While continuing the repair work on Windows XP on my notebook, I thought I would give Partition Commander a crack of the whip. I reviewed this back in October and was quite impressed. It works in two ways, either installed in the same way as any other program in Windows or as a bootable disk.

The latter option didn't work as it couldn't find the hard disk let alone edit the partitions so I went back to Vista and tried to install it. Sadly this didn't work either as it complained of an unknown version of Windows and refused to start.

A little research on the VCOM site revealed that a Vista upgrade was available but only at no cost for those who bought it after 6 December 2006. Too late for me (and lets face it, I didn't exactly buy it either). I recognise that quite a lot of work is probably needed to make software like this compatible with a new operating system, but it is still galling to be expected to pay more money for an upgrade of this type.

There was nothing for it but to resort to a free alternative GPartEd. This is a Linux based disk utility that comes on a Live CD. I've used it before but this time it only made matters worse and Windows XP completely gave up, refusing to show any files in Vista.

The moral of the story. Always, and I mean ALWAYS, make a backup before messing around with partitions. For once I can be smug about this, but not much, because I nearly got badly burnt.