Making Vista Partitions Smaller

[astral]

My friend has just bought a Sony Vaio with Vista installed.

He set about partitioning the 120Gb disk.

The smallest that Vista would allow for the C: partition was 78Gb.

He does not want to put all his data in with the OS, well who would.........

but Nanny MS know best.

He then came across a free copy of Paragon Partition Manager on the CD with the

latest edition of the UK magazine PC World.

The s/w itself will not run with Vista but it does allow the generation of a bootable "recovery" disk.

Booting the Vaio from the Recovery disk he was able to get the C: drive down to a more sensible 20GB

I pass this on for others who may also be struggling with enormous Vista partitions.

[cdnvic]

Have you tried GpartED?

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Also a nice piece of freeware.

[astral]

He had previously tried Diskpart.exe which is an old DOS type utility which still lurks in the depths of Windows.

However something Vista? put a stop to any reduction below 78Gb

In this case the Partition Manager was also free, with the magazine.

It is a fully functional version and has now replaced my old copy of Partition Magic 8,

which still relies on Floppies for emergency recovery.

[sjaak327]

My friend has just bought a Sony Vaio with Vista installed.

He set about partitioning the 120Gb disk.

The smallest that Vista would allow for the C: partition was 78Gb.

He does not want to put all his data in with the OS, well who would.........

but Nanny MS know best.

He then came across a free copy of Paragon Partition Manager on the CD with the

latest edition of the UK magazine PC World.

The s/w itself will not run with Vista but it does allow the generation of a bootable "recovery" disk.

Booting the Vaio from the Recovery disk he was able to get the C: drive down to a more sensible 20GB

I pass this on for others who may also be struggling with enormous Vista partitions.

Strange, I have installed Vista on numerous systems, and as far as I know the minimum partition size is around 20 gb, and indeed I have installed it on such partitions. Just by using the vista DVD, no need for other programs.

[Rice_King]

Strange, I have installed Vista on numerous systems, and as far as I know the minimum partition size is around 20 gb, and indeed I have installed it on such partitions. Just by using the vista DVD, no need for other programs.

I concur. Twice I have installed Vista (Ultimate version) and both times used a "minimal" 20 GB of disk space.

Could it possibly be the Sony "branded" version of the Vista OS is the culprit here?

Edited June 8, 2007 by Rice_King

[astral]

Strange, I have installed Vista on numerous systems, and as far as I know the minimum partition size is around 20 gb, and indeed I have installed it on such partitions. Just by using the vista DVD, no need for other programs.

Well that does raise another problem.

Sony seem to ship the m/c with "recovery" sw installed in a special 6Gb partition.

We were recommended to back this up to DVD after the initial startup.

No sign of a Vista Installation disk................

I would like to show my friend how to write one just in case it is needed at some stage.

I cannot see any folder with all the necessary files, the way there was in 2000 and XP.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[cdnvic]

Strange, I have installed Vista on numerous systems, and as far as I know the minimum partition size is around 20 gb, and indeed I have installed it on such partitions. Just by using the vista DVD, no need for other programs.

Well that does raise another problem.

Sony seem to ship the m/c with "recovery" sw installed in a special 6Gb partition.

We were recommended to back this up to DVD after the initial startup.

No sign of a Vista Installation disk................

I would like to show my friend how to write one just in case it is needed at some stage.

I cannot see any folder with all the necessary files, the way there was in 2000 and XP.

Any ideas?

Thanks

If your friend has a legal COA for the OS there's nothing illegal about copying an installation disk from elsewhere so long as he only uses it to install the single instance of Vista his license allows.

Edited June 8, 2007 by cdnvic

[Richard-BKK]

Please be careful with "thinking I have a license and can use other DVD" I try to get not to long ago a replacement CD from Microsoft Thailand. Okay this was Windows XP Professional, but for some stupid reason the person who cleans my house moved the CD/DVD rack into the direct sunlight. This is rack includes all CD/DVD's I have of all official software. Something normally not installed that much, mostly only when things go wrong, so for me. The only computer I have running Win XP Pro fail to do anything anymore, no sweat I hear myself say, I have all data on backup.

But the problem was not the data, the problem was the OS CD which was not working anymore. Again I think no problem, I call Microsoft Thailand and get a replacement CD for some small cost. Let a girl in the office call, I get a full offer how to buy new OS Vista... No No I need I have Official MS Windows XP PRo license and need a new CD....HOW DO I GET ONE.....(got a bit upset)

The girl in the office called me, she had Microsoft on the telephone...and they simple not get it....maybe I needed to talk to them. I got the call, talking to some female, of the help desk. Sorry sir what is your problem, I said did my assisted not explained to you? Yes she say you want to buy MS Windows XP PRo.....So I get my assisted back into the phone call, group talk....and no no the Microsoft girl quickly turns back to you misunderstand you want to upgrade to new OS. Again I say sorry you simple not get it....I need a new CD and explain the full case....including house cleaners etc...

O then you need to talk to your OEM supplier, I say yes that is what Iḿ doing (I get a bit upset again) as I bought the Windows XP lisence direct from Microsoft.... O okay and we workout a deal which was not that costly and I did not care that much anymore.....Still not that cheap.....

Anyway after 14 days....and now after one month I still not have anything....no post no letter etc...Now I found that I just can download torrents called "Windows XP Pro untouched CD's".......

For the Microsoft help desk if I know who Su is I will sue her ...just to have my fun.....

[cdnvic]

We got a laptop from Ebay with a bogus XP Pro install. Borrowed an XP Home cd and used my legit XP Home license key from a retired machine and it all validated fine.