I recently attempted to use Symantec's Norton Ghost 5.1 to increase the size of a mirrored hard disk on my system. No matter what I try, the expansion is unsuccessful. I'm sure Ghost can handle my situation. Can you help me?

A. Your problem is occurring because, by default, Ghost requires that all stripe sets be the same size. Ghost reads the stripe bit (i.e., the signature) on the disk that you want to expand, then won't permit an expansion beyond that size. To solve the problem, click Start, Programs, Administrative Tools, Disk Administrator. Select Fault Tolerance, and break the fault-tolerant stripe set by using the Break Mirror option to eliminate the mirror bit. You can now expand the original disk and easily mirror it to a larger disk.

In the unlikely event that you can't access the stripe bit in Disk Administrator (e.g., if your registry is damaged or if Windows NT won't boot from a mirrored system disk), you can use the Microsoft Windows NT Server 4.0 Resource Kit's Disksave tool. Install Disksave to a DOS disk, then boot to that disk. To disable fault tolerance on the boot disk, press F6. Disksave looks for the bootable or active partition, then determines whether the SystemType byte (i.e., a byte on the hard disk that dictates system type) has the high bit set. (A high bit set means that fault tolerance is present.) Disabling this bit has the same effect as breaking the mirror.