Partitioning in Vista

[Jeff]

Hi,
Anyone know of a utility;like Partitiom Magic;that will work;with Vista
already installed?
Tried Partition Magic 8.0 and Vista said it's incompatable aand won't let it
run..

Jeff

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

What are you trying to partition? Vista includes such tools.

 

[Jeff]

Colin,
OK,
I thought so, if it's that disc shrink;tried;doesn't work.
I have my whole hd as Vista; and wanted to have another partition to be able
to put another os on.
I've never ran anything other than windows;so I was thinking of setting
up another partition to try something new;at least new to me.
Was thinking of looking at a totally different o.s.;like those Linux
distro's I've heard ppl talk about so much.Want to see how they stack up
against MSFT; cuz I read lots of comments;in here sometimes too;where some
ppl swear by thm.
But now;as I'm typing this, Virtual pc;or VmWare would work;wouldn't
they?
Oh; and btw;where are those VM additions for Vista on Connect? Do you have
to be invited? Because the only ones I see are VM additions for Linux;not
for Vista..
Any help;comments;and or pointers;for any speific os;would be
appreciated;
Thanks,

Jeff

 

[Chad Harris]

Try Ranish. It's being used on Vista although as Colin has shown you, the
Vista Disk Manager should be working.


Ranish Partition Manager on Vista:
http://www.tutorialsall.com/VISTA/BootIt-andor/
Resizing Partitions with Windows Vista:

1.. Click on the Start Button and right click on Computer and select
Manage.
2.. Expand the Storage section and select Disk Management.
3.. Then just right click on any partition and select either Expand or
Shrink to change the size of the partition.
This will allow you to safely resize your partitions without any data loss.

http://www.ranish.com/part/

CH

So if I have this correct from the Airheads on CNN who are doing
Castro-TV--All Communist Dictator All the Time--either Mel Gibson or Lindsay
Lohan will be assuming Castro's duties and the younger 75 year old brother
will become a new caustic judge on American Idol which was George Bush's
last serious ability to com to grips with his surroundings.


Ranish Partition Manager is a powerful hard disk partitioning tool.
It gives users high level of control for running multiple operating systems,
such as Linux, Windows 98/XP, FreeDOS, and FreeBSD on a single disk.

Partition Manager can create, copy, and resize primary and extended
partitions.
It includes command line interface and simulation mode that works with large
files
so you can safely experiment before working on the real hard drive partition
tables.

 

[Guest]

Hi,
Anyone know of a utility;like Partitiom Magic;that will work;with Vista
already installed?
Tried Partition Magic 8.0 and Vista said it's incompatable aand won't let it
run..

In Windows Vista it is now possible to resize partitions without any data
loss in the new Disk Management console

 

[Chad Harris]

Ranish can be used in Vista as well. I'm trying to compare Ranish and
DiskManagement in Vista now.

CH

 

[Guest]

In Windows Vista it is now possible to resize partitions without any data
loss in the new Disk Management console

Bill:

Have you tried it?

TIA

 

[JCO]

I'm guessing Symantec will have their version out before the end of year
(before Vista gets released).
Since Symantec (Norton) has purchased the Partition Magic software. I know
that does not help you now.

I'm experimenting with Chad's suggestion, but the documentation not very
good. I hope to try some partitioning today (or soon anyway).

 

[JCO]

Chad,
I downloaded Part244. I find it very awkward to use & the readme files
suggests many limitations. Is this the partition tool that you think will
work with Vista?

 

[Chad Harris]

JCO--

Ranish will work for Vista and it has been well received. It wouldn't be
the first Read me that suggested many limitations but everyone I know is
very hpapy with it and its free. Sometimes the read mes can be on the
worrisome side, but given the uniformly good reviews Ranish has all over the
web in forums, I'd recommend you try it. It has been compatible with Vista
for several builds.

If you aren't happy with it, you may want to try one of the other partiton
applicatons when they become compatible with Vista.

Also you understand that Disk Management in Vista can shrink partitions now
without losing data--which has not been the case in Windows prior to this.
It can resize partitions when there is sufficient room.

CH

 

[Chad Harris]

JCO--

Ranish does work on Vista. It gets consistently good reviews. Vista does
have a Disk Management that can do partitioning without data loss. You
should try it; don't let the notes stop you. I used PM 8 from XP because I
had it to resize partitions. I've seen a lot of warnings about PM in Vista.
PM is a Symantec product, so soon they will be getting Vista compatible
version. Usually their time table is to drag until after RTM although they
did have an AV product or two that works on Vista--but I don't like using
Symantec AV.

CH

 

[David Wilkinson]

Chad,
I downloaded Part244. I find it very awkward to use & the readme files
suggests many limitations. Is this the partition tool that you think will
work with Vista?

JCO:

I'm not sure about RPM 2.44, but I spent a while looking at version
2.43. I learned a lot about how a boot manager works, but I found it too
crude for actual use, primarily because the boot menu is completely
inadequate:

(a) You cannot name the boot items; rather they are listed by the type
of file system. So you have to remember things like: The first FAT16
partition is Windows 95, the first NTFS partition is Windows XP, the
second NTFS partition is Vista x86, etc. ...

(b) Each boot menu choice loads a single partition into the MBR
partition table, without provision for including other partitions.

Both these defects can be overcome by using the main RPM menu to
explicitly list which partitions to put in the MBR, and to specify which
is the active partition. But this makes the program very clumsy to use.

There is an extension of RPM at www.echirag.com (also free), which
claims to address these defects, but I did not try it.

I would strongly recommend BootIt NG. It's not free, but it is much
cheaper than other offerings, and very easy to use. The way I use it is
in "unlimited primary partitions" mode, which is essentially the way
Ranish works, but with a more flexible interface. The nice thing about
this is that the different OS's do not see each other at all, and they
can be installed, or reinstalled, in any order. You do not need to know
anything about boot.ini, the BCD store, LILO, or any of that stuff. All
OS's are installed in exactly the same way. To uninstall an OS, just
remove it from the boot menu (and optionally reformat its partition). To
reinstall, just reformat the partition.

The only thing you need to be careful of when using BootIt in this way
(or Ranish) is not to use any other partitioning tools (e.g. those in
Vista) because the HD space belonging to other OS's appears as
unpartitioned space (and therefore "fair game").

David Wilkinson

 

[David Wilkinson]

I'm guessing Symantec will have their version out before the end of year
(before Vista gets released).
Since Symantec (Norton) has purchased the Partition Magic software. I know
that does not help you now.

I'm experimenting with Chad's suggestion, but the documentation not very
good. I hope to try some partitioning today (or soon anyway).

[snip]

Colin/JCO:

Ranish and BootIt NG are by definition compatible with Vista, because
they install themselves from a floppy as a "mini-OS" -- they are never
installed or used from within another OS such as XP or Vista. You can
install them either on an empty machine, or after any OS that uses the
"standard IPL code" in the MBR, which all Windows OS's do. If you
install after Linux, and Linux has put LILO or GRUB in the MBR, then you
have to modify the LILO or GRUB configuration. If you install Linux
after Ranish or BootIt then you must tell Linux to put LILO or GRUB in
the boot sector of the active partition, not in the MBR.

David Wilkinson

 

[JCO]

I've always used Partition Magic from a floppy disk too. But that does not
make it compatible with Vista. My issue with Part 2.44 is the DOS like
screen it comes up in. It shows seems to think that my Partitions are all
messed up and that all of the Partitions overlap each other. Therefore, I
can't do anything.

I will look at BootIt NG. I don't have an urgent need to partition my
harddrive at this time. I just want to make sure I have the tools to do so.
I can easily wait for PM (via Norton) to be updated later this year (I
assume).

I'm guessing Symantec will have their version out before the end of year
(before Vista gets released).
Since Symantec (Norton) has purchased the Partition Magic software. I know
that does not help you now.

I'm experimenting with Chad's suggestion, but the documentation not very
good. I hope to try some partitioning today (or soon anyway).

[snip]

Colin/JCO:

Ranish and BootIt NG are by definition compatible with Vista, because
they install themselves from a floppy as a "mini-OS" -- they are never
installed or used from within another OS such as XP or Vista. You can
install them either on an empty machine, or after any OS that uses the
"standard IPL code" in the MBR, which all Windows OS's do. If you
install after Linux, and Linux has put LILO or GRUB in the MBR, then you
have to modify the LILO or GRUB configuration. If you install Linux
after Ranish or BootIt then you must tell Linux to put LILO or GRUB in
the boot sector of the active partition, not in the MBR.

David Wilkinson

 

[David Wilkinson]

I've always used Partition Magic from a floppy disk too. But that does not
make it compatible with Vista. My issue with Part 2.44 is the DOS like
screen it comes up in. It shows seems to think that my Partitions are all
messed up and that all of the Partitions overlap each other. Therefore, I
can't do anything.

I will look at BootIt NG. I don't have an urgent need to partition my
harddrive at this time. I just want to make sure I have the tools to do so.
I can easily wait for PM (via Norton) to be updated later this year (I
assume).

JCO:

What do you mean by not compatible with Vista?

I experimented with Ranish on an old Compag Windows 95 machine with
three primary partitions (Compaq Diagnostics, and two FAT 16
partitions). Windows 95 was already installed on the first FAT
partition. Ranish was able to detect all three partitions, delete the
last one, and recreate two new FAT partitions in its place. I was then
able to install Windows 98 and another version of Windows 95 on the the
two new partitions, and use Ranish to multi-boot all four systems
(Compaq Diagnostics, original Windows 95, Windows 98, new Windows 95).
All the Windows systems saw themselves as the C drive, and did not see
the other partitions. It worked fine, but was a bit klutzy. I was able
to then do the same thing with BootIt.

On my new machine (with a single 320 GB SATA drive), I installed (in
this order)

Windows 2000 (5 GB)
BootIt NG
Windows 98 (1.5 GB)
Windows 95 (1.5 GB)
Vista x64 (40 GB)
XP Pro (80 GB)
Vista x86 (40 GB)

It all worked perfectly, with each OS seeing itself as the C drive, and
not seeing the other partitions. So BootIt is certainly compatible with
Vista as a boot manager (because Vista uses a "standard IPL" in the MBR
to boot itself). BootIt is also able to create and format FAT
partitions, and create (but not format) NTFS partitions. I haven't tried
the partition moving/resizing or imaging features of BootIt yet. It's
really just the multi-boot feature on this test machine that I was after.

David Wilkinson

 

[JCO]

Sorry, I think you misunderstood.
I was reading your previous note that where you complimented Ranish (Ranish
and BootIt NG) because it boots to it's own OS (not the computer). I was
simply saying that PM does the same thing, but that does not make it (PM)
compatible with Vista.
Sorry about the confusion.

 

[David Wilkinson]

Sorry, I think you misunderstood.
I was reading your previous note that where you complimented Ranish
(Ranish and BootIt NG) because it boots to it's own OS (not the
computer). I was simply saying that PM does the same thing, but that
does not make it (PM) compatible with Vista.
Sorry about the confusion.

But what does "incompatible with Vista" mean? As a boot manager? As a
partition resizer? The latter I am not sure about.

But when you use Ranish or BootIt as a boot manager, I don't think they
pay any attention to what is in the partitions; they just transfer
control to the boot sector of the appropriate partition. And if you
want to add an OS that uses NTFS (as Vista must) then you just create
the new partition; you do not have to format it. So what needs to be
compatible? For me, installing XP and installing Vista were exactly the
same. I created the partition, and told the installation to use it. The
formatting was done by the installation program.

David Wilkinson

 

[JCO]

I don't have any experience with Ranish.
But if you have Vista loaded on a partition, then you try using Partition
Magic, you will see that PM does not work. That is all I'm saying.

I understand that you like Ranish and that it works fine for you and works
great on Vista Partitons. That is great that you have a tool that works for
you. Personally, I prefer to wait until the next PM version which should
work with Vista partitions.