Cheap easy way to resize a partition on an XP drive

Parted Magic is free http://partedmagic.com/

I usually use Symantec Ghost to increase size during the copy

http://www.symantec.com/norton/downloads/index.jsp

there is a link for the trialware copy

-Jim

Since you are familiar with Acronis products, you might want to try Acronis Disk Director, which does what you want very simply - resizes existing partitions, without affecting the data.

just a reminder - you have the option of creating a new drive/partition out of the free space (using windows disk management).

here is a FREE option.... just go to start, control panel, administrative tools, computer management, storage, disk management... you will see your partition on that screen, just right click on it and click expand, and then put the size (the whole disk!) and your done!

You will have to convert the drive from basic to dynamic, if i remember correctly.
before the expand solution will work.

there are plus'es and minus'es for converting to dymanic

-Jim

akahan: I just purchased and downloaded Acronis Disk Director, and tried to install it on my XP Home Sp3 system, and got the following message:
E00640003: The error was encountered while the installation. Acronis installation program encountered the error #1601: "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if you are running Windows in safe mode, or if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance. (0xFFF0) code = FFFFFFFF80070641 Tag = 0xBD28FDBD64EDB816" A possible reason might be that you do not have enough privileges. Please check the installation troubleshooting section of the product documentation.

This is a non-networked, stand alone pc, so I downloaded the newest Windows installer  WindowsInstaller-KB893803-v2-x86.exe  and tried to install that.  It came back with this message:
"Setup has detected that the Service Pack version of this system is newer than the update you are applying. There is no need to install this update." KB893803v2 Setup Error.

So, I bought this, and now it won't install.  Any thoughts?

You can use the built in diskpart command line utility to resize the drive if it is not the system drive. Open a command prompt by going to:

start -> run -> cmd

Now type: diskpart

At the diskpart prompt do the following:

1) Type: list disk (make a not of the disk that contains the volume you wish to resize)

2) Type: list volume (make a not of the volume you want to resize)

3) Type: select disk x (Selects the disk x from earlier)

4) Type: select volume x (Selects the volume x from earlier)

5) Type: Extend Size=80000 (If you do not set a size, such as the above example for 80 GB, then all available space on the disk is used)

6) Type: exit

I do not think it is necessary but I usually reboot after doing this :-)

Just for reference, if the disk is the system disk you can resize it the same way if you put the disk into another computer running Windows XP (as though it is a secondary drive) and use diskpart on it then. You cannot use diskpart to resize a disk that the system volume is running from.

JJClements: sounds like a plan.  Only one thing, do you have any experience with SafeGuard Easy?  This is hard drive encryption.  When I attach the drive to another pc, the pc thinks it needs to be formatted.  Acronis recognizes it, and allows you to copy it, but it thinks it has errors.  Works fine afterwards.

LEECHIPTURNER: I dont have any experience with SafeGuard Easy, if you still have the original 40gb drive then you have nothing to lose by trying the method above though (apart from the fact you may have to use Acronis to copy the data again if there is an issue). To be honest I don't think resizing an encrypted disk should cause a problem but I wouldn't want to be held to that!

Good luck!