increasing the size of bootable XP partition

I have a hard drive that was originally formatted Win2000 (ie limit 160G)
I upgraded to WinXP. Partition is still 127G. Today I have used the latest TI and created an image. I want to use this to create a bootable disk that is the size of my new drive, all on one partition. I hae tried this several ways today and am looking for assistance.

first, made new logical partition with TI and did not copy the MBR record. could see it fine in the working machine, blue screen 'cannot read bootable media' when I try to boot from it

seconde, read forum. followed directions to copy image one piece at a time, but all in the same operation. i.e. copy the data part, and say I want the partition larger, then say I have more to add, then choose the MBR and it says it will do all of this in one operation. disk is readable within the existing machine, but not bootable

third, gave up and tried to just create the image as-is because I saw on this forum someone recommended to do this and then later to merge the partitions.
I tried this by purchasing and downloading the Disk Director.

the disk is bootable at the 126G exact image, but when I merge it is no longer bootable

advice?

 

You normally can't boot Windows from a logical partition. Your restore with resize should work, but make sure you restore the Windows partition as Active and not Logical.

When you restore the disk image (126GB) it boots okay.

What is in the rest of the drive? Is it unallocated space?
Did you create another partition?

If you just want to resize the Windows partition, you should be able to do so. It's probably best to boot to the DD cd since Windows would have to reboot to do it anyway.

It's not clear to me exactly what you're trying to merge.

 

thanks for responding
I am trying to take an image, which is from a 126G bootable active primary partition, copy it to a new, larger hard drive (300G) and make it bootable.
Whenever I try to make it larger -- either by the slow process of restore to larger, or by the Disk Director merge partition command -- the resulting large partition is readable if I slave it into an existing windows box, but not bootable and readable on its own.
The drive is a brand new 320G. I partitioned the 126G in Windows 2000, then upgraded to XP Pro SP2. When I created the image, it set the partition to 126G. When I merged, I created a partition in the unallocated space first and then chose merge from the Disk Director interface. this worked fine, but isn't bootable.

thanks for your help

 

Don't use the Merge procedure for what you're trying to do.

Restore the Disk Image with TI to the new hard disk.
Boot to the DD CD and start DD. Make sure to use the Manual Mode and not the Automatic Mode.
Select the C: (Windows) partition and select the Resize option.
Resize it by dragging the right end to use all the unallocated space.
Apply the changes.

 

ok, here's a stupid question. I am booting to a CD created in TI. It has 3 options > Windows (continue normally), Acronis DriveCleanser and TI Home.

None of these get me the choices you are referring to. what am I missing?

The Windows thing gets me the blue dead screen, the drive cleanser seems to be for wiping things and the other has the usual choices, none of which seem to refer to boot.

please advise
thanks much.

 

hold on, I'm figuring it out

making a different boot disk from the DD console. probably will see what you're saying there ... lol

 

I assumed you had DD installed and created a DD boot CD using the Acronis Media Builder program.

It sounds like you have TI 11. When you run Media Builder, should have the option to include DD Full Mode and DD Safe Mode on the CD. You can also make a CD with just the DD programs on it if you wish.

Then boot to that CD and select either DD Full Mode or DD Safe Mode to do the resize.

If you didn't create a DD CD, then you may want to restore the image to the new drive (so it boots), then boot into Windows, install DD (if necessary) and then create a new CD. Then boot from that CD, start DD and do the resize.

 

oh, this is awesome!
thank you thank you.
I started with TI, then got DD when I thought I needed it. but stupidly assumed both boot disks were the same. your CD method worked perfectly. now going to follow your USB boot instructions and make myself the whole thing on my usb so no need for the CD in the future

love this stuff.

 

Glad it worked.

Post back if you have any problems or if it goes smoothly.