Can I partition my laptop hard drive w/o loosing data?

[joe.grimland]

I just have a C drive and was wanting to partition my 60 Gb hard drive
into two partitions (C and D). Is that even possible? Will I wipe
out all data if I partition? Thanks in advance...

 

[Terry]

On 3/30/2007 2:46 PM On a whim, (e-mail address removed) pounded out on
the keyboard

I just have a C drive and was wanting to partition my 60 Gb hard drive
into two partitions (C and D). Is that even possible? Will I wipe
out all data if I partition? Thanks in advance...

Hi Joe,

If you purchase a partition management program like Partition Magic or
BootIT NG, they can perform the task easily. But as always, it is
recommended that you backup your data first.

--
Terry

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[Jim]

If you purchase a partition management program like Partition Magic or
BootIT NG, they can perform the task easily. But as always, it is
recommended that you backup your data first.

I just did what you want on my new HP Laptop. As others have said,
backup first!

I used a free program called 'gparted.'

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

It will work with many 'flavors' of Windows and Linux partitions.
Download and install onto whatever media your laptop can boot.

On my HP I made that new partition primary because the recovery drive is
a FAT drive in an extended partition. I didn't want to mess with that
recovery stuff.

On that subject, I did back-up those recovery files onto DVD's first
thing when I bought this laptop. Everyone should do this. Now I can
'recover' from the HD files as long as they are intact or form the DVD's
if all else fails.


-Jim

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I just have a C drive and was wanting to partition my 60 Gb hard drive
into two partitions (C and D).

First of all, why?

Is that even possible?

Yes, but it requires third-party software, unless you are willing to start
all over and lose everything on the drive.

Will I wipe
out all data if I partition? Thanks in advance...

Unfortunately, no version of Windows before Vista provides any way of
changing the existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The
only way to do what you want is with third-party software. Partition Magic
is the best-known such program, but there are freeware/shareware
alternatives. One such program is BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware,
but comes with a free 30-day trial, so you should be able to do what you
want within that 30 days. I haven't used it myself (because I've never
needed to use *any* such program), but it comes highly recommended by
several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go
wrong.