Can't extend my Vista Partition

[Amir Facade]

I have 2 hard drives with a total of 9 partitions in my machine.
On the first Hard drive I have XP Pro installed in the first partition of
135Gigs.
Vista is installed in the second partition of 55 Gigs.
I am running a dual boot machine with no problems, and I am using the Vista
OS more as time goes by.
I have 60 Gigs of free space on the XP partition and I am down to 10 Gigs of
free space on the Vista partition.
I want to shrink the XP partition and extend the Vista Partition by about 30
Gigs.
I can quite easily shrink the XP Partition with Windows Disk Management
console in Vista, but it will not allow me to use the then unallocated 30
Gigs to extend the Vista partition.
The "extend" option for the Vista partition is grayed out.
I have Partition magic installed on my XP partition, but I am very reluctant
to use it for this purpose due to poor reviews.
Any response to this question would be greatly appreciated.
TIA, Amir

 

[Jane C]

If your Vista partition is to the right of the XP partition, then you won't
be able to extend it. You can only extend a partition to unallocated space
on the right. The space that you claimed back from your XP partition would
be to the left of the Vista partition.

Avoid Partition Magic with Vista. It will cause problems.

 

[Robert Firth]

I've done many resizings and such with that tool, always with positive
results. The only thing to beware is that I believe you can only reallocate
space from right to left. I imaging it has to do with the order stuff is
held on a partition - at the beginning.

Robert Firth
http://www.winvistainfo.org

 

[ray]

I have 2 hard drives with a total of 9 partitions in my machine.
On the first Hard drive I have XP Pro installed in the first partition of
135Gigs.
Vista is installed in the second partition of 55 Gigs.
I am running a dual boot machine with no problems, and I am using the Vista
OS more as time goes by.
I have 60 Gigs of free space on the XP partition and I am down to 10 Gigs of
free space on the Vista partition.
I want to shrink the XP partition and extend the Vista Partition by about 30
Gigs.
I can quite easily shrink the XP Partition with Windows Disk Management
console in Vista, but it will not allow me to use the then unallocated 30
Gigs to extend the Vista partition.
The "extend" option for the Vista partition is grayed out.
I have Partition magic installed on my XP partition, but I am very reluctant
to use it for this purpose due to poor reviews.
Any response to this question would be greatly appreciated.
TIA, Amir

An intelligent utility will not attempt to resize a mounted partition.
Suggest you try the Gparted Live CD.

 

[Richard Urban]

I would just use one of the Windows specific utilities.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Rock]

I have 2 hard drives with a total of 9 partitions in my machine.
On the first Hard drive I have XP Pro installed in the first partition of
135Gigs.
Vista is installed in the second partition of 55 Gigs.
I am running a dual boot machine with no problems, and I am using the
Vista OS more as time goes by.
I have 60 Gigs of free space on the XP partition and I am down to 10 Gigs
of free space on the Vista partition.
I want to shrink the XP partition and extend the Vista Partition by about
30 Gigs.
I can quite easily shrink the XP Partition with Windows Disk Management
console in Vista, but it will not allow me to use the then unallocated 30
Gigs to extend the Vista partition.
The "extend" option for the Vista partition is grayed out.
I have Partition magic installed on my XP partition, but I am very
reluctant to use it for this purpose due to poor reviews.
Any response to this question would be greatly appreciated.

Use a 3rd party utility to do this. Acronis Disk Director Suite version 10
works fine in Vista. Also BootIt NG from Terabyte Unlimited. Both offer
trial versions.

 

[Roberto de Corneille]

I have 2 hard drives with a total of 9 partitions in my machine.
On the first Hard drive I have XP Pro installed in the first partition of
135Gigs.
Vista is installed in the second partition of 55 Gigs.
I am running a dual boot machine with no problems, and I am using the
Vista OS more as time goes by.
I have 60 Gigs of free space on the XP partition and I am down to 10 Gigs
of free space on the Vista partition.
I want to shrink the XP partition and extend the Vista Partition by about
30 Gigs.
I can quite easily shrink the XP Partition with Windows Disk Management
console in Vista, but it will not allow me to use the then unallocated 30
Gigs to extend the Vista partition.
The "extend" option for the Vista partition is grayed out.
I have Partition magic installed on my XP partition, but I am very
reluctant to use it for this purpose due to poor reviews.
Any response to this question would be greatly appreciated.
TIA, Amir

BootIT NG from Terrabyte will do what you want, [Never had an issue
with PM with other M$ OS's prior to Vista though].
rgds
Roberto

 

[Amir Facade]

After doing more research and finding some issues with every program
available(I know, probably mostly user error.) I decided to try gparted.
Burned the cd and the user interface was pretty user friendly.
I reduced the XP partition, expanded the logical partition(of which Vista
was part 1 of 4) and expanded the Vista partition.
It took about an hour and a half to run and when I rebooted it stated that I
should restart with my Vista disk and do a "repair my computer".( I had seen
this in the forums and was not alarmed)
I did this in about 5 mins, it ran a check disk and restarted just fine. I
checked my XP OS, and that too is working fine.

Thanks for the all the suggestions and I hope this helps someone else.

Amir

 

[Amir Facade]

Something else of interest on this subject.
Now when I start my computer it sits on the first BIOS screen for about 20
seconds before it moves on.
It used to sit there maybe 3 seconds, 5 max.
What's with that?

Are we having fun yet?

Amir

 

[Don]

Something else of interest on this subject.
Now when I start my computer it sits on the first BIOS screen for about
20 seconds before it moves on.
It used to sit there maybe 3 seconds, 5 max.
What's with that?

The word 'first' is vague. What appears on the screen during that time?
Is it counting the RAM, autodetecting hard drives, or what?

 

[Amir Facade]

You are right. Sorry about that.
It is a home built machine with an EVGA 680i LT MoBo with an E6600 and 2
gigs of RAM
The first screen I see is the first BIOS screen with the memory and the hard
drives and the # of the BIOS and what key to press to open the BIOS
settings. That screen finishes its business and just sits there for 20
seconds or so till it moves on to the next screen which only shows for a
second or 2, then it goes to the screen where it gives me a choice of which
OS to boot.

Amir