Expand Current System Volume on Hard drive

[Guest]

I have winx XP with service pack 2 with all the updates put out by Microsoft
for Win XP professional.
I am looking to move to Vista but do not have the require disk space on the
main System volume.

I have three volumes System, 30 GB; Application 20 GB; Data 30 GB all on one
disk with no partitions.

Can I extend my System Volume to take up some of the space available on the
Application volume. Currently I am only using about 4GB of the 20 available?

There is not un-allocated space on the disk.

I would like to upgrade to vista but keep all my extising programs etc (The
compatable ones about 99%).

Would I be better off buying a new larger hard drive and image my current
drive to the new drive then upgrade the new drive to Vista?

Any suggestions or hints are appreciated.
Jawahar

 

[Rock]

I have winx XP with service pack 2 with all the updates put out by
Microsoft
for Win XP professional.
I am looking to move to Vista but do not have the require disk space on
the
main System volume.

I have three volumes System, 30 GB; Application 20 GB; Data 30 GB all on
one
disk with no partitions.

Can I extend my System Volume to take up some of the space available on
the
Application volume. Currently I am only using about 4GB of the 20
available?

There is not un-allocated space on the disk.

I would like to upgrade to vista but keep all my extising programs etc
(The
compatable ones about 99%).

Would I be better off buying a new larger hard drive and image my current
drive to the new drive then upgrade the new drive to Vista?

To change the amount of space allocated to each partition and do so non
destructively will require 3rd party tools, such as BootIt NG or Acronis
Disk Director Suite. Vista has no problems with partitions manipulated by
these tools.

As to whether you'd be better off with a new, bigger drive, Vista should be
given on the order of 40GB for it's use. You have enough space on the drive
you have so it's up to you, but drives have a tendency to get filled.

Before upgrading to Vista make sure you have a backup of all data. I
recommend imaging the XP installation to an external hard drive so you can
return to XP if you want or if the upgrade bombs out. Acronis True Image
Home v. 10 is an excellent imaging program which works in both XP and Vista.
Couple that with a hard drive installed in an external hard drive enclosure
and connected to the system via USB, Firewire or eSata and you have good,
low cost backup solution.

Lastly there are Vista specific newsgroups:

microsoft.public.windows.vista.administration_accounts_password
microsoft.public.windows.vista.file_management
microsoft.public.windows.vista.games
microsoft.public.windows.vista.general
microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices
microsoft.public.windows.vista.installation_setup
microsoft.public.windows.vista.mail
microsoft.public.windows.vista.music_pictures_video
microsoft.public.windows.vista.networking_sharing
microsoft.public.windows.vista.performance_maintenance
microsoft.public.windows.vista.print_fax_scan
microsoft.public.windows.vista.security

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have winx XP with service pack 2 with all the updates put out by
Microsoft for Win XP professional.
I am looking to move to Vista but do not have the require disk space
on the main System volume.

I have three volumes System, 30 GB; Application 20 GB; Data 30 GB all
on one disk with no partitions.

Can I extend my System Volume to take up some of the space available
on the Application volume. Currently I am only using about 4GB of the
20 available?

There is not un-allocated space on the disk.

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.

Also a word on your partitioning scheme: some people recommend separating
the operating system and installed applications on different partitions
because think that if they ever have to reinstall Windows, their
applications will remain. They are wrong. Even if your applications are
installed on a partition separate from that the operating system is on, you
can *not* reinstall the operating system without losing the applications.
The reason is that all applications (except for a very occasional
near-trivial one) have entries and pointers to them within Windows, in the
registry and elsewhere. With Windows gone, all those entries get lost, and
the applications get broken. So that benefit goes away.

My view is that most people's partitioning scheme should be based on their
backup scheme. If, for example, you backup by creating a clone or image of
the entire drive, then a single partition might be best. If, on the other
hand, you backup only your data, then the backup process is facilitated by
having all data in a separate partition.

Except for those running multiple operating systems, there is seldom any
benefit to having more than two partitions.