I ghosted my 160 GB image to a new 250 GB HDD. During the process, I was unable to check the resize checkbox as it was grayed out. I figured I could do it afterwards so I proceeded with blowing the image to the HDD. The image was successfully installed on the new HDD and it booted up and all is well except there are the two partitions, the 160 GB and the Unallocated remainder. How do I recover this unallocated partition into my c:? I tried to purchase Partition Magic but it is no longer offered by Norton. Oh and why was the resize grayed out in the first place? I could re-blow the image if I knew how to fix that. Is there a way to do this from the Ghost application (not the recovery disk)? If so, I couldn't find it readily. Help seemed to point to the recovery process for reallocation.
I have an HP laptop running XP Pro with SP3 and a new Western Digital 250 GB PATA HDD. The old HDD is a Western Digital 160 GB PATA.
Welcome to the forum. Did you do a Copy Drive or a backup and restore? When you restored your image to the new drive was the new drive already partitioned and formatted?
How many partitions do you have from your original source drive?
To get the resize option you need to make sure that the destination space on the new HD is NOT partitioned or formatted. This will give you the resize option and Ghost will then resize during restore to fill the larger unallocated space.
But before you redo this, just wanted to clarify points above.
You could also merge these partitions with a utility called BootIt NG which you can find here.
Thanks for your response. I did not do a Copy drive, I did a backup and restore. The new drive was right out of the box. I physically installed it, then booted to the recovery disk and initiated the recovery. I did not format or partition the new drive.
The original drive has only one partition.
According to what you said, the resize option should not have been grayed out. I'm looking at BootIt NG right now but it appears to be complicated. If I can't figure it out, I'll try re-doing the image but I still need to know why resize is grayed out.
BootitNG worked so now I have recovered the full unallocated partition. I'd still like to know why Norton Ghost couldn't do it. I plan to use this in the future and need to understand why it didn't work.
Thanks for the updates, happy to see that you have it working. BootIt NG is an extremely good tool to have.
As far as Ghost is concerned. Do you recall if the new HD appeared as unallocated space in the recovery environment? If you choose anything other than unallocated space then the resize option cannot be chosen. Though the new HD should not have been pre-partitioned or formatted it is possible that it was. If you did not see the new HD as unallocated space in the recovery environment it is an indication that a partition was already established.
I have done about 8 or so system restorals using various versions of Ghost over the years and I do seem to recall once I got a new HD which I could not choose the resize option. And I recall having to delete the partition (even though it was a new HD) and then I was able to resize with Ghost.
I am sure this was the problem with it being greyed out for you.
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