Repartitioning hard drive

[Guest]

Being brand new to Home XP, I'm running into trouble attempting to
repartition my hard drive, it is new and has bare minimum installed. I am
familiar with the old FDISK but it is no longer there, and DISKPART does not
perform the same way, and DISKMGMT.MSC doesn't appear to do anything!

Any help out there?

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

XP's DiskPart utility is capable of only partitioning a hard drive that is empty
or has "unallocated" free space.
For example, if you were to install a new second drive, DiskPart can be
used to partition and format it. DiskPart cannot segregate current files from
free space, therefore, only a sophisticated third-party partitioning program,
such as Partition Magic 8 , can be used with a drive that already has Windows XP
installed.

The only way you can create, delete, resize or merge existin­g partitions,
and not harm your existing Windows installation, is to purch­ase and use
a third-party partitioning program such as Partition Magic 8­.
http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/

The alternative is to perform a "clean install" of Windows X­P:

How to Partition and Format a Hard Disk in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;313348&Product=winxp

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User
Microsoft Newsgroups

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.mspx

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Being brand new to Home XP, I'm running into trouble attempting to
| repartition my hard drive, it is new and has bare minimum installed. I am
| familiar with the old FDISK but it is no longer there, and DISKPART does not
| perform the same way, and DISKMGMT.MSC doesn't appear to do anything!
|
| Any help out there?
| --
| edip

 

[Peter Gniewek]

Well if you want to make partition in Windows XP you have to start windows
from CD go to BIOS and select CD ROM in boot in the advance configuration
when you restart computer insert Windows XP CD and system will go to
installation proccess. There you can make partition, delete partition,
install windows and few other things.
Note: Use this option when you want to install windown or repair be carefull
before you change configuration because when you delete partition you will
lost all data!!

 

[Gerry Cornell]

AzCowboy

Whilst I also favour Partition Magic you might look at BootitNG on a 30
day trial.

--


Hope this helps.

Gerry
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[Guest]

Thanks Carey; I'm not worried about losing all the data on my drive, it is
new and I have a reinstall CD to put everything back out. I just wish
Microsoft had made this more clear in their documentation, I spent an entire
day trying to get either of them to work. Why does the documentation refer
to "deleting partitions & volumes"? that is what threw me!

 

[Guest]

Thanks Peter, I'll look at that. I'm not worried about losing my data, I
have a resinstall CD

 

[Guest]

Thanks Gerry, never thought about that, I'll look into it.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Being brand new to Home XP, I'm running into trouble attempting to
repartition my hard drive, it is new and has bare minimum installed.

Either you use a third party Partition manager (eg Partition Magic or
BootitNG) or you start over clean. For that You do it as part of a
reinstall of the system after booting the XP CD direct. Enter Setup,
and after the license agreement take New Install. When it asks you to
confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete the current partitions and
make a new RAW one appropriately sized for C:, to be formatted at the
next stage

Then when the system is up, go to Control Panel - Admin Tools - Computer
Management, select Disk Management and look lower right for the graphic
of the drive. R-click in Unallocated space and you can Create Partition
to make others (up to four in all, though one can be an Extended
partition to hold several volumes - after making one r-click in the Free
space in it to do so)

 

[Guest]

Thanks Alex, very helpful, I needed that! Are you familiar with "BootIt Next
Generation"? if so, is it reliable? Ed

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks Alex, very helpful, I needed that! Are you familiar with "BootIt Next
Generation"? if so, is it reliable? Ed

Its my main tool for this. Very reliable, but of course, even with best
recovery methods it is always just possible to have a catastrophic
failure - eg a power cut just at a critical point that cannot be
protected. So back up important data first. Always, with any major
system operation


BTW if using it just for partitioning, boot its floppy but do *not*
install, instead Cancel and enter Maintenance, there take Partition Work
and it is a GUI that is fairly clear; select a partition, click the
needed function button

 

[Guest]

Thanks again....

Its my main tool for this. Very reliable, but of course, even with best
recovery methods it is always just possible to have a catastrophic
failure - eg a power cut just at a critical point that cannot be
protected. So back up important data first. Always, with any major
system operation


BTW if using it just for partitioning, boot its floppy but do *not*
install, instead Cancel and enter Maintenance, there take Partition Work
and it is a GUI that is fairly clear; select a partition, click the
needed function button