Windows Vista PRIMARY OR LOGICAL extended partition???

Hi all...Well, I am pretty much ready to ditch Windows XP, as all of the apps are now Vista-compliant. Plus I could use the space.

When I initially installed Vista, I used Partition Magic and made my Vista partition 60GB's, but I did not select PRIMARY, but rather LOGICAL drive.

How would I consolidate the partitions and does it matter that I chose Logical vs. Primary? Thanks all...

 

Hi Crunch,

Vista was the 2nd partition on the same physical HD - logical and as you know, bootable.

For one, PM that's Vista ready. Aconis true Image (for Vista) also has the capacity to do so. Some versions of Vista can do that as well, look at this thread on resizing Vista Partitions http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=64675

I would invest in Drive Imaging anyway. It's the best backup for the OS.

Does it matter? I don't think you'll have a choice. The first partition (the only one after consolidation), will be primary.

You might also consider having a 2nd data only partition and keeping the OS partition free of any of your data. That way if anything happens to the OS and you have to repair/re install, you don't have to worry about your stuff.

 

I was curious to find out. In Computer Management -> Disk Management, select a drive partition. In the Actions pane on the right-hand side, select More Actions -> All Tasks. Depending on partition arrangement, you can Extend, Shrink and Delete the partition. Interesting .

Matt

 

mmm! Checking the way it "shrinks" and "extends ", you do not seem to have an option for which side of the partition the unallocated space is left. The partitions only seem to be adjustable from right to left.

Example, see image, if I wanted to extend my C: drive, I could not move unallocated space to between the C: and D: drive. Shrinking D: would still leave it next to C:. There seems no means of shrinking D: so that there is space "in front of it ".

To increase the size of my C: drive, it seems that I would actually have to delete my D: drive. Boring! Looks like I will need to stick with third party programs.

Matt

 

Another "feature" is that partitions can be shrunk only to >50%, but after a reboot can be shrunk another >50%.

 

Another thing to bear in mind is that the shrink partition utility will only be able to decrease the partition size down to the first unmovable/locked system file.

To get round this, temporarily turn off System Restore, do the shrink and turn System Restore back on. Running a defrag may also move some of the "˜unmovable’ files.

Alternatively, you can shrink partitions by running the diskpart command from the Vista DVD, this avoids the occurrence of locked files.

 

Going back to my basics. D: is just a drive where I put temporary data. I should have made it the right size for future expansion of C: (in hindsight). I could then delete D: and expand C:.

My D: drive is usually left for temporary files.

At the moment, I have installed programs onto the D: drive. If I move the data from D: to another drive, it may confuse the Registry.

Again , I might stick with using a third party program. For adjusting drives where programs do not need to be moved, you should be able to adjust all you like.

Matt