Partition size

[Phreddy]

I would like to resize the 2 partitions on my harddrive. Is it possible to
do this without reformatting the whole drive? If so, how is it done? I am
running XP Home Edition SP2. Both drives are FAT32.

 

[JS]

You will need a third party utility like Partition Magic or Acronis.
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/partitioning.html

As always backup any important data files (documents, photos, music, etc.)
before using such a tool as
there is always a small chance that something can go wrong.

JS

 

[smlunatick]

You should also convert the drive from FAt32 to NTFS. FAT32 has
"forced" limits in XP. XP can only create partitions up to 32Gb and
you can not store any files greater than 4GB in FAT32 partitions.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

I would like to resize the 2 partitions on my harddrive. Is it possible to
do this without reformatting the whole drive? If so, how is it done? I am
running XP Home Edition SP2. Both drives are FAT32.

There is no way to resize partitions using native Windows tools
without deleting the existing partitions, and creating and formating new
partitions, and then reinstalling the OS and applications.

There are, fortunately, quite a few 3rd party products that can
help you repartition the hard drive non-destructively. Two such
products are Symantec's Partition Magic and BootItNG. The latter even
has a free, fully functional 30-day evaluation version available for
downloading from www.bootitng.com. Simply use one of them to resize the
partitions.


--

Bruce Chambers

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[Rock]

You should also convert the drive from FAt32 to NTFS. FAT32 has
"forced" limits in XP. XP can only create partitions up to 32Gb and
you can not store any files greater than 4GB in FAT32 partitions.

What "forced limits"? XP can't create FAT32 partitions bigger than 32GB but
it can certainly use FAT32 partitions of any size created by some other
means. Also the 4GB limit for files is not inherent to XP. It's a
limitation of the FAT32 files system.

There are other differences between FAT32 and NTFS, and there are advantages
to using FAT32 in some situations.
Whether or not the OP should convert to NTFS depends on the totality of his
situation.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I would like to resize the 2 partitions on my harddrive. Is it
possible to do this without reformatting the whole drive? If so, how
is it done? I am running XP Home Edition SP2. Both drives are FAT32.

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.

 

[market]

"""Phreddy ÐÉÓÁÌ(Á):
"""

I would like to resize the 2 partitions on my harddrive. Is it possible to
do this without reformatting the whole drive? If so, how is it done? I am
running XP Home Edition SP2. Both drives are FAT32.

If you need to resize your partitions without data loss, you ofcourse
need to use a third-party software. To solve your problem I can advise
you to use one of the tools of Paragon Partition Manager 8.0
(http://www.partition-manager.com), named "Redisrtibute free space".
This wizard easily provides you through the operation of resizing both
of your partitions and virtually shows, what results you will achieve
after using it. If you will be pleased with them, you can apply the
operation of redistributing free space phisicaly.


Sincerely,

Alexei Klyukin

Paragon Technical Support
Paragon Software Group
3150 Almaden Expressway
Suite 236, San Jose
CA-95118
http://www.paragon-software.com
http://www.drive-backup.com

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

"""Phreddy ÐÉÓÁÌ(Á):
"""

If you need to resize your partitions without data loss, you ofcourse
need to use a third-party software. To solve your problem I can advise
you to use one of the tools of Paragon Partition Manager 8.0

Get lost spammer! You are here just to promote your products.

As I said in reply to another message from you, I don't do business with
spammers. I keep of a list of products that people like you spam on the
newsgroups, so I can be sure that I will never buy or use any of them.

I recommend that others here do the same.