Resizing problem/Dilemma

Hello everyone

I have a harddrive with three partitions and in XP they are assigned as G:, J: and M:

G: and J: are on a EXTENDED PARTITON.

We leave M: alone in this case

XP is installed on J:

G: is a legacy partition which has followed generations of drives at my place by cloning software similar to Ghost. But now it has become a pain. It is too small for anything useful.

What I'd like is to delete this partiton and let J: take te freed space.

I know this is possible (in theory) with programs such as PQMagic, Acronis DD Suite, and some shareware/freeware programs.

I've had success earlier with shrinking G: and letting J: take this space.

BUT when repeating this two years later everything got messed up, one g: was fine but j: was wrecked, i had fortunately a backup but i did not manage to restore xp to its normal state again.

I have enough free space to take a backup of G: and J: The problem however is that since XP is installed on J: the following things can happen, I'm not sure however:

1. boot.ini contains reference to partiton and disk for the windows install. It would be reasonable to assume that this mapping will be ruined when deleting G: and it is hard to modify boot.ini without getting into XP.

2. AND even worse, the letters will change. J: might become G: and then the whole system will wreck itself because the registry points to absolute path (J:\Windows) countless times.

3. If G: is deleted but XP boots nicely into windows there's still a risk of the letter-assignments getting ruined when resizing the J: partiton.

A possible solution i've considered is using something like purchasing Acronis TrueImage and make an image of the xp partiton. delete both G: and J: make a new partiton and restore the image back on this new partiton. Although this is the most safe way considering the risks involved in resizing i do not know what wil happen with drive letter assignments and what letter windows will assign to its system partiton.

I have attached a structure of the drive. Kindly disregard the drive-letter labels.

Could anyone provide assistance to the capabilities of Acronis programs in this regard.

 

Hello cluedo,

Thank you for your interest in Acronis Partition and Disk Managing Software.

Yes, Acronis True Image 9.0 allow you to create an image of this partition and restore it after the hard drive was formatted. Please be aware that MBR of the hard drive will be not included into the image in case you back up only one partition of it. This means that you will need to fix the MBR after restoring the image. You can fix it as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please also note that most probably you will need to perform the following actions in order to make your operating system to boot properly after the restoration:

- Boot up from the Windows Bootable CD, then go to the Recovery Console (the first Repair option you come to).
- From the command prompt please type:

FIXMBR C:
FIXBOOT C:
BOOTCFG /rebuild

- After that, please reboot your computer.

I recommend you to download and install the free trial version of Acronis True Image 9.0 to see how the software works on your computer.

Please visit Acronis online store to purchase the full version of the product.

Please also note that we have a flexible system of discounts and the amount of the discount varies depending on the number of copies you want to purchase.

In case you are planning to purchase many copies, please contact our Sales Team at sales@acronis.com.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko