How to enlarge the primary partition for XP sp 3?
This is the first time I’ve tried to use Disk Director 11. I have XP Pro sp 3, and had a tough time understanding the instructions since there are quite a number of words to learn that I have never seen before. The first time I tried my operation, the computer booted up with no icons on the screen, and fortunately, True Image 11 worked, I re-copied C, and so I am back in operation.
My hard drive is a RAID 1 array, and is divided into 5 partitions. The first is the Primary partition, C. The operating system is there. After that, there are 4 logical drives/partitions, D through G. Almost all of my programs, and also Acronis True Image 11 and Disk Director 11 are on D. The other three have different kinds of data on them.
I want to enlarge the Primary partition, C, by taking space from the next Logical partition, D. This is what I think I have to do:
Re-size D, which will leave an unallocated space that, hopefully, will appear between C and D on the DD 11 screen. Then I go through a similar operation to re-size C. The computer will take the unallocated adjacent space, and add it to the C partition and I’m done. Hopefully.
I have two reasons for writing this question. One is to check if I understand what I’m doing, since I thought I did before but had not understood. Since it didn’t work correctly the first time, I wanted to check.
The second is: what happens if something goes wrong? I have backups of most of the partitions, including C and D, but if I re-size D, the backup won’t fit anymore and I’d not be able to fix the situation with True Image. Or would I?
Thank you for your help.
Anton.
Thanks for your answer. I got more or less the same thing today from the chat site. Sunny Arora explained this to me.
The article you reference was the one I used to get straightened out. I think I can do this now, but am waiting until I have a block of time to actually be sure that I can fix my computer if something goes wrong. Like I said, I'm just paranoid because I thought I had done the right thing from the beginning, but instead, my computer became useless. I'm sure glad I have True Image 11. Otherwise I would have spent hours and hours reloading all of my programs.
Knowing that the D partition would re-load even though I shrunk it does make sense, but I just wanted verification to boost my confidence. I'll post what happened in a day or so when I've finished.
James
I finally figured out how to enlarge an adjacent partition. It worked, and my computer still functions as it should.
What threw me was that you have to CREATE the unallocated space first. So here’s what I did:
1) Right click on the D partition, chose “Resize Volume” on the drop down list and then move the little gold ball on the left to the right until you see that the size of the D partition suites you. Don’t touch anything else.**
2) Click on the “Commit Operation” bar on the top left of the screen, and follow the commands. The computer will reboot itself and create the unallocated space.
3) Start Disk Director again, and right click on the C partition this time. Chose “Resize Volume” and then look for the correct buttons to push that append the unallocated space AFTER the volume. When you click on the “Commit Operation” bar once again, the computer will reboot and perform the operation. Poof!
** Well, when you move the little gold balls, you’ll see the appropriate box change the value in it. You can set the unallocated space there too if you wish.
If anyone has any comments they want to post, feel free.
I would just note that it's generally better to perform "reboot" operations by using the DD CD (this gets Windows out of the picture). However, since you had backups (good for you) and you knew the restore works (also good), you were safe. Doing the operation in two parts (like you did) is also recommended. Some people try to apply all the changes in one procedure and, if DD fails, they don't know where it failed and are usually left with nothing being changed or a complete mess.
One of the biggest mistakes people can make is to not create a backup before making partitioning changes.
Thank you so much for the affirmation MudCrab. This program is really useful, but with all of the different words for things, it's confusing to a beginner. Both the chat support and Anton, the Acronis expert, suggested I download and use the "bootable media" as they call it. But when I questioned (complained about) the fact that I would have to now learn something else, they said it was OK to do what I had in mind to do.
If I get time, I'm going to try to figure out how and when the bootable media is useful. Do you know the special reasons? Would it work on a computer that doesn't have Disk Director 11 on it?
James
The DD CD boots into Linux. As long as it correctly supports the computer and sees the drives correctly, it usually works fine. Yes, it will work on a computer without DD installed. The program itself is very similar to the Windows version. There really isn't anything "new" to learn. You might boot it and just poke around. You don't have to make any changes. Just see if it works.
Super!!! I have an old computer with SP3 on it, and I downloaded some sort of upgrade that put my computer so down that I can't get it to boot up. Maybe this will fix it. I tried what I thought was a good image from Ghost, but it wasn't or something. It'll be worth the try anyway. Other than that, all I know to do is Fdisk.