Partioning hard drive

When I purchased my computer, I had the seller partition the drive into two sections thinking I would never fill up the first 20 gigs. I'm at 17.5 gigs now and would like to partition the second partition in to 3 sections before the first is full in order to defrag easier. What is the best program that could help me do that?

 

Is there anything on the second partition? If not, assuming you're using XP, you can use XP's disk management to do it. Delete the partition and then create three new ones in the unallocated space. To get to disk management, right click on My Computer>manage. Don't do this if there's anything on that partition you want to keep though. You'd either have to copy it over to the other partition first or burn it to cds. If you do this using disk mangement, you'll lose everything that's on the partition.

 

It's got something on it but I didn't place it on there. It is like 68 mb on a 97 gig partition.

 

Hello Bubba,

My Computer > at the top: Tools > Folder Options > View tab > Uncheck the Hide protected operating system files option.

Regards - Charles

 

Bubba, Why not use a partition tool ?

.......................................................................................................
Go to http://www.7tools.ru/buy.htm
I downloaded this program about 4 months ago , called 7 tools partition
manager. I have been well pleased with the program. A very good buy for the price.
Alex
.P.S 7tools Partition Manager has been awarded the 5-Gold-Disk Award by one of the biggest download sites, GoldenShareware. The highest rank

 

Hello alex and welcome to the Board,

If Windows can do an infrequent job, why spend money on a 3rd party app?

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks to all who responded, I've got something to work with now. Thanks again.

 

I went and looked at this but it was already unchecked. I would guess I'm good to go on trying to use XP to partition the drive.

 

Hi Bubba,

Then the System Volume Information folder should be visable. As Steve mentioned, by default XP's System Restore monitors all partitions.

As a reference, only the OS partition should be monitored. The user can shut all other partition monitoring off by:

Right click My Computer > SR tab > highlight non C partition > settings > Check Turn off System Restore on this drive.

Regards - Charles

 

Hmm, I guess I'm at a loss on that last post. Why am I wanting to turn of the other partitions? Anyway, I started doing the advice given and it didn't yield anything productive. I went to the help index, and it was fairly vague as well. I'm afraid someone might have to be more explicit in their instructions in partitioning my spare drive.

 

System Restore is a way to guard the OS - its registry, the system32 folder, settings, executes; imperfect but in the absence of drive imaging, within limits, it works.

If you have any file types stored on your user partitions, for example PDF docs or .exe's, and you get into some problem with the OS and do a System Restore, SR will restore your user files to whatever state they were in at the time that a restore point (snapshot) was taken. That also means that if they weren't there at the time of the sbapshot, they are not going to be there after a restore operation.

File types monitored by System Restore: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/sr/sr/monitored_file_extensions.asp

This hasn't anything to do with partitioning the drive, it does have to do with what happens to the data on the partitions that you load afterwards. Just follow Zander's instructions.

Regards - Charles

 

You really don't have to worry about the system restore files on this particular partition. If they are there, it won't matter if you delete the partition. The only ones Windows needs are those on the partition that the OS is on. You can go ahead and delete the partition and then do whatever it is you want to do with the unallocated space that's left over.

To delete the partition using disk management, right click on the partition>delete. Then right click on the unallocated space and you should be able to select an option to create a partition. Enter the size you want it to be and then apply. This isn't exactly the routine but it will be something like that. I don't have any unallocated space and it's been a while so I don't know what it will say exactly when you select to create the partition but it will be something like that.

 

third party utility

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By using a 3rd party disk partioning tool one will not lose data in making a
new partion.
Alex

 

Hello Alex,

Two points:

Looking back thru this thread, there isn't any data to loose.

One can always move the data, do the operation, and move back the data.



I get your point, but the issue is how often is a user going to do this. For most, this is a very infreguent operation.

For the record, I have PM, so it isn't as if I don't understand the convenience of the software

Regards - Charles

 

WHY
If you have more than one partition why should the 1st partiton be nearly full and the others apear to be almost empty ?
I feel that I can honestly question here because I just checked and my C: drive ( XP Pro ) is 8.3 gig with 1.3 gig free.
Could this be because I have almost NOTHING other than the OS on it. Just about everything else is installed on other dirives. ( D-H ). Different types of software may be on different drives. I think it helps BIG TIME to have more than one partition and keep things separated.
I had a discussion about this years ago with my Daughter. She disagreed with me UNTIL she had problems and lost almost all of years of work and almost ALL of her backups.
Also, today there is something called a CDROM that makes a great place to store backups too.

BIllyBob

 

Good Sunday Morning to all.

I was just Drinking my first cup of Coffee and going through things here and ran across this post.
I myself like to treat a PC in somewhat the same manner that we keep our homes. alias; Different rooms for different things. IE: Kitchen. Bath,
Bedroom(s) etc. Each one may well ( and usually does ) have its own setup.
The kitchen itself may well have different separate spaces ( cupboards/disk partitions ) where certain stuff is stored in a certain space ( partition )

Think about this and then come back and tell me that I am totally iff my rocker if you wish.

Have a nice day From a 75 year old BORED to death PC user that can not (and really should not) get into real technical stuff. So have to get back using some good old fashioned ( so I have been told ) common sense and use a bit of planning as to what I might like a PC to do. Again I believe just like a home.

BillyBob

 

To reply to some of the questions, I had my computer originally set up with a 20/100 gig harddrive. I didn't think there was anyway I could fill up the 20 gig section as my first computer had an 8 gig and it took almost forever to fill it. I've had the new computer for little over a year and a half now and 17.5 gigs of the 20 are full. I thought that being the other 100 gig partition is empty, now would be the time to partition it evenly. We'll say into thirds. Is there anyway to mess this up and will system restore fix it if it is messed up? I'm pretty good at running amoke. I don't always run into Murphy's law but I've had several incounters with the rest of his family.

 

Hello Bubba,

Sure, we can all mess up

And no, System Restore will not "fix" this, what System Restore does is roll back files.

Most of the senior people here partition their HD's into an OS only partition, meaning exactly that - nothing but the OS, and the other, far larger, for user data, meaning everything else other than the OS.

In my case on one HD: The OS partition is about 20 GB's and the data partition is close to 60 GB. Remember that the overhead for a partition is a drive letter, too many and its clutter.

My question is why the extra partitions when Windows has a great way to organize data called the Folder?

Regards - Charles

 

I do the folder thing and maybe I'm making too much of this. My current defrag doesn't take too much time and that is the only reason I wanted to partition the empty bigger part of my harddrive. I thought that once my 20 gig area was full and data began collecting on the now unused section that it would take longer to defrag hense breaking it into smaller partitions, defraging would take less time. I don't always defrag at a certain time of day as I work swing shift. Am I making too big a deal out of it?