I am posting this in hopes that someone has a shorter method of resolution when "disk director" will NOT expand the size of the music partition nor allow changes to the unallocated space.

THE FOLLOWING IS NOT AS DIFFICULT AS THE DESCRIPTION, BUT I AM ADDING ALL STEPS I CAN RECALL - THE SOFTWARE GUIDES YOU THRU FOR THE MOST PART.

.......... I used Acronis Disk Director Suite. The only issue was that it would not use the UNALLOCATED space of my HDD to expand the MSV partition. I tried to create a new partition from the unallocated space first, but it would not do that either. Apparently, The software only allows 4 "primary" partitions per HDD (thanx google). All four AVIC partitions are primary and MUST remain so when installed. This sort of handcuffed Disk Director. so......

I made the fourth (USER) partition "logical" temporarily using the CONVERT option, thus leaving 3 "primary" partitions.

I then temporarily created a 5th partition from the unallocated ( became the 4th primary) then expanded the size of the music (MSV) partition using the "increase free space" option. I used some of the space from the temporary 5th partition (part of the software proccess) to add to the music (MSV) partition and increased the size to 30 GB.

Finally I returned what remained of the 5th partition to "unallocated space" AND changed the 4th (USER) partition back to "primary".

that left me with the following 4 FAT32 primary partitions.

LDATA - 17.52 GB

SDATA - 572.8 MB

MSV - 30 GB

USER - 572.8 MB

unallocated - 9.8 GB? (dont recall - depends on HDD size - I was 60GB)

AGAIN THE SOFTWARE GUIDES YOU THRU MOST OF THIS. selecting a partition will give a list of options available to that partition such as resize, convert, copy, expand, etc...

Is there a shorter way to accomplish this ???

I used the fully functional Trial version of Paragon Partition Manager 9.0 last night to expand my new Z3 Music partition. It was a simple drag operation. First I moved the USER partition all the way to the right (other side of the unallocated space). After doing this the unallocated space was right next to the MUSIC partition. I simply right-clicked the music partition, selected "resize" and "dragged" the music partition to expand it into the unallocated space. Hit "apply" and the move and the resize operation started. Took about an hour for the operation to complete.

I wonder if Partition Magic would work as well?

i wanted to expand it...whats the biggest size you can make the music partition without causing problems?

I wonder if Partition Magic would work as well?

I've got PartitionMagic 8.0 and was unable to get it to work. It would only recognize the drive as "BAD". I think it has something to do with PM not working correctly with a USB drive.

I used all the unallocated space for the music partition and have has no problems.

Yeah, I had the same problem. I ended up using Paragon Partition Manager, and it seemed to work okay. I bought an adapter so that I could hook up the notebook drive to a desktop IDE cable. I thought that I would be able to connect that to a USB enclosure, and read the drive via USB, but that didn't seem to work.

What type of USB device are you using to access files on the unlocked Z* drive?

Thanks.

It's just a standard USB enclosure...$15 at my local computer store.

It's just a standard USB enclosure...$15 at my local computer store.

Hmmm...I wonder why my PC didn't see the unlocked Z* drive when I hooked it up to my USB enclosure...

Did you get the "Found New Hardware" message in your system tray? You might try leaving it attached and restart if you haven't already. Maybe you got a bad enclosure?

I tried that. I know that the enclosure works, because I have used it numerous times. I'll ended up connecting to the IDE cable, and went that route.

It's just a standard USB enclosure...$15 at my local computer store.

 

Hmmm...I wonder why my PC didn't see the unlocked Z* drive when I hooked it up to my USB enclosure...

Mine didn't "see" it either...it was there in the device manager, but no drive letters were shown and it was not present on the"my computer" screen. Once I uploaded the image using Acronis, the 4 partitions showed up though.

Yeah, I had the same thing happen....I ended up getting the partitions to show up, but only after I connected the USB enclosure directly to my PC, instead of through a powered USB port....

I also noticed that the partitions showed up all as labeled TFAT, instead of with labels that I've seen discussed on this board.

 

Mine didn't "see" it either...it was there in the device manager, but no drive letters were shown and it was not present on the"my computer" screen. Once I uploaded the image using Acronis, the 4 partitions showed up though.

If you encounter this problem again, right click My Computer>Manage. Then go into disc management and change/assign the drive letter of the disc you're having problems with. Should fix it for you.

 

Mine didn't "see" it either...it was there in the device manager, but no drive letters were shown and it was not present on the"my computer" screen. Once I uploaded the image using Acronis, the 4 partitions showed up though.

 

If you encounter this problem again, right click My Computer>Manage. Then go into disc management and change the drive letter of the disc you're having problems with. Should fix it for you.

That was half of the problem...there was no disc letter to change

 

Mine didn't "see" it either...it was there in the device manager, but no drive letters were shown and it was not present on the"my computer" screen. Once I uploaded the image using Acronis, the 4 partitions showed up though.

 

If you encounter this problem again, right click My Computer>Manage. Then go into disc management and change the drive letter of the disc you're having problems with. Should fix it for you.

 

That was half of the problem...there was no disc letter to change

Noted and I have edited that post to reflect what you pointed out.