Disk Partitioning

Rapidfire · #1 (**permalink**) 25-04-2009, 05:12 PM

Hey

I have a laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium. The hard drive came with two partitions, one called Vista and the other called Data. The Vista drive contains the Windows Vista operating system files and all my documents and the Data drive contains hard drive recovery tools. My hard drive is about 160 GB in size, and initially the partitions were about the same size.

I decided to reduce the size of the Data drive to 5 GB because it only contains 4.77 GB of data so that was wasting a lot of storage space. I was hoping that I would be able to use this space to extend the Vista drive, but it doesn't allow me to do that.

When space is freed from different drives, it takes up different unallocated partitions. This means it does not allow you to extend a drive to a larger size than it came in. Is there any way that I can get around this and use the storage space which I have freed from the Data drive for the Vista drive?

Thanks

Kaistar · #2 (**permalink**) 25-04-2009, 05:46 PM

I use a tool called O&O partition manager which allows me to do that, but it's a paid program. If you have the money, you can consider this program as it has been pretty reliable so far.

There should be freeware options, but I think the mods here can help you out more there as I've always used O&O.

Rapidfire · #3 (**permalink**) 25-04-2009, 05:51 PM

Thank you for your reply. I downloaded a trial of that software and it does not let me resize my Vista drive at all.

townsbg · #4 (**permalink**) 25-04-2009, 08:23 PM

I don't like the Vista partitioning for how limited it is but it is free. I think that they still have some kinks to work out. What you could do would be to use that extra space, if it is large enough, for your documents. That way they are protected if something happens to Vista. You could even shrink the Vista partition for more room.

Rapidfire · #5 (**permalink**) 25-04-2009, 08:40 PM

I would rather keep my documents in the same logical drive as the operating system files, having no more than two logical drives. I don't see how I would be able to split it and keep it organised. There must be some way I can reallocate the free space to a different logical drive.

Kaistar · #6 (**permalink**) 26-04-2009, 02:57 AM

From what I briefly read, GParted should be able to do that. However, I've not used that before and did not have the time to properly read through their site.

GParted -- Welcome

Rokytnji might be familiar with this, but don't quote me on that.

townsbg · #7 (**permalink**) 26-04-2009, 03:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaistar

From what I briefly read, GParted should be able to do that.

I tried to use that to enlarge a partition once and it wouldn't let me enlarge it.

Rapidfire · #8 (**permalink**) 26-04-2009, 06:21 PM

I have managed to do it with EASEUS Partition Master. I moved the unallocated space from the Data drive to the Vista Drive and then extended the Vista drive. I now have my Vista drive with 140 GB of storage just as I wanted.

Thanks for all your help.

Kaistar · #9 (**permalink**) 26-04-2009, 10:01 PM

Congratulations! Thanks for keeping us updated =)