Repartitioning a Vista machine with DiskDirector

I've wanted to resize the partitions on my Vista machine for several weeks now in order to gain a little more space for shadow copies on the C and D drives, but have been reluctant to do so after having read many threads about DD10 messing up Vista installations. I use this machine daily in my job and any interruptions would be a major problem. Tonight I finally just went ahead and did it and it all worked out perfectly. Here's what I did.

1. Old partition layout was [Vista 25 GB primary] [Data 25 GB logical] [Backups 99 GB logical].
2. I wanted [Vista 40 GB primary] [Data 40 GB logical] [Backups 69 GB logical]
3. Create an image of the Vista and Data partitions using ATI. Verify the image. This is for insurance purposes!
4. Turn off System Restore on the Vista and Data partitions in order to delete the shadow copies and restore points as a means of making the partitions a little smaller.
5. Defragment all three partitions.
6. Quit Vista and boot into the DD10 recovery environment, manual mode.
7. Select the Backups partition and resize down from 99GB to 69 GB, leaving free space at the beginning of the partition. Commit and wait about 10 minutes for DD to finish moving the data in the partition up higher.
8. Select the Data partition and resize up from 25 GB to 40 GB. Move the partition's data to the right and leave free space at the beginning of the partition. Commit.
9. Reboot into Vista and check the results -- as expected.
10. Reboot into DD10 recovery environment and resize the Vista partition from 25 GB to 40 GB by incorporating all of the free space following the partition.
11. Reboot into Vista and check the results -- perfect!
12. Re-enable System Restore on the Vista and Data partitions. Create a restore point.
13. Run chkdsk to check all three partitions -- no errors or problems found.
14. Run Vssadmin to check the size reserved for shadow copies -- increased from 3.75 GB to 6 GB as expected.

A couple of comments -- my disk's layout was originally created by the XP installer a couple of years ago and was later repartitioned by DD10. When I installed Vista, I did not let Vista reformat its partition, so it used the current layout which has the partition boot record starting in sector 63.

Since I didn't relocate the start of the Vista partition during these operations, I did not have to repair the Vista bootloader; it just worked. Moving the starting sector location would have required a repair with the Vista DVD, as others have noted.

It was nice to have planned this out in advance, thought about it for long enough to determine that it should work correctly, and then have it work out as planned.

 

Mark,

I'm glad it worked out well for you. I just wanted to note that in my testing of the sector 63 problem, it does not occur when Vista reformats an existing partition (during installation, for example), only when Vista creates the partition. If the partition already exists, then Vista won't move it when it formats it.

 

Paul:

Good point. Thanks for the clarification.

 

i am having problems with this, when i make my desired changes then select commit, it reboots 2x, but the changes haven't been made,

running the latest build on a Vista machine

 

Are you running DD by booting from the rescue cd or from Vista?

Try it from the rescue cd if you haven't. It works better that way sometimes.

 

to all,
I am trying a similar project; mudcrab has tried to help me on this in another thread.
my question in this thrad relates to the sector 63, and the vista boot repair.
I have to delete an initial wasted toshiba partition,and move c: to beginning of drive, but I do NOT have a vista disk (toshiba does not providde one).
Mudcrab, you had given me some links on the boot repair, but I don't think anything can be done without the vista disk.

any other way around this?
any other feedback apreciated.
Nick

 

aoz:

In your case, the need for a repair has little to do with the 63 sector offset. Vista uses a different method of booting. It gets all of the boot information from the Boot Configuration Database (BCD) stored on the disk in the Vista partition. This information includes the location of certain files within the Vista partition. Since you moved the Vista partition, the BCD needs to be told the new location, and doing a repair operation does this.

MudCrab probably told you to look for a utility that repairs Vista's BCD. There are a couple available if you search on Google. That's one way to repair. Another way is to use ANY Vista DVD. All you need are the repair utilities on the DVD, so you can borrow one from a friend or someone at work or maybe even go to a PC repair shop to borrow theirs.

As an aside, I think that PC manufacturers who rely on only a recovery partition are making a big mistake. There are too many times when you really need a CD or DVD containing the OS. Your case is a good example of why you really need one.

 

Mark,
thanks for reply.
It is a pain that tey do not provide the repair utility, and I'm trying to get one.
(as an aside, TrueImage saved me, I restored to a 5-minute-prior bckup, before I moved the partition, but I STILL want to get rid f that wasted space).

Another item of interest; windows has a PE kit, (which is why BART PE was created), but for VISTA, I found a link (not available right now, can't find it) that had a download for what needs installed, to build the PE disk.
I don't know if THAAT disk has the repair utilities on it, but will post info t this forum if I find that that is the case.....

anyway, again, thanks for reply.
Nick

 

Nick,

If you have a BartPE CD and can boot from it and access your Vista partition, then you may be able to run the bcdedit.exe program (usually located in C:\Windows\System32) and repair your Vista boot. There are other third-party BCD editors that are probably easier to use, though.

I've booted my BartPE CD and can run the bcdedit.exe program fine, but I didn't try to make any changes since it's a working system.

Booting from an XP installation CD and dropping to the command prompt may also work.

 

Try the free VistaBootPRO, which I've used and is very popular.

http://www.vistabootpro.org/

 

I will try it this weekend, after making bckups, etc.
I do have a bart PE disk, so will boot and see if I can see the vista partition anyway.
and I'll look at VistaBootPro

 

John:

Have you used VistaBootPRO to repair a non-functioning Vista boot that was caused by moving the starting location of the Vista partition? Does it work automatically like the repair function on the Vista DVD?

Also, it looks like a Windows application so it appears that you would need to have a functioning dual-boot PC in order to run it. What do users who only have Vista on their machine, no Vista DVD, and a non-booting system do to recover? Can this utility help recover from a situation like that?

 

K0lo, VistaBootPro is a tool for editing the bcd; much easier than bcdedit. As you know in XP, editing the boot.ini was easy, but no more with Vista.

In Vista the F8 startup brings up a more robust "recovery console" than XP where you can use bcdedit manually to repair the bcd.

So far (thankfully) I have not had to deal with a non-booting Vista system. The most common repair comands used via the Vista DVD or F8 are:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot
bcdedit /set {default} device boot
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot

Here's the very active VistaBootPRO user forums:
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/index.php

 

k0lo,
your scenario is exactly what I am dealing with.
1. deleting initial toshiba media partition (plays CD's without stariting windows)
2. move c: to beginning of dirvie
3. CRASH, can't boot, can't find Winload.exe

SO, after reading your post, and john,s post, I don't think tha the VistaBootPr is going to work for me.
BUT, the F8 options might, but I don't know what Im doing yet to edit the bcdedit stuff; what I need is a vista disk with recovery features;
toshiba states microsoft should give me one; microsoft says toshiba should; I told them both to lose their life functions, and ignore incident numbers, because ehty were both crazy and talk nonsense.
SO, without recovery disk, it's off o learn about BCd.

In the interim, TrueImage saved my life, I reverted back to c: at same position it was, restored the media partition,....
nick

ADENDUM, I went to the link htat John provided; I could not find an answer on our issue, or an easy way to edit BCD (parameters hat would let me just change pointers to new position of c

The F8 option , if we can find what pareameters to edit, would take care of this, I think.
we'd needto know
1. initial position of c drive (what parameters pooint to it)
2. what parameters to enter,if we move the c: partitin to beginning of drive, what to enter.

any feedback apreciated, and if I come up with easy entries, I'll le youknow.

John , any feedback from you on parameters to enter would be appreciaed (I don't even know what the BCD file parameters look like, and I don't want to screw up vista yet, by trying this, until I know what I'm entering....)

I don't mind altering the machine, but as I just got vista, I'm on a learning curve for it

thanks
Nick

 

Nick:

Here is another solution. If you can purchase a Vista Anytime Upgrade DVD, it can be used as a repair DVD. CompUSA has them for $5 here, or maybe you can find one locally.

The DVDs were designed to let Vista owners upgrade to a different version by purchasing a license online. But the DVD actually contains all of the Vista versions so it can be used as a repair tool. It would be a good thing to have around for any PC owner who was not provided a DVD by the manufacturer.

 

K0lo, thanks for the great link for the Windows Anytime Upgrade disc. What a bargain.

a0z, I found this while searching some re bcdedit. You still have to get into the Repair during startup. I haven't ever tried or had a need to use the bootrec command, but here is the documentation:

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows Vista
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

 

to both of you, thanks for reply.

re: the anytime upgrade, I DO have that disk; I will try booting with it, to see what comes up. I did not know that had the recovery info or the vista installs on it.

I stillhave not had time to move the partition, but hopefully this week I can get to it.

thanks
Nick