Vista - Unable to create new "visible" partition

I have just purchased an Acer Aspire 8935g laptop, which comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 32bit (not sure why 64bit isn't supplied). It has two 500gb hard drives; Disk 0 and Disk 1. Disk 1 is empty and I have successfully created 3 partions on this drive. According to Vista's Disk Management tool, Disk 0 contains three partitions. The first and last are both EISA Configuration partitions and can't be seen through Windows Explorer. The 2nd (middle) partition is the C: partition on which Vista is installed.

I want to install Windows 7 RC 64bit in a dual boot configuration, so I used Disk Manager to shrink the C: partition and then create a new 100gb partition. I assigned it the drive letter B: (there are no floppy drives on the laptop). The new B: partition is visible, along with the original C: partition through Windows Explorer, until I reboot the laptop. The B: partition then disappears and Windows Explorer can no longer see it, however Disk Management shows it is still there but it no longer has a drive letter and is now an EISA Configuration partition. I thought this issue might be caused by the choice of drive letter so I tried again using a different letter (F. Each time the drive is only visible to Windows Explorer until the laptop is rebooted. I've also tried using a different partition management tool (Partition Wizard) but it makes no difference. I've tried creating the partition as logical and primary but to no avail.

Can someone please explain what is happening? Why can't I create a visible partition on my "O/S" drive?

Hi, Milleniumaire.

I'm not sure it would make a difference, but did you format your new
partition before you rebooted?

I've never had a laptop of any kind, and haven't bought a new computer in 20
years - I just buy the components and build my own - so I have no idea about
an EISA configuration partition, except what I read in these newsgroups.
But I would expect only a single EISA partition, for the OS recovery files.
How did you get two on your Disk 0? Did Acer explain that?

It sounds to me like you did everything right, so I hope some Acer guru can
explain this to both of us.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"Milleniumaire" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:18bbe031a220bfda13c642cc26ec7e0a@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Hi RC,

I did format the new partition before rebooting. After shrinking the original C: partition and making space available for the new partition it was necessary to format it before I could create the new partition (or was it after I created the new partition). Either way it has definately been formatted.

I've been looking for a good Acer forum that might be monitored by Acer gurus, as I suspect your right and this is likely to be an Acer specific issue.

Milleniumaire

I contacted Acer who tell me they don't support the creation of partitons on the main O/S drive as this will affect their recovery software! They went on to say that if I do change the way the recovery software works it would void the warranty!!!!

I'm absoluteley amazed. I have a state of the art laptop with 2 x 500gb disk drives. I can partition one of them, but not the one with the O/S as this will void the warranty.

Hi, Milleniumaire.

BUMMER! :>(

Many users (and even Microsoft) disagree over the question of whether
multiple partitions are better than a single one. I think it varies
depending on how YOU want to use YOUR computer. I'm not sure I would ever
buy a computer from a vendor that saddled me with a policy like you
describe!

My typical configuration - dating back a decade or so to when I began
dual-booting Win95/NT4 - is to create a single primary partition on EACH HDD
(I currently have 4, two of which are a RAID 1 mirror) and mark it Active.
Then I install Windows at least once with each HDD set in the BIOS as the
current boot device, so that Setup creates the proper MBR, boot sector and
startup files on that HDD. That way, I can always boot from Disk 2 if Disk
0 is damaged or missing. After creating the one (small) primary partition,
I create an Extended Partition covering the rest of the HDD and divide it up
into multiple logical drives as I need them. My 200 GB Disk 0 has 3 logical
drives, plus 15 GB of Free space. (I don't need the pre-beta build of Win7
anymore, so when Win7 RTM arrives from MSDN next week, I'll just delete or
reformat Drive Y: - the 6th logical drive on Disk 1 - and use that 60 GB to
install RTM. WinXP/Vista/7 doesn't care whether it is in Drive C: or D: or
X:, and I've also learned to not care about that. About half of my 1 TB
Disk 1 is still unused, but I'm running out of alphabet for Drive letters.)

Thanks for the report back about Acer's short-sighted policy.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"Milleniumaire" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:f6f33e2db0d32626a258d6710df282a7@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

HI, again, Milleniumaire.

I just saw an earlier thread in this NG, Subject: Preferred Install of
Vista x64 Ultimate, in which Noel Paton, a former MVP, reported in a post
dated 5/2/09 that his Acer 8930 had 4 partitions:
Still seems very strange to me!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"Milleniumaire" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:f6f33e2db0d32626a258d6710df282a7@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Use something other than B for the drive. B is associated with a removable
drive.

"Milleniumaire" <guest@xxxxxx-email.com> wrote in message
news:f6f33e2db0d32626a258d6710df282a7@xxxxxx-gateway.com...

Hi, Duck.

Can you cite some authority for that assertion?

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@xxxxxx
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100

"TheDuck" <theduck@xxxxxx> wrote in message
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