In major need of partitioning tool

R

RAA-Kr1cH

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 4, 2005
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Ok here's the deal. I reinstalled xp to clean things up on my system. I made 3 partitions, one for XP, one for the swap file, and one for everything else. The problem is I only made the os partition (c:) 6gb. I figured it would be enough, unfortunately it's not. I've spent hours reinstalling all my software, drivers, pics, movies and what not, and really don't feel like doing it all over again.

I need to make c: larger, and am aware that partition magic will do this. The problem is, I really don't want to spend ~$60 to change the size of one partition, one time. I did a search on the forums for like questions, and lots of people asked about it, but I never found a post where I could get free software to do this.

There's a PM8.0 download floating around, but it just lets you play with the program, and doesn't actually let you change your partitions.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
 
Theres a few Linux apps that extend partitions, and I think diskpart from MS can extend partitions as well, but its all command line stuff.
 
Whatever possessed you to make a 6 GB partition? Windows XP itself takes 1.5-2 GB fresh. ;)

Anyway, since you don't want to pay (seems like no one likes to pay), you can use NTFSResize, which is a Linux-based tool that resizes NTFS.

You will have to do it external from Windows (the partition can't be mounted), so download GParted LiveCD or LiveUSB and use that to resize your partition. GParted utilizes NTFSResize.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
 
when i was trying to install gentoo, i believe it used gpart or whatever. it shrank my windows partition for me (shit didn't work right after that), so i imagine it could also enlarge them...

good luck
 
BillLeeLee said:
Whatever possessed you to make a 6 GB partition? Windows XP itself takes 1.5-2 GB fresh. ;)

Anyway, since you don't want to pay (seems like no one likes to pay), you can use NTFSResize, which is a Linux-based tool that resizes NTFS.

You will have to do it external from Windows (the partition can't be mounted), so download GParted LiveCD or LiveUSB and use that to resize your partition. GParted utilizes NTFSResize.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/
Click to expand...

Another vote for GParted. Don't waste your time with the LiveUSB version though, I spent an entire weekend trying to get that to work with 3 different computers and 6 different USB sticks.
 
Yea, I just used Gparted a few days ago. It's now my Partition Magic replacement. And best of all, it's free. :)
 
I just downloaded it at school, I'll give it a shot when I get home.

Yeah I know 6gb is small... of course that's hindsight 20/20. I figured that'd be plenty of room for the OS, drivers and the stuff that just HAD to be in the same partition as the OS.

Thanks for the help!
 
I downloaded livecd and wrote it onto a disk, rebooted, and it simply loads to windows. My cd drive is first in the boot order, and I tried mashing esc, and I simply got a list asking which device I'd like to boot from. I chose the cd drive with the disk in it, and it just loads to windows. I've been readin up on the net on how to use this, and all the reviews say they just loaded the disk and rebooted. I'm gonna keep searching, and workin on this, I was just hopin someone else out there might have an answer for me.

Thanks!
 
That worked beautifully! Thank you very much! On a side note, is there an easy way to explain why when I copied the file without that program it didn't work?

Back to the important thing though. From running gparted, it showed me I had my os partition, than 2 other partitions inside of an extended partition. It would let me resize the partitions inside the extended partition, but it would not let me resize the os partition.

Not exactly sure why, and if there is an easy solution to it. I'll post a screenshot as soon as I can find it on my system hehe.
 
What did you use to burn it the first time?

Go my comp>right click>manage>storage>disk management and post a screen.
And, what are your system spec's?
 
RAA-Kr1cH said:
is there an easy way to explain why when I copied the file without that program it didn't work?
Click to expand...

What you downloaded is a "disk image". An .iso file. Imagine it as a photograph of a CD with all of the necessary files, instead of all of the files individually. Just copying the .iso to the CD only allows your PC to see the one file. You have to "burn a disc image". Imagine you CD as the photo paper and you have to imprint the negative onto it.

Sort of like that.

And technically you don't need a swap file. Windows will automatically hide its own "page file" from your partition views. You CAN make a partition and tell Windows to put the page file there (i have done that when EQ2 totally f**ks you up with fragmentation). But its not totally necessary.
 
OK shit..
Got it. Sorry, should have thought of this first.

You need to re-size your extanded partition first, make it smaller. you need un-allocated space before you can make your os partition bigger. So, shrink your extended partiton by 15g, if you have the room, leaving that un-allocated space available. Then you can re-size your os partition, making it bigger, by 15g.

Hope that makes sense.
 


ok, here's what I got. Hope that helps, and I'll try making the extended partition smaller
 
WOOOOOOOOOOOOT

ok, sorry for the double post, the message above this one was actually made by a friend of mine. It took a couple hours for gparted to work its magic, but I wanted to make sure no one was wasting any more time on my problem hehe.

It was basically operator error, I didn't realize that I had to move the extended partition out of the way to make the OS partition larger.

Digital, I owe you BIG time. You've been a huge help in this learning process and have saved me oodles of time! I am truly in your debt!

Also, thanks to the rest of the [H] community for the help. This is always the first place I go when I need help!
 
thanks to the guys who recommended using Gparted, I was looking for something to change a partition.
 
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