Unable To Resize Partition

I'm trying to resize my C partition with Disk Suite and are unable to do so. I have no idea what is wrong because the program carry's out the operation without any errors. Once I resize C the program reboots, no error messages, and nothing. My C drive size didn't change. The only thing I notice is that in the Disk Suite screen it shows my C drive with a red flag. Anyone know what this means? Anyone have any ideas on what I'm doing wrong?

Thank you

 

johnnydisk:

The red flag on a partition indicates that it is the active partition. That's normal.

You will have more success if you resize the Windows system partition from the recovery disk while Windows is not running. If you have not yet done so, create a recovery disk by using the Bootable Media Builder application. (Tools > Bootable Media Builder). Before doing so make sure that you have updated to the latest version of the program, build 2160, by checking Help > About on the menu.

Boot your PC from the disk and try again. If the full mode version cannot see your hard disk, then try the safe mode version.

 

I did everything as you said, the CD booted, I started the program and i got an error stating there are no hard drives present. Of course this isn't the case. I tried the safe mode version and received the same error. Any idea what's wrong? I even tried to run the software in Vista safe mode but it didn't work there either. I feel like this has something to do with Vista..........any ideas?

Thanks so much for helping with this.

 

johnydisk:

You could try going into your BIOS to see if there is a setting for the hard disk controller mode. If so, try setting it to the IDE Compatibility Mode and then try the Acronis boot disk in safe mode. Safe mode should be able to recognize IDE disks.

If this works then set the mode back to AHCI in the BIOS after you have finished the partition resize, before rebooting back into Vista.

If this is the problem then I would suggest you file a support request with Acronis by logging into your account on their web site. Ditto if this isn't the cause of the problem.

 

Thank you for the tip, unfortunately I couldn't find that setting in my BIOS. I have a 6month old Dell and the BIOS is pretty limited. I'm actually to the point where I'm contacting (gasp) Dell's tech. support to see if it might be a setting from the factory thats causing this (of course they knew as much about partitioning a hard drive as an eskmo would about sun bathing). In any case I contacted acronis. Hopefully they get back to me.

Thanks again, and if you think of anything else please let me know.

 

mmmm, Vista and a Dell, seems to be a lethal combination for Acronis lol.
Hope you get some answers one way or another.

 

I have the exact same problem. I have an E: partition that is 138Gb, and has just 4Gb free. My C: partition is 140Gb and has over 90Gb free.

I resize the partitions to give E: 70Gb from C:, and the system reboots, goes through the "Analyzing Partitions", "Checking Partitions", but then says "Synchronising with windows", reboots again, says "Analyzing Partitions" and "Checking partitions" again (much quicker this time), and the finishes rebooting into Vista - with the disk partitions exactly as they were before.

I've run Chkdsk on both disks, and even tried just reducing the size of C:, without resizing E: - nothing works. Having just forked out $60 for this - not impressed so far!

 

nstead:

See post #2 above. Vista does not like being fooled with while it is running. You should only do operations that affect the C: partition while Vista is shut down.

 

I have the same issue with WinXP. I have always had ide drives and it worked flawlessly. I just installed a 320 sata drive and I want to create a partition. Goes through all normal functions reboots and offline does all the changes, but on reboot nothing is any different.

 

stealth2920:

And the fix is the same. If you are making a change to your system partition then it should not be done while Windows is running; either Windows Vista or Windows XP.

What this behavior probably indicates is that Disk Director's recovery environment does not have the right SATA driver for your hardware. When you start an operation while running Windows that will affect the Windows system partition (usually the C: drive), then Disk Director has to shut down Windows and reboot into a recovery environment before any modifications can be made to the partition. Acronis uses Linux for the recovery environment's operating system. If the recovery environment doesn't have a driver for your hardware, and this may happen if you have newer hardware because Linux driver development always lags behind Windows driver development, then the operation fails. Unfortunately there is no communication between the recovery environment back to Windows so you don't get to see any error messages and the only evidence that there was a problem is that when you return to Windows, you discover that nothing happened.

If you run the recovery version of Disk Director instead, you will get to see what's going on. If the proper SATA driver is not present then you will probably discover that you can't see your disk at all.

From here there are two avenues open to fix the problem. First, Acronis provides two different versions of Disk Director in the recovery environment; "full", which is Linux-based, and "safe", which is DOS-based. If full mode does not work then try safe mode. The second avenue that is open to you is to file a support request with Acronis, who can often provide you with an updated driver that will support your hardware.

So if you haven't already done so, create a recovery CD or USB flash drive (Tools > Bootable Media Builder) and boot your PC with the recovery CD. Try the partition operation from the recovery environment.

In general you should never try to modify the Windows system partition from the Windows version of the program because it most likely will fail. It is good practice to always do operations that affect the Windows system partition while Windows is not running. Acronis needs to make this clearer in its documentation because a lot of people expect this to work and are disappointed when it doesn't.