Playing with Partitions

[Watty]

What MS facility do I use to see my partitions, and change them if
necessary?

I do have Partition Magic somewhere to install, if necessary.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

What MS facility do I use to see my partitions, and change them if
necessary?

I do have Partition Magic somewhere to install, if necessary.

Use diskmgmt.msc to do it destructively, or PQMagic non-destructively.

 

[Watty]

Use diskmgmt.msc to do it destructively, or PQMagic non-destructively.

Destructively doesn't sound too appealing. What's the difference between
the two? I've usually used PQM.

 

[smlunatick]

Destructively doesn't sound too appealing. What's the difference between
the two? I've usually used PQM.

PQMagic "appears" to be a "DOS" version of Partition Magic. I do
recall that on the older "pre Symantec" versions of Partition Magic,
PQMagic was included.

You must note that with any partition change, there will always be a
risk of loosing everything. Changing the structure on any drive is
risky so backups is Very important!

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Destructively doesn't sound too appealing. What's the difference between
the two? I've usually used PQM.

Destructive means exactly what it says: If you use the native Windows Disk
Manager to resize your partitions then you must first destroy them.

 

[Watty]

Destructive means exactly what it says: If you use the native Windows Disk
Manager to resize your partitions then you must first destroy them.

P Magic it is then, if even try to do it. It may be entirely unnecessary.

 

[Watty]

P Magic it is then, if even try to do it. It may be entirely unnecessary.

BTW, speaking of destruction, you might be surprised to know that a one
megaton nuclear device would take out a major league park, and not
destroy much of the surround area.

 

[Watty]

BTW, speaking of destruction, you might be surprised to know that a one
megaton nuclear device would take out a major league park, and not
destroy much of the surround area.

Good grief. I meant kiloton. Too many megas and gigas swirling around in
my head at the moment.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

What MS facility do I use to see my partitions,

You can easily see them, and their size, contents, etc. with Windows
Explorer.

and change them if
necessary?

Do you mean change their number, size, etc.? Why do you think you
might want to do this?

I do have Partition Magic somewhere to install, if necessary.

You need a third-party program, such as that.

My personal view is that many people plan the number and size of their
partitions very poorly, and you might like to read this article I've
recently written on this subject:
http://www.computorcompanion.com/LPMArticle.asp?ID=326

 

[Bill in Co.]

P Magic it is then, if even try to do it. It may be entirely unnecessary.

And you may need a later version of PM, as the earlier versions weren't
compatible with WinXP and couldn't deal with the large partitions/disks of
today.

 

[Gilgamesh]

And you may need a later version of PM, as the earlier versions weren't
compatible with WinXP and couldn't deal with the large partitions/disks of
today.

Actually the most recent version of PM can only handle partitions up to
300Gb.
If the disk has a larger partition it will not read the disk properly even
if that is not the partition you want to change.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Excellent article!

Thanks Ken.

You're welcome, Curt.

 

[Sandy]

Ken - Good Article. Here is a question I'd like to ask of you.

I've written earlier to this newsgroup, and while awaiting answers, came
across your post. My question, if I have a hard drive with a recovery
partition (Dell), and the system boots from this drive "X" rather than the
"C" drive, how can I change this so it boots from the "C" partition rather
than the "X?" (I'm trying to find a solution to the black screen with
blinking cursor with Vista issue)

Thanks in advance!
Sandy


--
IT Services Help Center

Excellent article!

Thanks Ken.

You're welcome, Curt.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken - Good Article.

Thanks very much.

Here is a question I'd like to ask of you.

I've written earlier to this newsgroup, and while awaiting answers, came
across your post. My question, if I have a hard drive with a recovery
partition (Dell), and the system boots from this drive "X" rather than the
"C" drive, how can I change this so it boots from the "C" partition rather
than the "X?" (I'm trying to find a solution to the black screen with
blinking cursor with Vista issue)

The system automatically boots from the recovery partition? That seems
very unlikely to me, but if that's what's happening, I don't know why,
and can't help with it. You should contact Dell and ask them your
question.

 

[Sandy]

Thank you. This will probably seem like a really dumb question but, when I do
a "DiskPart" and look at the 'list volume' option the X partition is marked
as a healthy partition, and a boot partition. However, when I do bcdedit.exe
- those records indicate the computer is booting off the "C" partition. Yeah,
I'm confused, and think I'll give up and reload Vista.

Thanks though.

 

[Gilgamesh]

Thank you. This will probably seem like a really dumb question but, when I
do
a "DiskPart" and look at the 'list volume' option the X partition is
marked
as a healthy partition, and a boot partition. However, when I do
bcdedit.exe
- those records indicate the computer is booting off the "C" partition.
Yeah,
I'm confused, and think I'll give up and reload Vista.

Is it possible that the Recovery partition has been marked as the Active
partition.
This will then be the default boot partition and will appear as the C drive.

Thanks though.