resizing partitions without losing what's on them.

EyesOnly

Is there any good app that can resize partitions without deleting what's on them. I need more space on my c part so i can install sp2 so i was planning on taking some of it from other parts.

I also want to merge 2 partitions because both have more free space then they need to. What's the point of having 1 part with 7 gigs free, and another with 10 gigs free when another two of my partitions are running out of free space. Here's a diagram which i hope will explain what i want to do.

C: windows and some system files. I want to add about 2 gigs to it
D: Swapfile. No change here.
E: Programs. I want to take space from this partition and add it to C:
F: Games. I want to merge this with E:, and then give it about 10 gigs of free space. The new should be called E:
G: Misc. Whatever free space get's left will be moved to this partition.
H: Temp: I want to shrink this one as well to about 4 gigs.

Here's the current sizes of the partitions and their free space
C: 2.92 GB free: 755 MB
D: 1.95 GB free: 986 MB
E: 9.76 GB free: 7.63 GB
F: 24.4 GB free: 10.8 GB
G: 102 GB free: 3.10 GB
H: 7.43 GB free: 6.53 GB

Is partitionmagic my best bet. It sounds good but i want to hear from someone else.

QCH

Partition Magic [CAN] merge and resize.... But I've had it die in while doing it all at once. I would backup as much as possible, then defrag all the partitions... then use the DOS version of Partition Magic, merge (reboot and go into OS to make sure it worked...) then resize partitions. Big problem is that any applications that are on a partition that is merged... could fail to work to the drive letter changing....

Tex

I'll add that you should do a file system check first and I have had it barf multiple times and leave ya with nothing so back up somewhere if at all possible. It usually works but you can't atke it to the bank or anything

Tex

EyesOnly

QCH2002 wrote:

Partition Magic [CAN] merge and resize.... But I've had it die in while doing it all at once. I would backup as much as possible, then defrag all the partitions... then use the DOS version of Partition Magic, merge (reboot and go into OS to make sure it worked...) then resize partitions.

Thanks you're prolly right. I'll take it one step at the time.

QCH2002 wrote:

Big problem is that any applications that are on a partition that is merged... could fail to work to the drive letter changing....

True. That is why i planned to let the combined E: and F: become E: It's much easier for my to remove the games and reinstall them than it is to reinstall the apps. Plus windows wouldn't exactly start very well without those apps.

Tex wrote:

I'll add that you should do a file system check first and I have had it barf multiple times and leave ya with nothing so back up somewhere if at all possible. It usually works but you can't atke it to the bank or anything

Tex

Will do. Just defragged C: and H: today. Was surprisingly quick considering that i haven't defragged since may. Looked like defraging often isn't really nececarry in XP.

EyesOnly

Big problems. See link for details.

http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?p=186895&posted=1#post186895

EyesOnly

those probs are solved. this isn't

the problem now is that my C partition is too small so i need to resize it but parttitionmagic wont let me do it. I've taken about 1.5 gigs from the part that used to have games on it (F:) and unlocated it but i can't add it to C.

BTW the reason i want to resize it it because it's too small to install sp2, or so says the install program.

Tex

Have you cleaned up all the temp and internet temp files for all users as well as the temp in the windows directorys? I mean go and do that stuff manually as IE leaves tons of old crap out there it doesnt clean even with all the settings to clean it already set. Have you got hibernation turned on? Thats one file equal to the size of your ram. What about the recycle bin? Empty it and then turn the amount of space its allowed to use down to zero and tell it to not use the recycle bin. What about the pagefile? Got one on c? Move it for now.

Move the system temp and your user temp directorys (where sp2 gets extracted ) to another drive also.

Looked through your program files for old crap you can get rid of? If your holding a lot of stuff in your user directory you can move "My docments" easily to another drive.

primesuspect

A program called "TreeSize Pro" by jam software is very helpful in cleaning up the C drive since it will show you space hogs in an easy-to-read graphical format. I've used it three times in the past two weeks just to fix what you're trying to do - install SP2 on a drive that didn't have enough space for it.

EyesOnly

Tex wrote:

Have you cleaned up all the temp and internet temp files for all users as well as the temp in the windows directorys? I mean go and do that stuff manually as IE leaves tons of old crap out there it doesnt clean even with all the settings to clean it already set.

Temp folders are located on H: not C

Tex wrote:

Have you got hibernation turned on? Thats one file equal to the size of your ram.

hibe is off

Tex wrote:

What about the recycle bin? Empty it and then turn the amount of space its allowed to use down to zero and tell it to not use the recycle bin.

Resycle bin is empty

Tex wrote:

What about the pagefile? Got one on c? Move it for now.

Pagefile is on D:

Tex wrote:

Move the system temp and your user temp directorys (where sp2 gets extracted ) to another drive also.

I think those are on H: Even though i do have a dir in C:windows called SoftwareDistribution that appears to have the install files for sp2 in it. I haven't seen this dir before.

Tex wrote:

Looked through your program files for old crap you can get rid of? If your holding a lot of stuff in your user directory you can move "My docments" easily to another drive.

All apps are on E: and i didn't find much to remove in mydocuments. i try not to use it.

EyesOnly

primesuspect wrote:

A program called "TreeSize Pro" by jam software is very helpful in cleaning up the C drive since it will show you space hogs in an easy-to-read graphical format. I've used it three times in the past two weeks just to fix what you're trying to do - install SP2 on a drive that didn't have enough space for it.

linky???

i doubt it will help but i'll try it anyways. BTW brian i was planning on running your favorit app (memtest) on the rig when i'm done. I've never done that.

EyesOnly

TreeSize Pro didn't really tell me anything a didn't know so i've removed it again. Checkdisk however told me that there where errors on E: and it seems to have fixed them.

I'm gonna memtest my brain ..err i mean the computer's ram , and then check what partm has to say.

Straight_Man

Essentially you want C: bigger. You have removed 1.5 GIG from F:. All ok so far.

Now as to why PM will not let you enlarge C:

D, E, etc live in an EXTENDED PARTITION.

So, to make space for C, two things have to happen. First your E has to be MOVED to fill the space left by F (and if the space is left at the end of F between F and G then you have to move F first so it ends where G starts. Once the open space is at the beginning of the extended part, you SHRINK\RESIZE the EXTENDED PART.

So you WANT to have:

C:
Open Space
Extended part containing:
D through G (H will become G also, so you need to fix the TEMP spec to show G for TEMP).

Once you get to THAT point you can resize C larger. C cannot bridge across the Extended Partition Start Point boundary in Windows while staying stable, it has to be contiguous if on one physcial HD and it is a partition type called a primary partition. That help some???

EyesOnly

All is done and completed. using partm i moved all parts so that the unlocated space from D and F was located right next to C. I did move one part at the time checking for error as i went along. I noticed that when unlocated space was available next to C i was able to resize it.

I just realized that i could perhaps merge E and F as i had planned but i don't feel like. Like i just said to tex in an email i'll prolly have to get a new harddrive soon anyway but i'll see if there's anything a can remove or backup first.

I don't know what caused all these problems but it might have been because E had errors on it. Anyway now that everything's back as usuall again i'll install some buggy ms service packs and mess it up again.

Edit
Sorry straightman didn't see your post. Thanks for posting but i figured it out by myself. You're right though.