Extending a Disk in Vista?

[Ross M. Greenberg]

I had a 10 GB partition that just freed up. I want to combine that with my existing C: drive. Here's a disk management snap that graphically shows what I currently have -- http://ramnet.net/diskman.jpg

When I right click on the C: drive the extend menu choice is grayed out. How can I extend that drive, in essence adding 10 GB?

Thanks!

Ross

 

[Jane C]

I had a 10 GB partition that just freed up. I want to combine that with my
existing C: drive. Here's a disk management snap that graphically shows
what I currently have -- http://ramnet.net/diskman.jpg

When I right click on the C: drive the extend menu choice is grayed out.
How can I extend that drive, in essence adding 10 GB?

Thanks!

Ross

HI Ross,

You can't do that with Vista's Disk Management, as your unused space is to
the left of your Vista partition. You can only merge unused space that is
to the right of the partition that you want to add it to.

Acronis Disk Director may be able to do what you want.

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Lee: maybe I'm just being denser than usual. I downloaded what you indicated but have not gotten the programs to work. Can you give step-by-step instructions for someone who is currently thinking impaired?

Thanks!

Ross

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

I watched the video a few times, took notes and practiced. I'm all set to try it now -- once my external USB backup finishes. I'm sure that you feel is entirely trustworthy, but I trust nothing -- belts and suspenders, crazy glue, masking tape and a staple gun. That's me. And I still do not feel secure!

Wish me luck, Lee!

Ross

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

I watched the video a few times, took notes and practiced. I'm all set to try it now -- once my external USB backup finishes. I'm sure that you feel is entirely trustworthy, but I trust nothing -- belts and suspenders, crazy glue, masking tape and a staple gun. That's me. And I still do not feel secure!

Wish me luck, Lee!

Ross

===============
Well, Lee:

you were not wishing hard enough! I followed the directions precisely. I not only made another backup using Norton Ghost, but made another backup using the facility of the program itself. Then I ran a slide. It was only a 10 GB partition and it took about five hours. Then I rebooted. Trashed system. No big deal. I had my own backup plus the one the program recommended. First, I tried the program's own backup. The program could not find any backup made. I started to panic. I went to the Ghost backup. It was not recovering either. Two days of pure panic. It ends up that boot-it did some nasty stuff to my partition table which prevented ghost from recovering my backup. I had to use the program's delete partition function to delete the screwy partition, and then Norton Ghost could recover my disk.

Ross

PS: because of me delete the partition table and then recovering from the ghost backup it ends up that I now have a 35 GB free space partition! Got it the hard way, but got it!

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Back to the drawing board: the same problem exists with extend volume be grayed out in computer management: http://ramnet.net/diskman2.jpg !

Now fortunately a 35 GB is great -- but I still want the other 10 GB!

Now what?

Ross



I watched the video a few times, took notes and practiced. I'm all set to try it now -- once my external USB backup finishes. I'm sure that you feel is entirely trustworthy, but I trust nothing -- belts and suspenders, crazy glue, masking tape and a staple gun. That's me. And I still do not feel secure!

Wish me luck, Lee!

Ross

===============
Well, Lee:

you were not wishing hard enough! I followed the directions precisely. I not only made another backup using Norton Ghost, but made another backup using the facility of the program itself. Then I ran a slide. It was only a 10 GB partition and it took about five hours. Then I rebooted. Trashed system. No big deal. I had my own backup plus the one the program recommended. First, I tried the program's own backup. The program could not find any backup made. I started to panic. I went to the Ghost backup. It was not recovering either. Two days of pure panic. It ends up that boot-it did some nasty stuff to my partition table which prevented ghost from recovering my backup. I had to use the program's delete partition function to delete the screwy partition, and then Norton Ghost could recover my disk.

Ross

PS: because of me delete the partition table and then recovering from the ghost backup it ends up that I now have a 35 GB free space partition! Got it the hard way, but got it!

 

[Ringmaster]

Back to the drawing board: the same problem exists with extend volume be grayed out in computer management: http://ramnet.net/diskman2.jpg !

Now fortunately a 35 GB is great -- but I still want the other 10 GB!

Now what?

Ross

The disk management tools that come with Vista are stripped down and
can't handle even simple changes with any reliability. It is shameful,
but that's how it is. If you want to recover the unallocated space you
need some third party tool that does what you want easily. Be sure if
you go this way that whatever you get is made for Vista, if not, it
won't work. The boys of Redmond tinkered with the NTFS structure just
enough to break older utilities that ran under XP forcing users to buy
newer versions.

 

[the wharf rat]

The disk management tools that come with Vista are stripped down and
can't handle even simple changes with any reliability. It is shameful,

They're actually at least as useful as basic Linux tools. Other
than AIX and the late lamented OSF/1 nothing really ships with a 100%
useful volume manager...

 

[Ross M. Greenberg]

Any opinions on the "EASEUS Partition Manager 2.0" -- it's a freebie, states that it does everything I need, and a lot more?

My son just rediscovered World of WarCraft -- I need all the free partition I can get!

Ross