This is very interesting Trick from
pc-softwarepk.blogspot.com for all users.
So like and share this post of your friends.
NOTE: I personally tested & found working, this trick was revelled in 2004, I think no one is interested to experiment on HDD. When I test it I fond it working, than I make so many changes written below for getting error free usage of HDD.
Download Ghost 2003 Build 2003.775
Symantec Norton Ghost 2003 by Tygroso (download torrent) – TPB
REQUIRED ITEMS:
1. Ghost 2003 Build 2003.775 (Be sure not to allow patching of this software
2. 2 Hard Drives (OS XP must be installed on both from same CD.)
3. ON HARD DISK (T) which we want to recover Hidden Partition, USE ENTIRE HARD DIRVE AS 1 PARTION.
4. For sake of clarity we will call the drive we are trying to expand (T) in this document (means Target for partition recover). The drive you use every day, I assume you have one that you want to keep as mater with your current OS and data, will be the last dive we install in this process and will be called (X) as it is your original drive.
PROCEDURE:
1. Install the HDD you wish to recover the hidden partitions (hard drive T) on as the master drive in your system with a second drive as a slave (you can use Hard Drive X if you want to). Any drive will do as a slave since we will not be writing data to it. However, Ghost must see a second drive in order to complete the following steps. Also, be sure hard drive T has an OS installed on it you must ensure that the file system type is the same on both drive (NTFS to NTFS or FAT32 to FAT32, etc)
2. Install Ghost 2003 build 2003.775 to hard drive T with standard settings. Reboot if required.
3. Open Ghost and select Ghost Basic. Select Backup from the shown list of options. Select C:\ (this is the drive we want to free partition on on hard drive T) as our source for the backup. Select our second drive as the target. (No data will be written so worry not). Use any name when requested as it will not matter. Press OK, Continue, or Next until you are asked to reboot.
Critical step
4. Once reboot begins, you must shutdown the PC prior to the loading of DOS or any drivers. The best method is to power down the PC manually the moment you see the BIOS load and your HDDs show as detected.
5. Now that you have shutdown prior to allowing Ghost to do its backup, you must remove the HDD we are attempting to expand (hard drive T which we had installed as master) and replace it with a drive that has an OS installed on it. (This is where havinghard drive X is useful. You can use your old hard drive to complete the process.) Placehard drive T as a secondary drive in the system. Hard drive X should now be the master and you should be able to boot into the OS on it. The best method for this assuming you need to keep data from and old drive is:
Once you boot into the OS, you will see that the second drive in the system is the one we are attempting to expand (hard drive T). Go to Computer Management -> DiskManagement
You should see an 8 meg/16meg partition labelled VPSGHBOOT or similar on the slave HDD (hard drive T) along with a large section of unallocated space that did not show before. DO NOT DELETE VPSGHBOOT yet.
6. Select the unallocated space on our drive T and create a new primary or extended partition (single Partition of whole recovered space is MUST for Error Free Usage). Select the file system type you prefer and format with quick format (if available). Once formatting completes, you can delete the VPSGHBOOT partition from the drive.
7. Here is what you should now see on your T drive.
a. Original partition from when the drive still had hidden partitions
b. New partition of space we just recovered.
c. 8 meg /16meg or etc unallocated partitions.
8. Do you want to place drive T back in a PC and run it as the primary HDD? Go toDisk Management and set the original partition on T (not the new one we just formatted) to and Active Partition. It should be bootable again if no data corruption has occurred. (But regarding my research only OS will corrupt no other data corruption will occurs)
Cautions:
Do not try to delete both partitions on the drive so you can create one large partition. This will not work. You have to leave the two partitions separate in order to use them. Windows disk management will have erroneous data in that it will say drive size = manus stated drive size and then available size will equal ALL the available space with recovered partitions included.
This process can cause a loss of data on the drive that is having its partitions recovered so it is best to make sure the HDD you use is not your current working HDD that has important data. If you do this on your everyday drive and not a new drive with just junk on it, you do so at your own risk. It has worked completely fine with no loss before and it has also lost the data on the drive before. Since the idea is to yield a huge storage drive, it should not matter.
I prefer use Recovered Space for Junk Storage files like movies and other junk material which is not so important for us, cause in our country here is a big problem of Electricity, if your system cruses down due to electricity that might be 50% chances of data loss on recovered space of Hard dive, but no data loss will be occuer on original space of 1st Partition of the Harddive.
Interesting results which I done by these simple steps
Hard Disk model Capacity before Capacity After
Westren Digital (SATA) 200GB 510GB
Westren Digital (SATA) 250GB 490GB
Toshiba Laptop (SATA) 160GB 320GB
IBM Deskstar (EIDE) 40GB 80GB
Segate (EIDE) 40GB 80GB
Samsung (EIDE) 40GB 80GB
Maxtor (EIDE) 40GB 60GB
Segate (EIDE) 20GB 25GB
