disk partition doesn't work

Discussion in 'Acronis Disk Director Suite' started by RebuiltJorge, Feb 5, 2008.

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  1. RebuiltJorge

    RebuiltJorge Registered Member

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    I just install Disk Director Suite on my Dell XPS with vista 64. I want to partition a separate drive so that I can install vista 32. At first Disk Director appears to be working. It says that it partition and new drive assigns a letter and makes me reboot, however once i reboot, I don't see the new partition. what am i doing wrong. Currently I have three partition or at least that is what shows up in my disk manager, can someone please help me, thanks
     
  2. MudCrab

    MudCrab Imaging Specialist

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    When you say "partition a separate drive" do you mean you're trying to create a partition on a different physical drive? Normally, DD won't require reboot unless the system partition is being modified. This usually is not the case when working on a different drive.

    If you mean a new partition on the same physical drive, what is the current drive layout?
    A screenshot of what DD (in Manual Mode) or Disk Management shows might also be helpful.

    Have you tried booting from the DD CD to create the partition?
     
  3. RebuiltJorge

    RebuiltJorge Registered Member

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  4. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    RebuiltJorge:

    Yes; you are trying to modify Vista's system partition. You need to do this when Vista is not running. Reboot to the Disk Director recovery CD and try your operation from the recovery environment.
     
  5. bfb1963

    bfb1963 Registered Member

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    I have the same problem. I run the program, reboot, and when I get back into Windows XP, nothing changed. I run and ACER XP Media Center with all the updates. I have one 250gb disk. I am trying to make a 60gb ntfs partition labelled Z: Video from my factory partitioned c: and d: drives. (Do you think ACER eRecovery is preventing the partitioning? I don't use it at all.)

    Here are the 2 screenshots. Thanks for your help!
    Barry
     

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  6. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    Barry:

    It's probably the same issue - trying to modify the System partition while Windows is running. I would do this instead from the Recovery CD while Windows is shut down. Preferably, do each step individually before progressing to the next.

    In your case:
    1. Resize the C: partition smaller, leaving the rest as unallocated space
    2. Commit and check the outcome. You should have a smaller C: partition with unallocated space between C: and D: partitions
    3. Move the D: partition to the left, next to the C: partition
    4. Resize the D: partition smaller, leaving unallocated space after it
    5. Commit and check. At this point you should have a large block of unallocated space at the end of the drive
    6. Create the Z: partition in the unallocated space
    7. Commit and then reboot into Windows.

    You could probably just do steps 1 and 2 from the Recovery disk and then do the rest from within Windows, since only steps 1 and 2 will modify the system partition. Personally, I prefer to do partition modifications when Windows is not running.
     
  7. bfb1963

    bfb1963 Registered Member

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    Yeah, that did it. But it renamed my pre-existing "d:" partition to "g:", and the new partition was named "d:". It gave me a chance to name it, but not to assign a drive letter. wtf?

    Thanks!
     
  8. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    Barry:

    The boot environment is Linux and drive letters are a Windows thing. But not to worry. Use Windows Disk Management console to change D: to a temporary drive letter. Then change G: to D: followed by changing the temporary letter to G:
     
  9. cortez

    cortez Registered Member

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    If you use DD10 a lot get used to this work around as changed letters can get extremely goofy (like changing your C:\ drive to a higher letter than the CD drive!! very disturbing as one wonders if the registry will ever be "C:\" again in all the necessary places).
     
  10. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    cortez:

    It isn't DD10 but rather Windows that assigns or rearranges drive letters. In Barry's case he made three partition changes which included moving the starting sectors of two partitions. Therefore, when Windows rebooted after the changes there were two new GUIDs for the two partitions that were moved. Windows simply followed its predefined heirarchy for assigning drive letters.

    You can avoid drive letter changes by making only one change at a time and rebooting into Windows between changes. Then Windows only has to assign or reassign one drive letter at a time, and you will be more likely to get the outcome that you were expecting.
     
  11. larrydonline

    larrydonline Registered Member

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    My problems seem to be similar to what's been discussed in this thread. I used DD to create a 200 GIGAbyte NTFS partition on my main hard drive which has 1 terabyte and 800 gigabytes free. I also accepted the new drive letter of "R" that the program suggested. That was the next unused letter.

    My goal is to install XP so I can boot either to XP or Vista Home Edition (preinstalled) on by Dell XPS 430.

    What I got was a 47 MEGAbyte partion in FAT 16 (none of my existing partions were FAT 16) and the new partion was drive E with all the other hard drive letters changed to the next letter of the alphabet.

    Since I didn't get the partition sized the way I asked for, I deleted the partion. It's now unallocated space, which only DD sees. Window's directory doesn't see it at all. Then I took a chance and used system restore and sure enough it gave me back the correct letters for all my hard drives.

    I purchased the download version of Disk Director 10.0.2.160 so I don't have a program disc to boot from. Can I create one by just copying the program to a CD? Or if I use the Bootable Media Builder (which I haven't yet) will that create a CD I can boot the program in and run it before Windows?

    Although the documentation lists "Windows Vista (all versions)" several times at the beginning, when you get into the detailed explanations further on into the user's manual pdf document, it only refers to XP as the last Windows configuration. That makes me wonder if they've really tested it with Vista, or just assumed it would work with Vista. Thanks for any help.
     
  12. K0LO

    K0LO Registered Member

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    To create a bootable CD you need to run the Bootable Media Builder option (on the Tools menu). Be sure to include both "Full" and "Safe" mode versions of the program on your CD. You can also create bootable USB flash drives.

    I've been using it successfully on Vista for over a year. However, Vista "owns" more system processes than XP did and will resist programs that attempt to dismount the system volume, for example. You are always better off making changes that affect the Vista system partition while booted from the recovery CD. Also, Vista "owns" any partition that contains a paging file, so only make changes to those while Vista is shut down. Otherwise, you can do partition operations on non-system partitions while Vista is running without problems. If in doubt, making changes while booted from the recovery CD is the most reliable method.
     
  13. cortez

    cortez Registered Member

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    KOlo: I know this is a slow response but I appreciate your informative link.

    It took me quite a while to get around to invest the necessary effort, but I think I now sufficiently understand your Microsoft link (to me this type of writing is as thick as molasses and my mind tends to "slip" on most Microsoft articles).

    The main word in the article that disturbed me the most was "persistence" in regards to letter assignment (they claim this can be corrected using the Disk Management feature, but when I go hunting into the registry and desktop shortcuts ect., it seems that the "persistence" is much stronger than they lead on to --especially when restoring an OS partition to a different-than-the-original partition using TI10 ).

    Luckily it seems that XP is modular enough to allow day to day operation of applications regardless of what the letters are (at least on my setups).

    On one of my drives I currently have two partitions that are visible to each other (one is "C" and one is "E") but just about everything on "E" is really "C" ( as it is essentially a clone) and so far, for many months never has one accident of an identity type problem happened between partitions.
     
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