Increasing size of my OS partiton?

[Iago]

That's what I would do:
1) create partitions for and copy/move F: and G: to disk 3
2) create a larger OS partition on disk 2 and copy image from C:
3) create a partition for and copy N: to disk 2
4) boot from disk 2 - if windows complains you may have to do a repair
install
5) if everything works rearrange other partitions if you like, but
don't overlook creating a backup image of your new OS partition on
disk 0 (now should be free)

Should work and is safe. You are never doing open heart surgery on
your only bootable partition as it was in your initial plans.

Good luck!

 

[Iago]

That's what I would do:
1) create partitions for and copy/move F: and G: to disk 3
2) create a larger OS partition on disk 2 and copy image from C:
3) create a partition for and copy N: to disk 2
4) boot from disk 2 - if windows complains you may have to do a repair
install
5) if everything works rearrange other partitions if you like, but
don't overlook creating a backup image of your new OS partition on
disk 0 (now should be free)

Should work and is safe. You are never doing open heart surgery on
your only bootable partition as it was in your initial plans.

Good luck!

Unless there is a very good reason not to, between step 4 and step 5
you could update to SP2

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Unless there is a very good reason not to, between step 4 and step 5
you could update to SP2

Thanks, appreciate your advice.

BTW, C is not my 'only bootable partition'. As Rod said, that's why I
made E a copy rather than an image. That said, it's *very* old!

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Thats the amount of unallocated space as a percentage of that physical drive.


Even thats not all that much whe its still only 1G unallocated.


I doubt it with the boot partition.

If the risk worries more experienced users like you then it doesn't
exactly fill *me* with confidence ;-)

I assumed you explicitly excluded an image because you
wanted to be able to boot the copy if the shit does hit the fan.

Certainly using an image instead means that you dont need as much space to put it on.

And I'd personally use Acronis Disk Director Suite instead
of PM, just because it screws up drives a lot less often,
but I'd still only redo a drive after a full backup of the drive.

Yes, I've heard good reports of Acronis Disk Director. Starting from
now I'd probably choose that over PQ PM. But there's the waste of what
little I've learned, and the re-learning. So I'll either use PM & DI
or postpone yet again and accelerate my PC upgrade!

 

[Harry331]

Terry Pinnell wrote...

I'd appreciate some advice on increasing the size of my OS partition
(C please. Not only is it getting a bit short of working space, but
for some reason it appears I have significant 'unallocated' space.

This is the state at present:

http://i154.photobucket.com/albums/s247/terrypin999/Discussion/Drives- 11Oct2007.gif

I'm going to have to take this slowly, because it's years since I used
Partition Magic 7 to set up the partitions shown in that screenshot.
I'll have to re-learn some basics. (As an aside, note that the
exception is that external 160 GB Iomega drive I:, which my son gave
me recently. As I'm still on XP SP1, it's incredibly slow. After doing
a major backup of about 110 GB, taking around 38 hours, I don't
actively use it. It has its own power supply, so presumably it's not
affecting my system in any way?)

Anyway, back on topic, I'm a bit nervous after just doing a few hours
googling, and reading of various unhappy results some users have had
with PM. Even the later version, PM8, which I gather is supposed to be
better with XP than my version. Yet some other users praise it highly.

What's the consensus from the experts please? Can I reliably use PM 7
for this, despite C: being my active partition? Should I first use the
other PowerQuest program I have, Drive Image 2002, to make a fresh
identical COPY (not an image) of C: onto E:? The copy on it at present
is *very* old, as it's not a trivial job making it. So that in the
event of disaster I could boot from that instead.

Any help/advice would be much appreciated please.

I don't like PM8, it's old & outdated.
Would use Acronis Disk Director 10 (DD10) instead.

1. Backup C:
2. Move the content of N: drive out of the way.
3. Use Acronis DD10 to delete N:
4. Use DD10 to resize C: to occupy the whole drive 0.

That's it.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Terry Pinnell wrote...

I don't like PM8, it's old & outdated.
Would use Acronis Disk Director 10 (DD10) instead.

1. Backup C:
2. Move the content of N: drive out of the way.
3. Use Acronis DD10 to delete N:
4. Use DD10 to resize C: to occupy the whole drive 0.

That's it.

Thanks Harry, that sounds nicely straightforward. My first step is the
backup. I plan to do an up-to-date bootable copy of C to E with PQ
Drive Image. Either DI 2002, which is installed, or DI 5.0 still in
its shrink-wrap, received as a gift a few years ago. That way, when I
boot, I get the option of using C or E.

Data backups should be no problem, apart from taking so long if I use
the external drive (due to my PC being stuck on USB1. I fitted a an
adapter card some months ago, but turns out it's dependent on XP SP2
;-(