I need a program recommendation for partitioning

[aweigh]

within my primary partition. I have only one HDD, and one primary partition, my C: drive, and I want to re-format and re-install Windows, however I can't do this because I don't want to lose the stuff I've already downloaded, and I can't copy it onto optical media because I don't have a DVD-burner. So, I want to create a small, 5 G.B. partition, install a fresh copy of XP on it, boot into it, and then manually delete the old Windows folder/installation on the old partition.

Afterwards, I want to merge both partitions into one, so I have just one C: drive again. What program do you all recommend? Partition Magic? What?

 

[Sam25]

I've heard of these 2:

1. Acronis Disk Director 10.0:

http://www.acronis.com/homecom...products/diskdirector/

2. GParted (Free):

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Sam25
I've heard of these 2:


2. GParted (Free):

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

That's what I use.

 

[ChunkiMunki]

I would go buy a 10GB hard drive for $5, to save all your data to, just in case you corrupt your data during the partitioning.

 

[QueBert]

I know this isn't what you asked, but do you have a lot of stuff you don't want on the drive? If not, you could kidy do a clean install of XP without formatting and nothing outside of your windows folder will get removed in the process. Your user directories and all the files will stay intact. This is what I do about once a year, gives me a clean XP install without the worries of having to repartition or copy files.


I've used every partition program ever probably and as good as a lot are by the very nature of what they do, problems can arise. With the right tools even a re-partition gone bad can be fixed MOST of the time. But it can be a pain in the ass. I have had re-partitioning adventures that ended with me spending 2 days trying to fix it and get my data back (no backup here lol) There's nothing quite as unsettling as running Partition Magic and 2 hours and 83% into the process it giving you an error which makes your Partition bye bye

I second ChunkiMunki, a backup is a great idea. If I had back ups the 3 times my partitions took a dump while repartitioning. I could have fixed them with a simple restore instead of days of cussing and praying lol.

 

[0roo0roo]

lol. nondestructive repartitioning is risky.
you NEVER do it without backing up your data
play russian roulette if you wish.
buying a new drive or optical is not exactly expensive. ~25 for a dvd burner.. ~60 for 500gb. 100 for 1tb...
anyways,it is really not good to put your trust in a single drive...drives die all the time. backup is not optional if you want to keep your stuff.

 

[Blain]

8GB... It's fast... It's portable :thumbsup::laugh: