Shrinking/expanding basic volumes

[Sandy]

I just wanted to confirm a few things before I screwed up something (like,
my OS). Usually, I'd use Partition Magic to resize partitions, but
apparently, Vista includes something quite similar (and PM won't work on
Vista) so I thought I'd give it a go. Also, this is with basic volumes, not
dynamic.

I have a single hard drive partitioned as:
Primary
Extended - contains three logical partitions

I want to take some space from a logical and add it to the primary, so I
would...:
shrink a logical
shrink the extended
add the leftover space to the primary
Right? That's how I would do it in PM so, I just want to make sure it's the
same process in Vista.

1. When you shrink the size of the extended, does the extra space become
available near the primary partition or after the extended? The reason I
ask is because, I've read that the space you're adding to the primary must
be adjacent to the primary partition. So, where does the extra space show
up?

2. I've heard some people say you can't resize the primary partition
without totally screwing up the OS. How likely is it that I'll ruin the OS
by ADDING space? I could see a screw-up coming after shrinking a partition,
but what about by extending?

Thank you,
Sandy

 

[Johnny Fosse]

I just wanted to confirm a few things before I screwed up something (like,
my OS). Usually, I'd use Partition Magic to resize partitions, but
apparently, Vista includes something quite similar (and PM won't work on
Vista) so I thought I'd give it a go. Also, this is with basic volumes, not
dynamic.

I have a single hard drive partitioned as:
Primary
Extended - contains three logical partitions

I want to take some space from a logical and add it to the primary, so I
would...:
shrink a logical
shrink the extended
add the leftover space to the primary
Right? That's how I would do it in PM so, I just want to make sure it's the
same process in Vista.

1. When you shrink the size of the extended, does the extra space become
available near the primary partition or after the extended? The reason I
ask is because, I've read that the space you're adding to the primary must
be adjacent to the primary partition. So, where does the extra space show
up?

2. I've heard some people say you can't resize the primary partition
without totally screwing up the OS. How likely is it that I'll ruin the OS
by ADDING space? I could see a screw-up coming after shrinking a partition,
but what about by extending?

Thank you,
Sandy

Looking at everything from the viewpoint in Disk Management...

You can ONLY shrink the partition to the RIGHT of the Primary - you
can then add that space to the primary.

Not very good, huh?

Right.

You will need a third-party app to do anything more complex.

For a freebie, try Googling EASEUS.

 

[RalfG]

You can't do what you want to do with Vista the way you intend. The shrink
space you create will be on the right side of whichever partition you are
shrinking... eg |Primary|-|1st Logical||shrink|-|2nd Logical|-|3rd Logical|

When resizing the boot partition you wouldn't screw up the partition by
shrinking it. You can also safely increase the size by expanding the
partition into unused space on the right (adding it to the end of the
partition, not the beginning). I can attest that trying to add space to the
beginning of a boot partition can screw it up nicely. I had a dual boot
with XP first, Vista second and wanted to give more space to Vista.
Shrinking the XP partition was no problem but Vista couldn't expand into the
empty space so I tried "sliding" the Vista partition into the vacant space
using BootITNG. Whether I screwed something up during the process or
whatever, I ended up having to reinstall Vista. Luckily Vista was only a few
days old on the PC and there wasn't a lot of extra software to reinstall
with the OS. Currently I have an image of my Vista partition so juggling
space on the harddrive can be done with relative impunity (boot loader may
need repairing). If you have a Seagate or Maxtor drive in the PC you can
get the imaging software free from Seagate.

 

[Sandy]

Thank you both. I kinda figured it was something like what you describe
below. Since Vista is such a space hog, I'll just have to see what I can
move to another partition. Or find a program that will work like PM. ;-)

Sandy

 

[Sandy]

When you said "search for EASEUS", I did just that and came up with data
recovery software. LOL I thought you were suggesting I needed that for
AFTER a partition change. But then I was snooping around some more and
found EASEUS Partition Manager Home Edition at a different web site. If it
works like it claims to, then it's just like Partition Magic.

Thanks again!

 

[Richard Urban]

DO NOT - I repeat - DO NOT use any Partition Magic program that is not a
current version. The older versions do NOT understand the partition
structure as laid down by Vista. For example, PM 8 will trash your hard
drive and make you clear the hard drive of all resident partitions. You will
have to start over as if it were a new drive just out of the box.

Many people here use Acronis Disk Director Suite (Version 10.0.2160) for
their partition work. Apparently the latest version of Partition Magic is
also no problem.

 

[Johnny Fosse]

Many people here use Acronis Disk Director Suite (Version 10.0.2160) for
their partition work.

I do. I only suggested EASEUS in case the OP didn't anticipate any
long-term need.

 

[RalfG]

Easus claims to be Vista and Server 2008 compatible. I used Easus to
repartition a dual-boot drive however it was running under XP at the time. I
deleted a Vista boot partition and a data partition, increased the XP
partition to include half the total drive space and created a new partition
for Vista in the remaining space. Recovered Vista from an image on external
disk, repaired the boot loader and everything was back to normal.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Sandy.

That's a nice little puzzle you have there. :^{

You haven't given us any numbers as to size of your HD or of each volume or
of the data used by files on each volume. IF the HD is big enough and your
file usage is small enough, then you might solve your problem in multiple
stages carried out very carefully.

It's probably a long shot, but if you can copy enough of the contents of the
third logical volume into the first or second logical, then you could delete
the third one and shrink the extended volume. If you can do the same with
the second logical volume, so much the better. Then you could create a new
primary partition in the vacated space at the end of your HD and move all
the contents of the first (the only remaining) logical volume into that new
partition. Then you could delete the extended volume entirely and extend
your primary partition (your system volume) into the now-empty space.
Finally, you could recreate your extended partition and logical drives and
move their contents back into them. Whew! I know it's a lot of work, and
it can't happen unless you have a lot of free space available to begin with.
But IF the numbers fit, then it can be done with no software other than Disk
Management.

If you have - or can borrow - a large enough external HD, the whole job can
be done much more easily. Just backup the contents of the 3 logical
partitions, delete the extended partition, extend the primary partition and
then recreate the extended partition and put your files back.

To answer your specific questions:

1. When you shrink the size of the extended, does the extra space become
available near the primary partition or after the extended?

Sorry. As others pointed out, the Shrink process always works from the far
end of the partition, so any space freed up would NOT be at the beginning of
your extended partition. A data partition can be extended into
noncontiguous space, but the Help file says, "For logical drives, boot, or
system volumes, you can extend the volume only into contiguous space...".
That means your primary partition, which is the system volume (used to boot
the computer) can't be extended unless there is free space immediately
following it.

2. I've heard some people say you can't resize the primary partition
without totally screwing up the OS.

I've extended a system partition successfully. But, of course, only into
contiguous space. (I've also successfully shrunk a system partition, but
that doesn't do you much good in the present situation.) And I've extended
a data volume into noncontiguous space on the same HD (skipping over another
logical volume to add free space on the other side).

Let us know how this works out for you.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2009 in Win7 Ultimate x64 7000)