Dumb question #8,432

But it's only my SECOND dumb question thread, so please bear with me:

I want to take my new 750gig drive which has Vista64 Home Premium pre-loaded on it, and create 3 new partitions for a total of 4:

*Shrink the C drive to 100gigs
*Create a new partition of 25gigs for ripping, downloading and burning (as a holding area from which those will be moved to a Data Only partition).
*Create a 100 gig partition for a back up of the Vista C drive and maybe later for installing XP or 7 on. (I'll also be backing up my C drive to a USB external drive.)
*And the remaining space would be the Data Only partition (minus whatever HP has put on there as part some kind of back up area, I'm not sure but I've heard reports...)

Now since the whole drive should be already formatted to NTFS, will I do the above by using the SPLIT command each time, only not moving any files just leaving the files on C drive. (Later I'll be adding files directly to the new drives, from a USB backup I have made from my old computer.)

As I understand it I could create a split of the C drive into two, then go to the 2nd created partition and split that into two, then once again on one of those 2, to create my 4 partitions. Right?

And each time I will boot back to Windows, check to see that the partitions are there and show under My Computer and in Disk Management before proceeding to the next SPLIT. Right?

Before I do the above I should use TI to create an image of the drive as HP delivered it?

And then after I do the splits above and copy my files to them and set up my AVG virus software and get connected to the internet and so on, then I should make another TI backup of that configuration?

Is this the right way to go about this?

Thanks for helping me through this. I've never used Imaging nor Partitioning software before so it's a bit confusing to me.

 

Always make an image prior to using DD10. Your strategy may change as you perform the tasks individually (it is a good idea to do them one at a time using the rescue media).

As you go about performing the tasks some may not work out as you want and you can try alternate ways. If everything melts down you will have a good image to try again.

 

I strongly recommend against using the Split and Merge options in DD. They can cause all sorts of problems if something goes wrong.

Instead, just resize (shrink) your partition first and then create a new partition in the unallocated space.

For example:

1. Boot to the DD CD.
2. Start DD and select Manual Mode.
3. Resize the Windows partition smaller.
4. Apply the change.
5. Boot back into Windows and make sure things are okay.
6. Boot back to the DD CD.
7. Start DD and select Manual Mode.
8. Create a new partition in the unallocated space.
9. Apply the change.
10. Boot back into Windows.

And so on...

 

Thanks. I will boot from DD and then use the RESIZE operation as you describe, MudCrab.

Not to bite the hand that feeds me (i.e. since Acronis sponsors this forum), but really, I would like to know why it is that the Automatic functions of DD 10 don't seem to work very reliably and everyone seems to warn of very possible disasters (of which I nearly saw, myself, on my first use of DD in trying to borrow space from one partition to add to another, in the Auto mode), yet Acronis's instruction manual says nothing of any of this. They say that all of these functions work just fine and don't even say you should boot from the DD disk to do them. And the implication is that the Auto method is best for beginners, yet everyone seems to recommend NOT using the Auto methods.

I guess my point is that this software seems to be less than reliable and the instructions that come with it seem to be less than forthright and thorough. I think Acronis should work on that.

 

Yes you are correct -DD10 can be bewildering in the where/why of which procedure works.

We all now know that DD10 works in mysterious ways, especially considering the actual computer manufacturer and the further complicating factor of the particular software installed ( anti- malware, utilities and Sandboxes/reboot solutions [like Returnil ect.] being very problematic).

If members will respond (perhaps in multiple poll threads) with details concerning tasks such as resizing and merging and other reported "difficult" procedures we may get a sense of what proportion these are to the majority of cases.

For all we know there may be a "silent majority" where these are not problems at all.

I know that on some of my OS partitions these are no problem and yet on other OS partitions with different applications they are impossible but innocuous, or impossible and deadly, requiring a new image or re-installation of the OS (XP in my case [with "Windows 2000 Professional" I tend to leave well enough alone]).

DD10 needs many more user experiences recorded if we are to assess which procedures are more prone to malfunction, enabling us to make better risk-of-failure decisions.

I think hundreds of user experiences are needed: thus the need for Multiple Poll Threads to ferret out the idiosyncrasies of DD10.

Is it even possible to have "Poll Threads" in this particular forum?

 

I used the auto features to resize 3 partitions on an external hard drive recently. (A 1TB Western Digital MyBook). I used the increase size wizard to increase the size of the first partition, and told it to away free space from both of the other partitions on the drive (Disk Director determined for itself how much it took away from each one). When that operation was complete, I used the same wizard a second time to increase and adjust the size of the second partition, and took away the required free space from the third partition - leaving the first partition alone. When that operation was complete I had all 3 partitions exactly the way I wanted them. I ran the check disk function on each partition before and after, and everything turned out fine.

I also wanted to note that before I did the operation I defragged each partition and checked for errors. I also had backups of each one in case anything went wrong. Additionally, I turned off my anti-virus and disconnected my computer from the internet while I did the operation.

 

Good thinking and precautions go a long way when dealing with DD10 --as your success shows. Your input will go a long ways to alerting others.

 

I would recommend using the Vista disk manager to shrink the Vista volume as the Vista partitioning is different from the standard in DD10.

I suggest backing up the Vista shrunken, Vista partition with Acronis Home 9 (which I assume knows Vista partition diffs), then use DD10 to partition the standard partitioning that Vista *will* abide by when restored (worked for me on my laptop at least). If you temporarily create blank partitions of efs for example, a Vista or XP install won't try and use it, and will *hopefully* play right when you run a BCD boot program (I got Easy BCD to work for me - with learning pain).

It was very challenging for me to get Fedora64, XP, and Vista Home running on a 6 month old laptop with Vista installed. Kernel upgrades and grub/BCD/boot changes still are hard to keep Fedora 9 up working.

Lets hope that DD11 work for Windows7, Vista, and will boot with it's linux kernel on new machines. I am struggling with a new motherboard with Win7 64 and Fedora 10 x86_64 as I type.. getting close, but Fedora 10 isn't working after installing Win7 and EasyBCD (using Neogrub part of EasyBCD - complicated, but great tool). My head's a mess.

 

Disc Director doesn't work well with Vista, so ...

I'm curious as to why one would even choose to use Acronis Disc Director to use with Vista when there are so many potential dangers with it and it is apparently unreliable with Vista, and unreliable to use the "auto" functions which it advertises as working?

I'm also curious as to how Acronis can have the nerve to advertise it as working with Vista when it does not...

Why not just use some other Partitioning software such as paragon or some other?

 

Re: Disc Director doesn't work well with Vista, so ...

I have had both XP and Vista 64-bit installed on my computers and I've never had a problem with Acronis Disk Director or True Image, other than having to do a work around in installing my boot rescue disk.

 

Re: Disc Director doesn't work well with Vista, so ...

Well, having to do a workaround such as that shows that this is less than 100% well made software. But if you read some reviews around on the net - and hell, even here on this forum, with all the problems posted - you will see that this is just plain poorly written software and that claims made on their site as to what it does and how it does it are not entirely accurate.