Defragging and Partitioning

[Guest]

I have plenty of space on my C: drive at the moment, so I would like to split
it into separate partitions.

I have defragmented the drive (112GB), using Windows XP Disk Defragmenter.
One stage is to "compress" the files moving the files on the disc. Nearly all
of the files are now in the first 30Gb of the disc, so far so good.

But Disk Defragmenter has left some contiguous files at about 80% of the way
down the disc. So there is (approximately) 30GB used, 60GB unused, 1 GB used,
21 GB unused.

Any idea why these files are left there? They are not marked as unmoveable.

What I really want to do is make the C:\ drive 40GB then have two more
partitions of (for example) 36GB each.

Could anyone tell me how to do this? Using, perhaps Acronis Disk Director 9
or Paragon Partition Manager 6 or Symantec Partition Magic 8? I guess my
second question is - does the Partition resize operations move data safely?

TIA

 

[Walter Clayton]

Most 3rd party tools will handle the file movement for you.
My suggestion is http://www.bootitng.com

 

[Bob Harris]

I had had excellent success with Partion Magic version 8 on XP with SP-1 and
SP-2. However, I also advise you to make a backup of the drive, before you
play with partitions. PM8 is good, but not perfect. Also, when installing
PM8 it offers to make a floppy disk set that can run the vital PM8 options
without booting into windows, in case something goes wrong. Be sure to make
that floppy set.

While PM8 runs faster if the disk is defragged, that is not required.
However, it is required that the file system be free from errors. So, be
sure to run CHKDSK immediately before PM8. If CHKDSK senses any errors, run
CHKDSK with the /F or /R options, reboot to take effect, then run PM* after
the reboot. Note that PM8 will move any files left around in the upper end
of the disk after the defrag to below the newly defined partition boundary.

PM8 can stack operations. In general I recommend doing one at a time.
However, some operations require two steps, and thus it is OK it PM8 listed
two pending operations.

Acronis Disk Director should also be able to do what you want. By the way,
if you do not yet have a good bakup program, Acronis True Image 8 is easy to
use and can backup/restore to/from USB and firewire disks. It can be
run from a bootable CD, in case windows does not boot, or to restore the
partition containing the operating system.

The XP disk managment console can not handle this sort of re-partioning,
without first deleting the partition, which will lose all data.

 

[Guest]

I have plenty of space on my C: drive at the moment, so I would like to split
it into separate partitions.

Uh, why? If you are doing it for backup reasons, you are better off getting
a second external USB hard drive or its equivalent. If you are doing it for
performance reasons, you are actually better off not doing it at all,
especially if you are using NTFS rather than FAT32.

I have defragmented the drive (112GB), using Windows XP Disk Defragmenter.
One stage is to "compress" the files moving the files on the disc. Nearly all
of the files are now in the first 30Gb of the disc, so far so good.

But Disk Defragmenter has left some contiguous files at about 80% of the way
down the disc. So there is (approximately) 30GB used, 60GB unused, 1 GB used,
21 GB unused.

Any idea why these files are left there? They are not marked as unmoveable.

Possibily because it has moved very large files and archive files to a
slower part of your hard drive, leaving more room for your application and
system files closer to the faster part of the drive. I don't know this for a
fact, but I have noticed the same behavior when using the XP defragger.

What I really want to do is make the C:\ drive 40GB then have two more
partitions of (for example) 36GB each.

Uh, why?

Could anyone tell me how to do this? Using, perhaps Acronis Disk Director 9
or Paragon Partition Manager 6 or Symantec Partition Magic 8? I guess my
second question is - does the Partition resize operations move data safely?

I know that the Symantec product does. I cannot vouch for the other ones.

Ken

 

[Guest]

Guys, thanks for the information - that looks valuable. i wll have a closer
look at PM8.

Ken, I have bought an external drive for backups and I want to partition the
C:\drive so that I can move my files into the various partitions and back
them up individually (and faster).

many thanks