Changing Partition On Hd

[jaideeguy]

I have a PC with partitioned HD [200g]

Drive C has only 30g with all my program files, doccuments and settings etc. It is almost full and I would like to increase the size of it to 50g......borrowing from the other partition [drive D] which has lots of empty space.

How does a 'dummie' do it??? or should I have a 'pro' do it??

thanks in advance....

[mewn]

i suggest you get 'norton partition magic'..

it's quite easy to use as well.

i'd also recommend you to use 100gb for your C drive, if possible. or at least try to have around 20-30% free space in your C drive for better performance.

g'luck

[Forkinhades]

what operating system do you have?

[jayceebee]

I use Acronis Disk director Suite. Very easy, giudes you step by step.

You could download the trial version and see what you think but to commit the changes you need to purchase the full copy.

Edited May 3, 2010 by jayceebee

[siamshot]

Boot your PC with an Ubuntu Live-CD and use gparted.

Free, easy & secure.

Edited May 3, 2010 by siamshot

[jaideeguy]

Sorry, I didn't mention that I am running XPpro 64bit. would that have any dramas?/

[mallyrd]

i suggest you get 'norton partition magic'..

it's quite easy to use as well.

i'd also recommend you to use 100gb for your C drive, if possible. or at least try to have around 20-30% free space in your C drive for better performance.

g'luck

Norton have discontinued "NortonPartition Magic". Having said that there are some sites that still offer this product as a free download. If you go this way then there will be no Norton Support.

[Forkinhades]

Sorry, I didn't mention that I am running XPpro 64bit. would that have any dramas?/

not really

speaking from memory (long time since I used win XP) You can go into disk management, and I am pretty sure you can change the size of the partitions there.

reason for edit, missed out go

Edited May 3, 2010 by Forkinhades

[welo]

A Word of Caution!

While the resizing of 'live' partitions (those containing data) has become pretty stable over the past years, it used to be very error-prone. Worst case scenario: the partition table gets messed up and all partitions on this drive are lost. (Though recovery is probably possible in such a case but not trivial!!).

In your case the tool first has to move the data on your second partition away from the beginning of that partition. Then it will shrink this partition cutting off the required gigabytes starting from the beginning. Then it can enlarge the first partition.

My recommendation:

1. Backup important data from both partitions!!! (Both partitions will be modified, in case of an error all data can be lost)

2. Depending on how much there is on your 2nd partition, it might be easier to wipe out that partition (move the data somewhere else, maybe to some offline storage as part of a backup process), delete it and then enlarge the first partition.

When resizing the system partition you might also run into problems with Windows not booting afterwards. Nothing that cannot be fixed, but still...

Here is a guide using gparted, but the scenario is different in the way that there is unallocated space after the first partition (similar to point 2. above)

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vis...ista-partition/

@Forkinhades

Windows does not allow resizing of 'live' partitions. It does provide basic partitioning options (delete, create) but data will always be lost! And of course it does not work for the system partition.

I haven't used this particular feature of partitioning tools in years since it had failed me too many times before. But from reading reports on the internet I guess it still is no piece of cake.

Maybe others have more recent experiences and can give feedback.

welo

Edited May 3, 2010 by welo

[jaideeguy]

You geek guys are starting to scare me.....maybe this dummie should call in the pro.

I don't want to risk loosing it all.....

Thanks to all for the tips

[Forkinhades]

you might be better off saving all your important data, then starting afresh, seems to be about the same amount of work. Look into Partition Magic as well

[welo]

It is not exactly Guru magic to use one of those tools (especially Partition Magic), but there definitely IS the risk that something goes wrong. Been there, done that - Partition Magic makes everything look easy (if it works), but when it lets you down, you will end up with a big mess (=corrupted partition tables).

If you know how to re-partition a harddisk and re-install Windows, you can just give it a try (after backing up your data). Most likely it will work. Make sure you have a 2nd computer on standby to be able to consult google on any problems that come up.

If not, just install from scratch (just as Forkinhades suggested) with the additional benefit of a clean and faster system afterwards.

One more idea on how to accomplish your intended task, if your 2nd partition is less than half full.

1. Defragment your 2nd partition until all data is located in the first half. (Use freeware Defraggler or similar)

2. Shrink the 2nd partition and create a 3rd partition on the now available unallocated space after the 2nd partition.

3. Move files from 2nd partition to the newly created 3rd partition

4. Delete the 2nd partition

5. Resize the first partition to include the now unallocated space between 1st and 3rd partition.

If these instructions sound too complicated for you, better ask another person for help

Good luck!

welo

@Forkinhades

Sorry, I was wrong, you were right! Vista and 7 actually do have resizing support. But Windows XP hasn't!

[Forkinhades]

@ welo He said he has xp pro 64 bit which I think has, normal xp has not

[orosee]

EASEUS Partition Manager is free for private use. It works like a charm on XP, Vista and Windows 7 x86 but I'm not sure if it does so on x64 systems (there is some check in the software to determine if you run a "personal" type of Windows or a "professional" one - so for some Windows versions it will tell you to buy the pro software).

The interface is similar to the old PartitionMagic (which is no longer supported and doesn't work on Vista and newer OS). Meaning that it can be very easy to use, but you can also bring yourself some serious grief. Best to use the Wizard for a simple task such as resizing partitions.

In general, with a new computer, HD or OS I always do at least the following:

- partition the "C" drive for the main OS to be at least 64 GB (if Vista or W7) - under XP days 8 GB use to be plenty (Office, Photoshop etc. also used to have smaller installs then).

- partition a generous "D" for "DATA" and have Windows use this drive instead of the "My Documents" folder on "C" - that way I can easily and quickly back up my data without searching through the OS drive, and the "C" drive keeps its space free for more software, TEMP files and other garbage

- create at least one additional partition with a secondary OS - that can be anything but the point is that it allows me in most problem cases to boot into the secondary OS and try to fix the main OS or rescue any data and settings. A boot disk could do that too but since the advent of 32GB thumb drives and 500GB portable mini-HDs I do not do CDs anymore.

Even during the days when 100GB drives were the biggest you could get, I had 3 and more OS available - a secure work partition, a gaming partition, an XP partition for older games, and an experimental partition (made to be messed up).

Anyone remember when drives were 40-80 MB(!) large, contained the (D)OS and Office and games with room to spare (usually 2-3 MB, haha) AND it still took the same time to install everything that it takes nowadays for 20-30 GB?

@ECHO OFF

[bendejo]

Yes, back up anything important to you before you start diddling with the partition table. Hopefully it will be for naught, but better safe than sorry.

If the partitions get trashed and you have to re-install Windows, well yeah a pain in the arse. But if you lose things you wrote or keep (documents, pics, spreadsheets et al) you'll never see them again.

I used to use Acronis Disk Director but sometimes Linux (I dual-boot) tells me there is weirdness in the partition boundaries, so I now stick with gparted (available on the linux LiveCD, as stated above, or as a bootable stand-alone program).

For backing up the Windows boot drive my tried-and-true the past few years has been Acronis Trueimage.

It seems all the best DOS/Windows utility programs (Partition Magic, Norton backup, others) were bought by Symantec, and then turned to <deleted>. Way to go!

[welo]

EASEUS

EASEUS Partition Manager seems nice, and the free version (for private use) doesn't seem to have serious limitations in functionality AFAIK. BUT only the paid version supports 64bit Windows. You could run it from a bootable CD, since the filesystem on Windows XP 64bit is not different from 32bit - however, creating a bootable CD is - again - limited to the paid version (and you would require a 32bit OS to create it in the first place )

Btw why do you run 64bit Windows, do you have more than 3 GB RAM?

Have a read here on how to resize the system partition:

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-parti...m-partition.htm

http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/res...partition-2.htm

GPARTED

Otherwise GParted is a (really) free alternative, and it's easy to obtain a bootable CD as others have already pointed out (Ubuntu Live-CD or the smaller Gparted Live CD)

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/larry/resize/resizing.htm

Get yourself familiar with Gparted and some of the tech terms that you will encounter during your task by watching youtube

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=gparted&aq=f

Learn from others who have tried the same...

http://www.google.com/search?q=+site:ubunt...on+with+gparted

Windows built-in Tools

If it's true that the 64bit version of Win XP has built-in tools to manipulate 'live' partitions I actually recommend to use those. MS should know how to resize a system partition without bringing troubles to the OS.

Good Luck!

welo