changing partition boundries

[Lee Bowman]

I have XP-Pro on an 80 Gb drive, partitioned 20/30/30, and configured
FAT32. I am 20% on C:, 39% on D:, and 20% on E:.

I plan on moving/removing what's stored on D & E. I would then like
to either change partioning to C:=40 and D:=40, eliminating E:, or
make the whole drive one partition, C:=80.

I would also like to change the drive to NTFS.

Is there any risk in moving partition boundries? If not, what's the
best program & version to use to do it?

I plan on backing up data files on a second drive prior to this
operation.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Lee

 

[Yves Leclerc]

There is always a risk in working with drive fromats and partitions. Always
backup any important files!

I have succesfully used Partition Magic 8 before. However, I have yet to
use any newer version now, since it was purchased by Symantec.

 

[Lee Chapelle]

I have XP-Pro on an 80 Gb drive, partitioned 20/30/30, and configured
FAT32. I am 20% on C:, 39% on D:, and 20% on E:.

I plan on moving/removing what's stored on D & E. I would then like
to either change partioning to C:=40 and D:=40, eliminating E:, or
make the whole drive one partition, C:=80.

I would also like to change the drive to NTFS.

Is there any risk in moving partition boundries? If not, what's the
best program & version to use to do it?

I plan on backing up data files on a second drive prior to this
operation.

Thanks for any suggestions.

40/40 would be my suggestion. My favorite program for this is BootitNG. You
can easily do this on day one of the 30 day trial period. The beauty of it
is that you can also use it to make a backup image of partitions (esp C
either on D: or to CD-Rs. In that case you would want to purchase the
program and keep it. www.bootitng.com I did page on it here
http://members.shaw.ca/bootitng/ Conversion to NTFS can be done
non-destructively from within Windows.


Lee

 

[Guest]

File system conversion is very very bad for future performance. In you have
second hard drive why simply save everything to it, and make fresh winxp
installation? It’s the best choice. During new installation you will be
offered to chooce where to install, and what to do with your drives; you can
delete all existing partitions and make new as you desire, and format they by
native winxp program.
Best, Alex

 

[Alex Nichol]

I plan on moving/removing what's stored on D & E. I would then like
to either change partioning to C:=40 and D:=40, eliminating E:, or
make the whole drive one partition, C:=80.

I would also like to change the drive to NTFS.

Is there any risk in moving partition boundries? If not, what's the
best program & version to use to do it?

There is always *some* risk, of say a power failure at a critical
moment. But good programs for it are resilient. What I use is BootIT
NG, from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional
trial)

Download, to its own folder, extract from the zip, run the bootitng to
make a boot floppy.

Boot the floppy, Cancel Install, entering maintenance, then click on
Partition work. Highlight partitions and use action buttons. Note that
a resize up requires free space immediately after, and resizing logical
ones in an extended partition needs to slide them up, then resize the
Extended, one before trying to expand into the released space.

And I would *not* have such a drive as a single partition. Keep one of
modest size (16 should be plenty) for system and installed software,
have data separate, so it should not get damaged if you have to do an
emergency repair on the system one