Disk Director 10 repeatedly refuses to re-size partition

Have you tried booting to the DD CD and doing the resize?

Are there bad sectors on the drive? Bad sectors can cause problems when resizing. DD usually won't resize partitions with bad sectors.

It's recommended to have an Entire Disk Image backup before making partitioning changes in case anything goes wrong.

@ MudCrab
Thanks for the speedy reply.

Have you tried booting to the DD CD and doing the resize?

No. I don't have the CD.
EDIT: Or have I misunderstood? Did you mean the bootable Rescue media (I do have that)?

Are there bad sectors on the drive? Bad sectors can cause problems when resizing. DD usually won't resize partitions with bad sectors.

Apart from - possibly - this behaviour of Acronis I'm not aware of any indications of there being bad sectors on the drive. Last time I used chkdsk (in MS Recovery Console) it didn't detect any. Unless shown otherwise I shall continue pointing the finger at Acronis DD rather than at my hardware.

It's recommended to have an Entire Disk Image backup before making partitioning changes in case anything goes wrong.

Noted, but I already made a disk image of this disk.

As matters stand, I'm stuck because Acronis DD isn't doing what it's supposed to do and I don't know why not. Can anyone in Acronis come up with some guidance please?

What version of Windows are you using?

It's generally recommended to use the DD CD if DD in Windows needs to restart to perform the operation. This gives you more control over the process.

The DD CD can be created using Media Builder (installed with DD) or you can download the ISO file from your acronis account and create a CD from that using any ISO capable burning program.

Also, check that you're using the latest build of DD 10 (2288). If not, you could install it and see if that helps.

If you still have problems, please post a screenshot of what DD and Disk Management show for the drive.

My o/s is Windows XP Home - SP3.

I'll explore the options you suggested. Thanks.

Will report-back the results.

The DD CD can be created using Media Builder (installed with DD) or you can download the ISO file from your acronis account and create a CD from that using any ISO capable burning program.

I created a CD.

Guess what - the splash screen appears then the menu screen, then selecting 'DD - full version' produces A BLANK SCREEN. Nada.

Actually. I wasn't entirely surprised because nothing in Acronis has ever worked for me without a hassle. That aside, I had already previously made a CD with both True Image and DD on it and when I tried to run it I got exactly the same result with that one. Until I repeated the process from scratch, today, I had been assuming there had been something wrong with the way I'd produced the earlier CD (on a different computer be it noted). Now I know it wasn't that - there must be a common cause for both failures.

My monitor is a Samsung SyncMaster BX2350, digital, if it helps to know that. The splash and menu screens appear to my eye to be in VGA resolution, so why doesn't the CD continue displaying in that resolution? What's causing the display to vanish?

It's usually caused by the CD version (Linux-based) not correctly supporting the computer's hardware. I don't know which version of TI you're using, but DD 10 is quite old now and is no longer updated.

You could try using the Safe Mode version of DD. It's DOS-based and uses the computer's BIOS to access the drives.

It's usually caused by the CD version (Linux-based) not correctly supporting the computer's hardware.

That figures. I've experienced exactly the same behaviour when trying to run from a Live CD the most recent version of Mepis Linux and Megeia. This has all been happening since my previous LG monitor died and I replaced it with the Samsung. Why does Linux have these problems?

Also, check that you're using the latest build of DD 10 (2288). If not, you could install it and see if that helps.

I checked, and I wasn't, so I d/l'd the latest build and ran that. Made no difference.

You could try using the Safe Mode version of DD.

Where can I get this, please?

Linux shouldn't be having a problem with the monitor itself. It's usually the motherboard's controller chipset drivers or the video chipset. Linux is usually many months behind Windows in hardware support with some items being much longer or never supported. Also, they tend to drop older hardware support out of the newer kernels.

For the Full Mode version from the CD you created using the downloaded ISO, did you try using option 3 from the menu? This will sometimes allow it to work.

The Safe Mode version isn't on the downloaded version. You need to use Media Builder and select to include it in the build. When you boot the CD you will have the option to use either the Full Mode version or the Safe Mode version (and the OSS programs if you included them). I usually include them all on the CD.

Hi MudCrab

I'm glad to report that (having opted this time to use 'Safe Mode') I was able to use DD to re-size my partition, at last.

But, what a hassle! And I still don't know why DD wouldn't do this from within Windows, so as (if possible) to avoid having the same problem another time.

Still, many thanks for your patient help on this occasion.

I appreciate that (as you pointed out) version 10 is now regarded as so ancient by Acronis that they no longer support it. That's one of the things I most dislike about Acronis: they're always so eager to bring out and sell new versions so as to make more money, whilst meanwhile they don't focus on getting the previous version(s) to work as they should. So one is always running a half-baked product no matter what version one's using. And they can never leave well alone: every new version involves a new cosmetic makeover of little or no benefit to the user who was perfectly comfortable with the "old" familiar one. (Reminds me of Micro$oft...) "Planned obsolescence" I think it's called in Marketing circles.

Regards

I had the same problem with DD 11 Home - ton of unallocated next to a C that is running out of space - the description of "resizing" in the DD user's manual suggests it should work - it didn't - I'm not sure at this point if I gave the unallocated space a partition letter first but I eventually just tried expanding C and it worked .

I was wrong - I keep interchanging 2 SDD and when I posted b4 i was going from memory - DD was on the other drive when i responded above - i just looked & there's no expand option - i'm pretty sure i was unsuccessful at first with the re-size but then eventually it must have worked.

I'll probably never use DD again - i have a Lenovo laptop & neither the Lenovo software on the machine or Windows 7 had the capabilty of letting me recoup unallocated space on a new SSD after i had performed a backup & restore using Lenovo's tools.

Hi Ubermax,

i have a Lenovo laptop & neither the Lenovo software on the machine or Windows 7 had the capabilty of letting me recoup unallocated space on a new SSD after i had performed a backup & restore using Lenovo's tools

So, purely as a matter of interest (I don't own an SSD drive yet) is this a characteristic associated with SSD drives in general or is it peculiar to the Lenovo/Win 7 combination? And if you won't be using DD to change partition size, what will you be using instead? Just curious.

let me begin at the beginning : i bought a larger hard drive (HD) because i was running low on space on my original - i'm not a computer guru & so I'll try my best to explain what happened next - my original Lenovo HD has 3 sections ( partitions ) , a system area (S) that's small, the usual C space , & a section called Q - Q holds stuff that is specific to Lenovo , i.e. a "factory" copy of the machine at purchase and backup/recovery software along with various diagnostic tools ; when I open Win7 Disk Management I can see a graphic of these distinct sections or partitions.

Using Lenovo's backup routines I backed up the old drive along with boot media to an external HD , swaped drives, & then restored from the external to the new - I expected S & Q to be the same size as before and C to be much bigger - i was upgrading from 60gig to 256 - to my surprise C was also the same size and I had a large area labeled "unallocated" - Win 7 Disk Management didn't let me expand C into the "unallocated" space - and hence Acronis Disk Director (DD) - and BTW I believe I resized C in DD without checking the append box - originally I thought I needed to check that box but it didn't deliver the expected results.

Don't know the answer to your first question - I say I probably won't be using DD in the future because I have plenty of HD space now - and again not being a computer techie I don't feel the need to fool around with partition size just for the fun of it - but who knows it may come in handy to solve a future issue yet to be revealed ? an expensive "tool" but it allows me to utilize an even more expensive HD.

Were you able to finally reclaim that "unallocated" space ?

@ Ubermax

Were you able to finally reclaim that "unallocated" space ?

Yes thanks.

(But Acronis's forum doesn't have any way - that I can see - to mark a thread as "solved". In fact, it has no "forum tools" except Search. Acronis just has to be different from (almost) everyone else, instead of emulating best practice. But I digress...)