partitioning a large drive

[Walter]

I have a new machine, new hard drive, with Vista Home Premium. I've been
thinking about how I want to partition the 750G hard drive. Right now it is
one partition. I at least want two. One for the OS +apps and a second for
Data. But I might want to do a few more: another for XP, another for
alternative OS, another specific for Music, and maybe one specific for
Video. (Maybe even a swap disk, although I have 4G of RAM).

I also want to start doing disk imaging. I will probably buy Acronis for
that.

I've been reading about this and came across an article that says that
Vista's way of partitioning is not compatible with XP and can cause big
problems. - something about sector sizes and locations of the first and last
sectors. The article recommends to partition before installing Vista using
something other than Vista.

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html

Too late for me unless I wipe the drive. Also the article says that the disk
imaging application may not be compatible with Vista. This is hard to
believe but scary if true. It would be the explanation for some of the posts
here that I've read where people have trouble with dual boot machines.

What do people suggest I do at this point, with Vista already installed? Is
anybody using Acronis for disk imaging on a Vista machine where Vista was
installed on a single partition hard disk and then the hard drive was
repartitioned? Any problems?

 

[philo]

I have a new machine, new hard drive, with Vista Home Premium. I've been
thinking about how I want to partition the 750G hard drive. Right now it is
one partition. I at least want two. One for the OS +apps and a second for
Data. But I might want to do a few more: another for XP, another for
alternative OS, another specific for Music, and maybe one specific for
Video. (Maybe even a swap disk, although I have 4G of RAM).

I also want to start doing disk imaging. I will probably buy Acronis for
that.

I've been reading about this and came across an article that says that
Vista's way of partitioning is not compatible with XP and can cause big
problems. - something about sector sizes and locations of the first and last
sectors. The article recommends to partition before installing Vista using
something other than Vista.

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/partitions.html

Too late for me unless I wipe the drive. Also the article says that the disk
imaging application may not be compatible with Vista. This is hard to
believe but scary if true. It would be the explanation for some of the posts
here that I've read where people have trouble with dual boot machines.

What do people suggest I do at this point, with Vista already installed? Is
anybody using Acronis for disk imaging on a Vista machine where Vista was
installed on a single partition hard disk and then the hard drive was
repartitioned? Any problems?

You are in luck...
Vista is the first Microsoft OS to include non-destructive
re-partitioning...
you can do that through Disk Management.

BTW: Vista and XP both use NTFS...so it's not true about them having
non-compatable file systems

 

[PNutts]

Hi Walter:

This is the first I've heard of incompatibilities, but have some information
and opinions. What you want to do is completely valid and recommended.

I use Acronis and it is both XP and Vista compatible and I use it for
partitioning and imaging.

I can't remember specifically using Vista to create the partitions, but I go
back and forth between Vista, XP, and dual boot depending on the need. With
that said I would be surprised if I haven't created a partition with Vista
and then installed XP... But I won't argue with the Internet. I always create
primary partitions so I never have more than four on a given drive(s).

My quick advice would be to use the Vista Disk Manager to shrink the volume
to the size you want, then use XP or a third party app to create the
remaining partitions. The general advice is to install the oldest OS first,
so you may have some tweaking to do when you install XP last.

Right now I have two drives in a RAID0 configuration that has three
partitions: XP; Vista; and a partition I use as a drive visible to both OSs
for temporary files and junk. I have two more drives configured as RAID1
where I have two partitions where I keep my data and anything else that needs
safekeeping (including the hidden Acronis partition for images).

Good luck!

 

[Andre Da Costa[ActiveWin]]

Partitioning in Windows Vista:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/33592d49-86c7-4e78-b908-551f4949697e1033.mspx

http://lifehacker.com/software/vist...n-your-hard-drive-in-windows-vista-231613.php

 

[Walter]

You are in luck...
Vista is the first Microsoft OS to include non-destructive
re-partitioning...
you can do that through Disk Management.

BTW: Vista and XP both use NTFS...so it's not true about them having
non-compatable file systems

I'm happy to hear that as I would like to begin partitioning and then
transfer all my data files on to a data partition. and then use a disk
imaging app to make an image of the os and current apps installed. Is the
article referenced in the link above wrong about the disk sector differences
wrong about it causing problems?

 

[Walter]

Thanks.

 

[Walter]

Okay. I am attempting to use Vista's Disk Management to create mulitple
logical drives on my 750G hard drive.

First I selected Shrink Volume and used the default number that I saw in the
"Enter the amount of space to shrink in MB:" section. That resulted in a
C: of 457.0 GB drive and an Unallocated drive of 241.64GB.

From here I don't know where to go. When I select Shrink Volume on the C:
the Shrink window again brings up a "Enter the amount of space to shink in
MB:" but it has "0" in it. I type in "200000" figuring it will cut it
approximately in half. But the Shrink button is greyed out.

My goal is this:
C: = 200G for Vista + installed apps
D: = 100G for XP Pro + installed apps
E: = 100G for third OS
F: = 100G Data (Docs and Pictures)
G: = 200G Music and Video

 

[Andy]

If you want to shrink the Vista partition that much, you will have to
use a third party partitioning program.

 

[Walter]

If you want to shrink the Vista partition that much, you will have to
use a third party partitioning program.

Thank you for posting that, and I believe you. But where is that written?
I haven't heard anything like that -- but I am new to partitioning. This is
my first really large hard drive.

 

[Walter]

I am also seeing some info about using diskpart.exe from the command line.

http://vistarewired.com/2007/04/07/...ws-vista-xp-when-disk-management-doesnt-work/

has anybody tried this?

 

[Walter]

If you want to shrink the Vista partition that much, you will have to
use a third party partitioning program.

After investigating third party partitioning programs I was finally going to
buy Acronis Disk Director 10 and then I started reading some reviews of it
at newegg and people are saying it doesn't work with Vista.

What does? I really would like to break the drive up into reasonable size
partitions.

Worst case I could reinstall Vista. I had the shop where I configured my
computer do the install so it's nerve racking to think of doing myself. The
last time I did it four years ago with XP it was a pain because I had
something messed up in the MBR on the drive and it took me a couple days of
browsing, reading and experimenting to get a fresh install to work.

 

[Andy]

After investigating third party partitioning programs I was finally going to
buy Acronis Disk Director 10 and then I started reading some reviews of it
at newegg and people are saying it doesn't work with Vista.

What does? I really would like to break the drive up into reasonable size
partitions.

Worst case I could reinstall Vista. I had the shop where I configured my
computer do the install so it's nerve racking to think of doing myself. The
last time I did it four years ago with XP it was a pain because I had
something messed up in the MBR on the drive and it took me a couple days of
browsing, reading and experimenting to get a fresh install to work.

You should read some of those newegg reviews with scepticism. Seems
like specific complaints are with OS Selector not supporting Vista.

Try BootIt™ NG <http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html>. It
seems to have good word of mouth.