Partitioned Drives

[Guest]

My husband's desktop came with drive c partitioned into drive d. It was set
for drive c to have smaller space and now we keep geting a low disk error
message. I have cleaned off all files now used and put most of the files on
drive d also have done disk cleanup and disk defragment. It helps for a
while and then we get it again. Is there a way to make into one hard drive
and unpartiion it or at least change the size of drive c by taking some space
from drive d and make drive c bigger.

 

[John John]

You will have to use a third party partitioning tool to do it. You can
use BootItNG. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html The
utility is free and fully functional to use for 30 days. You don't have
to install it to use it. Just boot the computer with the floppy disk or
the cd and when you are at the installation screen click on cancel and
you will enter the maintenance mode where you will be able to do the
partitioning work.

*WARNING*
Doing partition work *always* presents risks of loosing files! For most
parts and in 99.999% of cases everything goes well and nothing serious
goes wrong, it's a fairly smooth operation. But in the .001% cases
where problems do arise the results are usually catastrophic and *all*
files on the disk are lost! *MAKE SURE* that you have a proper working
backup of your important files before you do any partitioning work!

John

 

[Guest]

I'm fairly sure I extended my C: using Diskpart (free in XP) which runs in
command prompt; function "extend"

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I'm fairly sure I extended my C: using Diskpart (free in XP) which runs in
command prompt; function "extend"

It might be unlikely.

The extend function requires that the system pagefile not be on the
partition in question, so in this case, it's unlikely to be usable.

As well, only data volumes can be extended, not system or boot volumes, so
diskpart/extend is again not likely to help increase the size of the C
drive's partition.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590

HTH
-pk

 

[Jim Cladingboel]

You can save a huge amount of space on C. If you don't use Hibernate, you
can delete Hiberfil.sys - a very large file. Also there is a way to greatly
reduce the size of Pagefile.Sys in C, and create a larger one in D. The PC
uses Pagefile as extra memory space. Check these filenames in Google for
how it's done. My C Drive currently stands at 3.29 GB, with 6.7 GB unused.

HTH,

Jim.

 

[nesredep egrob]

My husband's desktop came with drive c partitioned into drive d. It was set
for drive c to have smaller space and now we keep geting a low disk error
message. I have cleaned off all files now used and put most of the files on
drive d also have done disk cleanup and disk defragment. It helps for a
while and then we get it again. Is there a way to make into one hard drive
and unpartiion it or at least change the size of drive c by taking some space
from drive d and make drive c bigger.

Well there is. Get Acronis and make an image of both c and d drive. You can then
mess about with installation until you have got it right and then bring back the
information from the images. Not the cheapest way to do it but by far the best
and then you will also have reliable backups if you then buy an external disk
for storage of the images. Incidentally I find that there is no need to have a
c: drive bigger than 10 GB. That has served me well for the last 5 - 6 years

Borge in sunny Perth, Australia

 

[Anna]

You will have to use a third party partitioning tool to do it. You can
use BootItNG. http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html The utility
is free and fully functional to use for 30 days. You don't have to
install it to use it. Just boot the computer with the floppy disk or the
cd and when you are at the installation screen click on cancel and you
will enter the maintenance mode where you will be able to do the
partitioning work.

*WARNING*
Doing partition work *always* presents risks of loosing files! For most
parts and in 99.999% of cases everything goes well and nothing serious
goes wrong, it's a fairly smooth operation. But in the .001% cases where
problems do arise the results are usually catastrophic and *all* files on
the disk are lost! *MAKE SURE* that you have a proper working backup of
your important files before you do any partitioning work!

John

Judy:
As John as informed you...you will need a third-party disk-manager type
program to accomplish your objective in reducing the size of your husband's
D: partition and using that additional disk space to increase the size of
the C: partition. As a practical matter this cannot be done
non-destructively using any XP-included utility.

John's caveat about the possibility of losing data when using one of these
disk partition/management type programs is well-taken. There's *always* that
possibility even if it's an infrequent occurrence. So hearken to his
suggestion to back up whatever data is important to you/your husband before
undertaking any manipulation of the current hard drive partitions regardless
of whatever program you use.

While the program John mentions (BootItNG) is a fine program and can
accomplish the task, many users find its user-interface somewhat complicated
and find the program difficult to use. At least this is what we've heard
from a number of our customers. But it's certainly something you should look
into since it's free and completely functional during a 30-day period.

But I thought I would mention another program we generally recommend for
working with situations like the one that confronts you. The program is
Partition Magic. It's does the job involving HDD partition manipulation and
generally most users have little difficulty using the program for those
basic kinds of undertakings in which you're interested.

I see the program is now being offered for download for $14.95 from
http://www.used.cheapdown.com/product_info.php/products_id/418
That's as cheap as I've ever seen it (the program has been around for a
number of years). BTW, I've never dealt with that online vendor - I'm
assuming they're reliable.

Anyway, I thought I would bring the above to your attention as another
option.
Anna

 

[Ron Hardin]

I've used Partition Magic a lot and never lost a file. It's reported
to be not so reliable for ext3 files but I've never used it except to
create those filesystems from empty space, and windows doesn't have
any of those natively anyway.

Get a working backup every month or so in any case, but certainly
before you repartition the disk, for any files you'd care to have
in case your faithful computer goes up in flames.

 

[John John]

I've used Partition Magic a lot and never lost a file. It's reported
to be not so reliable for ext3 files but I've never used it except to
create those filesystems from empty space, and windows doesn't have
any of those natively anyway.

Get a working backup every month or so in any case, but certainly
before you repartition the disk, for any files you'd care to have
in case your faithful computer goes up in flames.

I have *never* heard of file loss being directly caused by *any* of the
reputable and reliable partitioning tools available. File loss is
almost always caused by user error or hardware glitches. Have you ever
had a power failure on a computer without a UPS while doing partitioning
work? Anything can go wrong when you do partitioning work. As unlikely
as it is to suffer a power failure while doing partitioning work, as
luck would have it some unfortunate folks have had just that happen to them!

John

 

[Poprivet]

My husband's desktop came with drive c partitioned into drive d. It
was set for drive c to have smaller space and now we keep geting a
low disk error message. I have cleaned off all files now used and
put most of the files on drive d also have done disk cleanup and disk
defragment. It helps for a while and then we get it again. Is there
a way to make into one hard drive and unpartiion it or at least
change the size of drive c by taking some space from drive d and make
drive c bigger.

In general, if you don't want to reinstall and change the partitions during
that process, which I can understand if you've never done it before, there
are third party programs that can do it for you at reasonable prices.
You have the opportunity to create one big partition during the clean
install, but note you'd better have all your data backed up because the
whole disk will be wiped out. You start by booting from the XP CD, delete
both partitions, then recreate one partition, and keep on following the
instructions.

For 3rd parth apps, the most used seem to be:

Norton Ghost - I use it; love it.

Acronis True Image - tested it, seems pretty good.

BootItNG: Works, but not as user friendly as others and in general requires
more knowledge of the system than the others.

In general, those are known as imaging programs.

None of them cost much AND can change the partitions without losing your
data. BUT, as someone mentioned, "stuff happens" so you MUST backup before
uisng them anyway. Even if you don't need the backup, which you probably
won't, you're still ahead of the game by having that backup handy.

You didn't mention the size of your drive, but if it's large enough, you
might want to consider increasing the size of C by say 50% to 100% and
leaving the rest for D as a data drive. It makes backups a lot easier when
all you want to backup is your data.

If your total disk space is approaching 75% used, it's time to start
thinking about getting a second hard drive or replacing yours with a larger
one. The second drive gives you some better advantages and adds to the one
that's already there instead of replacing it.

HTH
Pop`