Bootmagic Issues – BootMagic and a FAT32 Recovery Partition
Posted by Anandhan Subbiah on Mar 7, 2007 in Technical Articles • 6 commentsI installed PartitionMagic as I had a 100 GB drive and just a single partition. I have a HP media center desktop with a recovery partition (FAT32) . I decided to partition the single drive into multiple drives so i can group data. All was well till I installed BootMagic which came with the installation package.
The fun started after that . BootMagic for some reason installed only in FAT32 drives and my recovery parition was FAT32 . I did not realize it. The side effect of this problem is BootMagic hides the parition in which it is installed. So i could not see my recovery partition anymore and worse everytime I use PartitionMagic to unhide the partition BootMagic would hide it after a restart . I could not delete BootMagic as my OS could not find it . The only solution was to manually delete bootmagic.
1. From the operating system where BootMagic is installed, go to C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information and remove the directory {B838AD63-FD0C-482C-B124-7116748BAC45}.
2. Go to the Temp directory (for example, C:\Windows\Temp if you are using Windows 98, or C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp if you are using Windows XP) and remove the directory {B838AD63-FD0C-482C-B124-7116748BAC45}.
3. Remove the directory where BootMagic was installed . I had to use PartitionMagic to see the parition and remove the files.
4. Run Regedit, do a global search for the product GUID {B838AD63-FD0C-482C-B124-7116748BAC45}, and remove all matching key entries.
I started getting an error “Error finding BootMagic” after this . So I created another FAT32 partition and then installed Bootmagic and uninstalled it without a reboot and it finally WORKED.
Yup. Had a similar problem. I wanted to create a Linux partition so I could run Red Hat in addition to XP. PartitionMagic seems to work fine but when I tried to install BootMagic it said it needed a FAT partition. So I created a FAT32 one and installed BootMagic. Looked fine – could see the new partition appearing as a second hard drive in My Computer with all the BootMagic files in it.
When I rebooted I got the BootMagic menu and selected XP but then found that the new partition had disappeared. Into PartitionMagic to find it had been hidden. Unhid it, but it was hidden again on reboot.
My problem is that I now won’t be able to get into the BootMagic configuration to add Linux to the BootMagic startup menu. And I can’t uninstall because the uninstaller can’t find the BootMagic files. It really is magic – not.
I’ll try the manual uninstall.
Oh yes, I forgot. both PartitionMagic and BootMagic keep on urging you to create rescue discs. But the computer (a Dell Inspiron 1300) doesn’t have a floppy drive and PartitionMagic doesn’t accept a CD writer.
I don’t have a floppy drive either I always use my XP recovery option. You can configure XP to take snapshots of your computer on a periodic basis.
. The simple rule should be to never ever install Boot Magic and the folks at Norton should stop bundling Boot Magic with Partition Magic.
Agree with you it is really magic-not
I made the mistake of installing boot magic, I’ve tried to remove it from my computer. It seems that it is invinsible and can’t be removed. Any ideas?
boot magic version 5 ou 6
Also had this problem its due to the Bootmagic default settings on drive visibilty – after hours of messing around found this – lesson look at the SW vendor’s site first! Works OK now and I can re configure at will.
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/powerquest.nsf/0/2b8762d8b801549888256e75007c8ed0?OpenDocument&seg=hm&lg=en&ct=us
most important to follow instructions esp. steps 19 to 26 in the procedure:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/powerquest.nsf/docid/2004032254520562?Open&docid=2004038971389362&nsf=powerquest.nsf&view=0&seg=hm&lg=en&ct=us