Disk Geometry errors

[nonsequitur]

this problem has really knocked me down a few pegs.

i'm trying to upgrade my laptop hard drive from 40 GB to 60 GB. i've used fdisk in linux and partition magic in windows to set the partitions on the 60 GB drive, and i keep getting geometry errors in on the darn thing.

assume for a minute that i'm a complete noob. how would you go about this transition ? i have a laptop and an external usb drive for a 2.5 inch laptop hard drive.

thanks for any help...

edit.... for some reason, the only time i get an error is with a norton product (ghost or partition magic). when i boot up the 40 gb drive, and have the 60 gb drive attached via usb, windows disk management sees the partitions ok.

[unhappy_mage]

That's very odd. Did you install a 32GB fix on the 40 GB drive? It'd be a little piece of software that's put at the beginning of the drive. If so, you'd also have to install that on the 60 GB drive.

There's no change in the number of bits it takes to represent 40GB or 60GB; the cutoffs are 32 and 64 GB. So that's why this is such an odd problem.

http://www.hardfolding.com/ftag1.php/mem/150072.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=38&tm=33&id=150072)http://www.hardfolding.com/utag.php/mem/1392.png (http://www.hardfolding.com?go=36&id=1392)

[nonsequitur]

the 40 gb drive came with the laptop. it's a thinkpad that once-upon a time had the rescue partition. i ghosted the operation system, repartitioned the drive and restored the operating system. i've had a few linux partitions on there as well.

when i have a chance tonight i'll post the exact error. i'll also try to see if i can get the partitions set before i try to copy anything.

does it make sense that the windows os doesn't see anything wrong with the drive, but partition magic labels it bad ?