Adding a Partition for Unallocated HDD Space

  • Thread starter Thread starter jaugustine
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jaugustine

Hi,

I recently bought a 500GB HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to replace my Wife's
HDD in her Dell WinXP Home Edition laptop.

Years ago I used ATI to create a HDD (120GB) image to an external HDD. I
installed the new 500GB and used ATI and external HDD to install the "image"
to new HDD. Note: Afterwards, I had no trouble booting up the computer.

Now I have a 120GB HDD (original HDD size) with about 380GB unallocated.

About 5 years ago, I did the exact same procedure (above) using a 250GB
HDD and Norton's Partition Magic V8.0 (2004) and it "worked".

I replaced the 250GB with a 500GB HDD. However, Norton's PM (V8.0)
had an issue with this larger HDD.

Can anyone recommend a good partition tool or technique for me to add
a partition for the unallocated space?

I am willing to pay for it.

Thank You in advance, John
 
In (e-mail address removed) typed:
If it shows "unallocated" in disk manager (admin tools) you should be
able to add the partition right there.
Click to expand...

If John wants to expand the single partition, any modern partitioning
tool would do that nicely. Lots of them are free. The best way is one
that allows you to create a bootable CD, flash drive, etc. and boot the
program that way. I don't know what version of ATI John used, but many
of them will allow you to expand the partition. I have lots of different
ATI versions, but I don't trust them very much. As for Partition Magic,
great program but far too outdated today. I won't trust it on anything
that is more modern.
 
In
Years ago I used ATI to create a HDD (120GB) image to an external
HDD. I installed the new 500GB and used ATI and external HDD to
install the "image" to new HDD. Note: Afterwards, I had no trouble
booting up the computer.

Now I have a 120GB HDD (original HDD size) with about 380GB
unallocated.
Click to expand...

By "ATI" I'm guessing you mean Acronis True Image. Based on your result,
I'm also guessing it's either a very old version, or was used
incorrectly.

I quite recently used True Image to clone a 250GB drive to a 500GB drive
as a single partition and it worked quite automatically.

If Acronis' policy hasn't changed since I first used their stuff a long
time ago, you could download a "trial" copy of the current product and
you'll find that it's completely functional for the trial period.
 
Hi,

I recently bought a 500GB HDD (Hard Disk Drive) to replace my Wife's
HDD in her Dell WinXP Home Edition laptop.

Years ago I used ATI to create a HDD (120GB) image to an external HDD. I
installed the new 500GB and used ATI and external HDD to install the "image"
to new HDD. Note: Afterwards, I had no trouble booting up the computer.

Now I have a 120GB HDD (original HDD size) with about 380GB unallocated.

About 5 years ago, I did the exact same procedure (above) using a 250GB
HDD and Norton's Partition Magic V8.0 (2004) and it "worked".

I replaced the 250GB with a 500GB HDD. However, Norton's PM (V8.0)
had an issue with this larger HDD.

Can anyone recommend a good partition tool or technique for me to add
a partition for the unallocated space?

I am willing to pay for it.

Thank You in advance, John
Click to expand...

With my copy of an older Partition Magic, the problem
is any setup without 63 sector alignments (sizes and offsets).

It's possible ATI restored with 1MB alignment. You
would want to see if that realignment can be corrected
during the placement of the material on the new drive.
(See if there is a "Legacy" versus Vista/Win7/Win8 setting.)
Then, you might get fewer error messages from Partition Magic
working on the disk later. Partition Magic has
not heard of 1MB alignment.

As long as you have an effective backup of the original
material, you can fool around with the free partition
managers.

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

I tried to do something with the Linux GPARTED the
other day, and it actually crashed on me. And from
a relatively recent LiveCD download. It didn't destroy
the partition, but it did leave the virtual and physical
size of the target partition set to different values.
The physical envelope, is the size recorded in the
partition table. The file system "number of clusters"
is the virtual size declaration, and the file system
can be set to a much smaller number of clusters, than
the physical space reserved for it. Someone has
even had that happen using the Windows 7 Disk Management
shrink function - a file system was left with an
internal size, half the size of the envelope recorded
in the partition table.

So even when you think a tool is "trustworthy", it
can bite you. I've read one report of an early version
of the Easeus freebie partition manager, corrupting a
FAT32 partition. Having a backup is handy at a time like this,
no matter what tool you decide to use.

The best part of the Partition Magic I use, is the
fact it stops updating the "progress" on screen,
and you can't tell if it is crashed or what is going
on, until it is finished. You might have to wait a
couple of hours, to find out the real result.

Adding (as opposed to resizing) a partition is easy,
and only requires a visit to Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).
If you are running out of partitions, correcting that means
adding an Extended partition, which is
a way of storing additional Logical partitions.
Three primaries and an extended, can store three
OSes, plus a slew of logical partitions for data.
Just as an example of there not being a "four partition
limit". More partitions can be placed there. The
additional partitions are blue colored Logical ones.
Here, I still have plenty of room for more of the
blue colored Logical ones to be added.

http://i60.tinypic.com/2egeg76.gif

Paul
 
<SNIP>

You might take a look at Easeus Partition Manager (it's free, too).
Click to expand...
UPDATE:

One of my laptops has Windows 7 which I don't use as much
as my WinXP laptop.

I learned that it has a "Disk Management" feature. Using
DM in that laptop with the HDD in a docking station plugged
into the USB port, I was able to create a logical drive with
that unallocated space.

Again, Thanks to everyone for your replies, John
 
<jaugustine
@verizon.net>
wrote in message
@4ax.com...
UPDATE:
One of my laptops has Windows 7 which I don't use as much
as my WinXP laptop.
I learned that it has a "Disk Management" feature. Using
DM in that laptop with the HDD in a docking station plugged
into the USB port, I was able to create a logical drive with
that unallocated space.
Again, Thanks to everyone for your replies, John
Click to expand...

All so true Jaugustine

Disk Management
Create a logical drive
That the one it use

No need to Reply
Your Welcome
 
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