Random XP Failure and Partition Question

[DeleriumMDK]

Ok well a month or so back all was going fine with my PC, I kept my Virus Definitions up to date kept spyware off my PC whenever possible and for a year all was fine, till I installed Music Match Jukebox. Everything appeared to install fine, I inserted a disc into my CD-RW drive to make MP3's of, and it acted as if the disc was not in the drive. Now it is a demo from a band, and to cut costs it was released on CD-R so I figured the disc crapped out on me, I go in to My Computer, all my Drives are gone (Daemon Virtual Drive, DVD-RW, and CD-RW) I figured I need a reboot. I then was unable to even enter Safe Mode, or DOS so after an hour of chain-smoking, and swearing a blue streak I reinstalled..everything seems ok now...but this leads me to a question. If I had no Virii on my PC, or Trojans of any kind, what could cause this? At the time of the crash I had 25 of 40 GB free, so I doubt its HDD related.

This re-installation leads me to my next question...When I was re-installing XP, I chose where to put this new partition, over the original one as it was dead and I was having no luck booting, but I noticed something a bit odd. I had a FAT32 partition on my Hard Drive, about 40MB on it. I've never heard of a PC having both an NTFS and FAT32 partition, is there any reason why Dell would have this invisible/unusable partition on a PC? Its a Dimension 4400. Sorry if this is a stupid n00b question, but Im just really starting to learn hardware and configuration info as I go along, and I was just curious about this. Thanks.

Rick

[thayne]

Just a guess, but I would say your HD got seriously messed up. I would reformat the entire drive (delete all partitions) and start over.

[holistic]

A few manufactures (from what i have experienced) nowdays put an "invisible" partition on the harddrive.
I believe it (can) serves two purposes
1. Assist in older machines reading large harddrives
2. Assist in the (manufacturer) restoration of windows.

[ ] Agree [ ] Disagree

][

[DeleriumMDK]

Just a guess, but I would say your HD got seriously messed up. I would reformat the entire drive (delete all partitions) and start over.

I thought this initially but now its been about a month since re-installing XP and its running as well as it did when it came out of the box. Right now Im gunna just assume everything is ok and if it ain't broke (right now anyways...) not try and fix it.

[pyrate83]

Hewlett Packard is one of those manufacturers that put that hidden partion on their HDD. I have an HP, modified to my liking now :P but my main partition is NTFS and then the 5GB partition where the image of my HDD is is FAT32.

So yes, both can be on a PC if it was not a custom built PC but one from a major manufacturer.

[gmatov]

Yes, both can exist, and if you dual boot 98 with 2k or XP, the FAT32 has to be, but you can convert your 2k-XP to NTFS during install.

BTW, if you also had Linux, you'd now have 3 file systems.