Create bootdisks for each operating system you've got installed. You may need them if you can't boot after running Partition Resizer. - If you're using OnTrack Disk Manager or any SCSI driver, you must load it before running Partition Resizer. - Now you are ready to run Partition Resizer. Running Partition Resizer: - Boot from the diskette you've created. - Run Partition Resizer. - If there are any errors or warnings, the best thing to do is to read TROUBLE.DOC. - If there are no errors or warnings, you will be moved to the program's main menu. From now on, it's up to you to choose what you need to do. - If your computer hangs for too long (it has never happened with version 1.1.2, but who knows...) reset it and immediately rerun the program. - If your computer restarts before the program finishes it's work (due to software conflict, power failure or accidental interruption) rerun the program (you'd better read TROUBLE.DOC in this case). - if you have plain DOS or Windows 95 installed, jump to "DOS Final" section. - if you have OS/2 installed on a fat partition and you're using dual boot, go to "OS/2 on FAT Final" section. - if you have OS/2 installed on an HPFS partition, go to "OS/2 Normal Final". - if you have Windows NT installed, go to Windows NT Final". - if you have Linux installed, go to "Linux Final". - if you have any other Operating System, go to "Other OSs Final". DOS Final: - Try booting from your hard disk. If you're unable to boot, boot from the boot disk you created. Then change to your hard disk partition. - Check all your DOS partitions. If you encounter errors, check to see what they are. If you followed all the precautions mentioned here and in README.1ST, there shouldn't be any problems. If there are, contact me. Someone told me that he lost all his data because of Partition Resizer. Then he told me that he had a boot sector protection program running along with presizer, he run mirror after running Partition Resizer using the old mirror files he had not deleted, and when he found that he had pressed N when prompted to write to the boot sector, and that his partition was ruined, he rerun presizer to undo what he had done... (the funniest thing is that he finally saved his disk! Among others, he performed a normal dos format up to 1% (!), an unformat (!!!) and some other things which worked! So remember to read ALL INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY! I didn't write 80K of documentation just for fun... - If your data is OK but you can't boot from your hard disk, run sys to replace your system files. - If there are no problems at all, you're ready to use your new partition configuration. OS/2 on FAT Final: - You shouldn't boot your machine now. Boot from a floppy, and check all your dri...
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