X200 HD refuses to be partitioned -- am totally stumped!

Question

I just purchased an X200 whose HD I'm trying to partition, in order to separate OS and software from my data. I've successfully done this several times over the years on other IBM/Lenovo laptops (a T40, a T43, a T60 and a T61) using version 8.01 of PowerQuest Partition Magic. The T61, which was the most recent experience, was not as straightforward as the previous ones, but what I'm encountering with this X200 has me completely stumped. 
I'm running Windows XP Professional (factory downgrade), which I've updated to SP3. All critical updates, Microsoft and Lenovo, have been installed.
 Here’s what looks normal: 
1. Windows thinks my hard drive is fine. I performed a CHKDSK on Drive C and it encountered no errors whatsoever. According to disk properties, Drive C has 143 GB total capacity, 16.3 GB of which is used, and is an NTFS disk.
2. Lenovo's ThinkVantage Create Recovery Media had no problem reading the drive and creating a bootable CD and backup DVDs. 
3. Likewise, Acronis True Image Home 9.0 successfully backed up both Drive C (Pri, Acct, 143.4 GB capacity, NTFS) as well as SERVICEV001 (Pri, 5.679 GB capacity), FAT 32 Partition: 0x12 (Compaq Setup).  
Here's what is NOT normal:  I'm unable to partition the drive with a) PowerQuest's Partition Magic 8, with b) GParted 3.9-13, with c) Easeus Partition Manager 3, or with d) Paragon Partition Manager 9 (demo version). Below are the error messages received. 
a) Partition Info (a tool within Partition Magic) informs me that “Disk Geometry errors were found”:
Error #105: Partition didn't begin on head boundary.  ucBeginHead expected to be 0 or 1, not 32.
Error #106: Partition didn't begin on head boundary.  ucBeginSector expected to be 1, not 33.
Error #109: Partition ends after end of disk.  ucEndCylinder (20673) must be less than 20673. 
Partition Magic itself doesn't even initialize: “Error 117, Partition's Drive Letter cannot be identified.” 
b) GParted saw ONE large unallocated and unformatted space, but refused to let me to do anything with it other than have the program reconfigure the MBR and thus delete every file on my drive. On other forum threads GParted was highly recommended because it can partition a Lenovo drive and leave the Service Partition intact, but on my HD it can't even see the Service Partition. 
c) Easeus Partition Manager simply saw one Primary Local Disk which it labeled "BAD DISK." Its size is 149.05 GB, ALL of which is used. Status = "none" (I have no idea what that means.) 
d) Paragon's PM refused to create a new partition because "Basic Hard Disk 0 already contains four primary partitions. Basic hard disks can contain only four primary partitions, including extended one." Other screens gave much detail about what it thought were 3 primary partitions, all of which have "Invalid" file systems and "No label." One of the start sectors was 33, the other 46. 
So my question is, what do you suggest I do now, other than drink a lot of eggnog while I hope that Santa brings me a new HD I can partition?  ;-)
 I’m not an expert on computers, so please forgive me in advance for asking stupid questions. Here’s the first one: did ThinkVantage’s “create recovery media” backup the Windows XP files that came from the factory, or the ones I painstakingly updated after several hours of Windows Updates? (I did run it AFTER doing the updates!)
Many thanks in advance, and happy holidays to those who are celebrating at this time.
Lena
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Answer 1

Bottom line for whoever else has the same problem in the future:
Booted with a GParted CD, allowed it to rebuild the partition table, and to build the partitions I wanted. (The latter was a waste of time, because when I restored Windows using Rescue & Recovery, the partitions GParted had built were gone.) If all GParted sees is unallocated space, program it to create only a C partition and rebuild the partition table.
I very strongly suggest redundant backups prior to this procedure. I backed up using R&R to *both* CD/DVD and USB HD. I ordered the boot sequence (press F12) as USB HD followed by USB CD. I'd tested the CD but not the HD. And yikes, the USB HD refused to boot. Fortunately I had the CD, which enabled me to boot, and the HD, which enabled me to restore the files more quickly than the DVDs would.
Windows was restored to the way I had configured it (with other programs I'd installed, including Partition Magic). The Service Partition was there, hidden as it should be, accessible from the Blue ThinkVantage Button, but smaller than it used to be. I immediately created a new R&R backup on the local HD.
Then I used PowerQuest's Partition Magic 8.01 to create the partitions I wanted. PM worked like it should. My guess is that any partitioning program would.
Finito. Thanks, Soap, for confirming my impression that this would require a disk wipe.