Partitioning, made simple?

[Soggys1stBrat]

This is actually a series of questions. Let me give you a brief synopsis of what I have.

I have a 160g HD with 3 partitions of approximately equal size, C, D, E.

C, has filled up to the point where about once a week I have to go in and clean something out just to be able to use some of the programs. It has on average 1.3-5g freespace. The entire HD was done in NTFS.

There is no floppy, and the CD burner is not working right. So I can't make a utility disk.

Is there a free DOS partition manager that can handle NTFS?
Can it be installed to the E. partition and use from the dos prompt to resize D and then C without corrupting the data within?

Does anyone have or know of a nice guide to this type of stuff?

 

[ChunkiMunki]

i would buy an external drive and dump all useful data onto it, then reformat and start over.
you would probably need another drive anyway if you are going to try to mess with repartitioning, the data might and probalby will corrupt anyway.

 

[NoelS]

Soggys1stBrat,

It costs $$ but Partition Manager will do the job for you and pay back for itself many times over in the future! I have Partition Manager v. 8.0 by Power Quest. The latest version (also called 8) is by Norton and costs $70... You can get it or an older version on eBay for as little as $25 plus $3.99 S&H (Buy it Now category).

PM can partition with data in the partition (on the fly). For example if you want to make C larger and D larger, you can make E smaller to accommodate that, or whatever arrangement you want.

But as ChunkiMunki said above, you'll probably need to buy another HDD anyhow, then you could just move your data to the new drive and repartition them both as you want (on the fly)...

Noel

 

[uberman]

Originally posted by: NoelS
Soggys1stBrat,

It costs $$ but Partition Manager will do the job for you and pay back for itself many times over in the future! I have Partition Manager v. 8.0 by Power Quest. The latest version (also called 8) is by Norton and costs $70... You can get it or an older version on eBay for as little as $25 plus $3.99 S&H (Buy it Now category).

PM can partition with data in the partition (on the fly). For example if you want to make C larger and D larger, you can make E smaller to accommodate that, or whatever arrangement you want.

But as ChunkiMunki said above, you'll probably need to buy another HDD anyhow, then you could just move your data to the new drive and repartition them both as you want (on the fly)...

Noel

It was probably a typho, but the program is called Partition Magic, originally by Power Quest and now sold by Symantec. I have 8.0, plus 4 other versions.

I've been using Partition Magic for 11 years. I had to buy it over and over again because it is limited by hard drive size. Older versions limits were 10 gig, 30 gig, etc etc. Version 8.0 says it has a 300 gig limit. I copied a partition to a 300 gig HD and it would only let me expand it to 200 gig. So there are limits, but I like the program a lot. It's great for backing up an original install and copying it fresh later.

I wouldn't buy anything older than version 8.0.

 

[NoelS]

uberman,

Thanks for the correction! Boy am I embarrassed! I've been using Partition Magic for several years and it's like I didn't know the name... Mental lapses you get at my age And you're right about older versions, too. When I went to eBay, all of the PM copies available were version 8. By older I guess I really meant the Power Quest v. 8 rather than the Symantec PM v. 8....

Noel

 

[duragezic]

Jeez, you buy their latest version at full price and they still limit you to a small size??

But PM will do what you need OP. However it can take quite a few hours to resize a partition while keeping your data (as you might expect), so let it go overnight and don't stop it an hour or so in just because you think it froze up.

One recommendation I have is whatever way you deal with this is to use one partition, or two at most. A bunch of separate partitions was more popular in the past, and it might seem like a good idea, but as you found out yourself, it can be a big pain in the ass. Especially with a small drive like 160gb. The only reason I would have a drive in two partitions instead of one is if it was the only hard drive I had (internal or external), and one partition would be to keep media and other data off my windows partition so I could format that freely.

 

[quikah]

As a band aid you could move your swap file from the C drive to the E drive. I am going to guess that it is taking at least 2GB of space from C.

 

[NoelS]

This is a slight departure from the original discussion, but I like a combination of multiple drives and multiple partitions. More flexibility that way. On my primary drive I have my OS on the C partition and my Programs on the D partition - you can get away with 20GB for XP, 50GB for Vista and 20-30GB for programs. That way I can re-install the OS with having to re-install all of the programs. I've found that many programs don't require re-installation when you re-install the OS. Big time and frustration saver. Then I have another (large - 320GB) drive with my photos on the E partition (100GB) and my music on the F partition (200GB). And last another 320GB drive (G) for backups using Acronis True Image - better than an external HDD because it's faster. 3 HDDs give you plenty of room and plenty of flexibility if you need to make changes. And I use Power Quest Partition Magic for whatever partition changes, name changes or other disc changes that are necessary. Works great for me!

Noel

 

[postmortemIA]

gparted, Linux freeware will do same thing that PartitionMagic does for $.

 

[Pirotech]

well, i'm partitioning withDisk Director. Disk Director.
it's cheaper than partition magic + has more features (recovery included).
thanks

 

[NoelS]

Pirotech,

Glad to hear that it does well. Always looking for alternatives for better performance and options. I'll check it out.

Noel

 

[jimrev]

I've got to agree completely with Noels and uberman. I've also got Partition Magic 8.0 and although I rarely use it, when I need it I NEED IT and I've never regretted the pretty hefty cost for something not used every day. My first experience formatting a hard drive and setting up partitions was via Windows and the software that came with the hard drive... after reading the dire warnings in the "help" files about how you could basically destroy all mankind by making a wrong move while formatting, I was scared to touch the keyboard! After that, I would never have imagined that a partition could actually be MOVED after it was created. It may as well have been made of concrete...the warnings basically said that anyone who tried it most likely lost all the data on their hard drive...not because they did something wrong...that's just what might happen if you choose to tempt fate....

Partition Magic certainly is a solid product, and in light of this previous history, almost seems to work miracles; it does pretty much everything that, 10 years ago, Microsoft told you you couldn't do. And does it with bright, cartoon-like icons and a pretty flippant attitude (for a piece of software) over what it's doing that I'm still amazed every time I use it. In fact, I just used it this morning to erase some stubborn files that wouldn't delete, combines two partitions into one, changed the designations (logical to primary), changed drive letters, oh and reformatted the drive; took about 10 minutes. I don't use Partition Magic often, but every time I do, I remember why I shelled out the cash for it.

 

[Soggys1stBrat]

I ended up just buying a new drive, I'll copy my installation onto that and just go from there.

Unfortunately the mobo I have has only got a single IDE channel so I either have to switch to SATA or remove the original HDD after I make the copy, or go without a CD rom.

Although, I think I might be able to set up a RAID on this mobo. I've never done one but I think this board has built in RAID capabilities, I just need to do some research to set it up.

 

[Corpun]

Originally posted by: Soggys1stBrat
I ended up just buying a new drive, I'll copy my installation onto that and just go from there.

Unfortunately the mobo I have has only got a single IDE channel so I either have to switch to SATA or remove the original HDD after I make the copy, or go without a CD rom.

Although, I think I might be able to set up a RAID on this mobo. I've never done one but I think this board has built in RAID capabilities, I just need to do some research to set it up.

Since you said the cd drive isnt working right anyway, might be time to get a sata optical drive. You can get a name brand one from newegg for less than $30