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Re-partition hard drive.

D

demorier

Charter Member
Can't seem to find a straight answer. I have 1 500GB SATA hard drive (NTFS on Vista 32bit) partitioned c:\ and d:\. The c:\ is running out of space and there is heaps of space left on the d:\.
I wish to take part of the d: and turn it into extra c:\.
I'm not bothered about the contents of d:\ as I have all the user files on it backed up, is there a way to do this without reformating c:\ ??
I'll only need to do this once.
 
There are several ways to do what you want to do - delete the D: partition and increase the size of the C: partition.

Most of them involve investing in a Disc Management tool from one of the suppliers like O+O. Their Partition Manager will do this, but only the full product - last year I tried their evaluation download and it was severely handicapped, refusing to do anything practical.

One alternative that I've adopted is GParted. It's actually a Linux tool and there is a procedure by which you can install it on a bootable USB stick. When I need to change the configuration of one of my disc partitions, I shutdown and reboot from the stick then make the necessary changes. Another shutdown and reboot and it's all done. It copies partitions, resizes them, moves them, creates / deletes them and reformats them. It's everything I need and it works on any of my current generation PCs.

This is a link to the instructions on making a bootable USB version of GParted -

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/liveusb.php

You do need to be a bit technically minded to do this, and you must follow the instructions carefully !!!

Hope that helps,
Ro
 
I was thinking of trying this "Easeus" freeware with a GUI, but wanted to get a few opinions first, I read about a Linux based converter like that-although it was a different one than what you mentioned.....I don't want to mess up my c:\ stuff if I can help it.
 
I use EASEUS Partition Manager 3.0 Home Edition and I'm highly satisfied with it!
Very handy and easy-to-use.

Cheers,
Markus.
 
Expanding on rohan's mention of using gparted...

SystemRescueCD is a complete linux "live-CD" with a few other very handy tools along with gparted, PartitionImage (a nice disk backup/copy tool if you are migrating things to a new hard drive), and other stuff including network support and Firefox in case you need to browse around on the web for help while you're using the tools.
Basically, you boot up your computer using this as the operating system and all of the tools are available for use.
You can burn this to a CD or install it on a flash drive as rohan mentions, and the GUI is easy to navigate around...

This has been part of my computer fixing kit for a while now and it works good. All open-source or GNU software, so it's free.
http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
Lots of good how-to info on the site on various tasks that you can do with it too.

But back to the "can it be done?"...
Yep. Regardless of what tools you use for the job, if you're just wanting to shrink an empty partition (like your D: ) and add it to another (your C: ) there should be no risk of lost data as long as you don't tell the tools to format the partition while you're reorganizing it.

Don't let the word Linux scare you away from trying it. :p:
It's actually real easy to navigate around with this setup. Pretty much everything is menu or GUI based, very much like Windows, and is documented pretty well.
Plus, being a live-CD type of operating system, no changes are made to your hard-drive unless you make them using the included tools. Once you shut it down and reboot off of your hard drive, everything is back to your regular operating system.
 
Parted Magic

Parted Magic is another linux live-CD collection of disk resuce tools. It's very similar to the SystemRescueCD in my last post but has more goodies on it if you need more tools.

Like SRCD, they've got good documentation on their website and it's easy to navigate around and use the tools.
http://partedmagic.com/
Specifically, the instructions on how to resize a partition using the CD (or flash-drive):
http://partedmagic.com/documentation/119-using-gparted.html
 
Thanks for the info guys. I got a bit of straight forward advice from a tech fellow I know and seeing as I had the user contents of the d:\ backed up externally it was only a matter of deleting the d:\ partition and resetting the size of the old c:\ and the new d:\ using the standard windows tools.
What the M$ notes could not tell me was exactly what could be done with the liberated space from the old d:\, very simple really but just couldn't find that little piece of extra detail anywhere.
 
Glad you got the info you needed d!

I've always been a bit leery of using the Microsoft Management Console in Vista and 7 since I have heard of folks having troubles with it while shrinking partitions to make room for more partition(s), thus my not mentioning it. Since you're deleting an unused one and expanding your C: partition it will probably work fine.

I will have to admit that I have played around with it on the backup clone HDD for my new Win7 Dell, just to get a feel for how it works. It did do some partition wrangling just fine but it just feels a bit clunky to me compared to the Linux tools that I've been using for a few years...but that's probably just me.
 
Mike,
I too had problems using the Microsoft Management Console in WinXP Home last year when all I wanted to do was resize a partition. That's how I came to evaluate a lot of the tools on the market and finally chose GParted.

Thanks for the info on SystemRescueCD and Parted Magic - I'll be playing with them when my new USB stick arrives, as there's no way I'm going to overwrite my working version of GParted ...
regards,
Ro
:ernae:
 
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