Jamie said:
Is there a method to delete the backup partition? I know the risks, but
to save disk space.
I would use Partition Magic for that, as I have a copy of an older
version here. You can do things like delete a partition (you can
do that in Disk Management as well). Then, Partition Magic can
extend the existing partition, to consume the space left by
the deleted partition.
<------ C -------> <---- D ----> before
<------ C -------> free space delete the partition
<------ C ---------------------> stretch the existing partition
There are some examples on this page, of free tools that claim
to be able to resize a partition. A little Googling should
tell you how trouble prone they are. (No matter how good
a tool may seem - remember that if the structures on the
disk are damaged in some subtle way, making changes can
"amplify" a structural error. Proper technique, would be
to verify the disk is good first, before doing stuff to
it. Same goes for defragmentation - you only want to
do that, if the disk is perfectly healthy. Chkdsk,
scanning the surface for bad sectors and the like,
are ways of proving everything is OK.)
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1321037
One of the first "rules of screwing around", is to make
a backup of the disk first. I buy, on average, a couple
spare hard drives a year, just for times like this. I
do a sector by sector copy of the hard drive, to my spare
drive, and if one of my experiments ends horribly, I
can copy it back. An example of a tool that copies
sector by sector, is "dd". The reason I suggest
a sector by sector copy, is it preserves any hidden or
foreign partition. To give an example, I copied one
80GB drive to a spare 80GB drive. The source drive
had two FAT32 partitions and two EXT2 (Linux) partitions.
"dd" was able to copy them, without knowing what kind
of partitions they were. One of the Linux partitions
was actually a swap partition (different partition number).
If the partitions were ordinary, then I might copy
them one partition at a time, with a different tool
(because that might happen to be a faster method).
Anyway, I think you should start by learning about
doing some backups, because it makes digging yourself
out of trouble so much easier. Buying one spare
hard drive these days, doesn't cost that much.
I use a Linux LiveCD, like Knoppix, as a way to boot
a computer without installing anything. You download
an ISO9660 file from knopper.net, and burn a CD with
it, using something like Nero. Then, boot the computer
with the CD. The OS runs from the CD. Recent versions
of Knoppix can mount FAT32 and NTFS partitions. You
can change access modes from read-only (the default),
to read/write, so you can move files around. I've
also prepared NTFS and FAT32 partitions while in Linux
(so I could go back to Windows and do stuff). And that
is about all I use Linux for, is for maintenance and
for emergencies. Linux has copies of things like "dd",
for making a snapshot of an entire disk. It may also
have a copy of "testdisk", which can be used to do
repairs to the partition table or put back the MBR.
There are an amazing number of free tools out there,
to help you maintain your system.
Paul