Author Topic: Help needed to alter partitions (Read 21426 times)

Curt · « **on:** December 02, 2008, 06:51 AM »

Yesterday I had to use Vista Recovery, but all seemed to go well; all the documents were still there. However, today I was informed by Vista that I didn't have enough free space for the Move_(from backup drive) _To_ (Vista>C>CURT>Music) operation I was trying to perform. I got confused because there should be about 850 GB free! So now I have to understand at least a little part of this "Partition" issue.

The recovery changed my C drive from a 500 GB into 3 partitions, 9 GB ("Free"), 157 GB ("C"), and 310 GB ("Free"), and I have no idea what-so-ever how to change it back into one 500 GB drive. ~~In fact, the two 500 GB drives preferably should be read by Vista as one big 1 TB drive!~~

I tried my way around inside Vista, but have so far found nothing that would offer me to change these partitions. I do have Partition Table Doctor 3.5 [PTDD], (on the backup drive), but when I tried "Rebuild", it had nothing to offer, and I in return have no clue how to operate it. But maybe 'YOU' have? Help sure is needed, please! What should I do?

clickable thumb:

Help needed to alter partitions

Edited:
Or should I welcome this change, and start saving my files onto various partitions??

f0dder · « **Reply #1 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:12 AM »

OK, what the heck have you been doing?

1) did you have a single 1TB partition before, or is it just something you'd like to have?
1a) if you had a 1TB partition, what setup did you use to present the 2x500gig as 1x1tera?
2) what was your partition layout like before the problem?
3) what happened that caused the problem you needed to recover from?

Curt · « **Reply #2 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:18 AM »

f0dder; just the man I was hoping to meet :-)

What the heck is a raid?

2) I was uninstalling Rollback Rx data protection ...

Curt · « **Reply #3 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:21 AM »

oh, editions

No, I had 1 x 500 GB as my C drive, and another 500 GB as my D drive which I never tried to touch, may or may not have been another partition

f0dder · « **Reply #4 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:34 AM »

Oh, don't you love when terminology is ambiguous?

The "C" and "D" drives are partitions - you can have multiple partitions on a physical disk drive, or you can have a single partition per drive, and there's all sorts of other things you can do that I won't comment on right now, because it would just confuse.

RAID is a technology that "does stuff with multiple physical disks", and presents them as a single disk. This can be for performance, data redundancy, or both. The two most widely known modes are MIRROR (2x500gig drives would show up as 1x500gig drive, if one drive dies you have the exact same contents on the other drive) and STRIPE (2x500gig drives show up as 1x1000TB drive, you get around 2x read and write performance, but your files are "striped" across the two drives, so if one drive dies you lose everything).

Anyway, you say you had only to partitions (or "drives") before the crash, and now your primary drive is suddenly split into this three-partition mess? Never seen anything like it :-s. But at least your second partition/drive was left intact?

There are tools for moving/resizing partitions, I used to use PartitionMagic in the past... but I'd never use such a tool without doing backups first, as there's a quite real risk of losing data (google should be full of horror storries).

ANYWAY, I believe that with Vista it's possible to at least extend partitions, if not shrink/move, with the built-in diskmgmt.msc tool (you can press start, type diskmgmt.msc in the run bar, and press enter).

I would suggest that you make a "small" (considering your full harddisk size) partition for only Vista + Programs, and keep all your data files, documents, music etc. etc. etc. on separate partitions. This makes it much easier to do a clean re-install without having to back up stuff and such. Iirc you're a software junkie, so you'd probably want to reserve 64 gigabytes or so for vista+programs - do your own measurement of how much you need

...
As for how to proceed now, it depends on what kind of resize/move Vista can do itself. I haven't needed to do this myself for many years (always doing clean repartitioning and shuffling data back and forth physical disks), so I don't really know what partition tools are available now, and whether there's any decent free tools.

Curt · « **Reply #5 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:43 AM »

Edited:
Or should I welcome this change, and start saving my files onto various partitions??

-Curt (December 02, 2008, 06:51 AM)

I would suggest that you make a "small" (considering your full harddisk size) partition for only Vista + Programs, and keep all your data files, documents, music etc. etc. etc. on separate partitions. This makes it much easier to do a clean re-install without having to back up stuff and such. Iirc you're a software junkie, so you'd probably want to reserve 64 gigabytes or so for vista+programs - do your own measurement of how much you need
-f0dder (December 02, 2008, 07:34 AM)

Can I simply move "Curt" (incl Documents, Music, etcetera) to another partition?
Will Vista automatically understand and remember this?

f0dder · « **Reply #6 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:48 AM »

Can I simply move "Curt" (incl Documents, Music, etcetera) to another partition?
Will Vista automatically understand and remember this?
-Curt (December 02, 2008, 07:43 AM)

Good question! - I'm not sure exactly what data Vista stores under that folder (I should have a look at my laptop and see). I'm not sure whether you can simply move the folder either, or whether Vista perhaps has some tool to do the move for you (like you could do with "My Documents" on 2k and xp), but it's definitely possible to move the folder, either with NTFS junctions or (Vista-only) NTFS Symbolic links. That might take a bit of manual work though

Have to take a nap now, hopefully some of the other bright heads here have some ideas.

Curt · « **Reply #7 on:** December 02, 2008, 07:50 AM »

Thanks, f0dder, and sleep tight for a little while :-)

hpearce · « **Reply #8 on:** December 02, 2008, 08:00 AM »

Just remember that there are two types of folders here ... system ones like MY MUSIC, DOCUMENTS, etc. and folders u created.
U can move folders as you wish (more or less) but pointers from other programs or the OS itself , in the case of system folders, have to be modified.
There are programs to tell the system where the system folders are located. Your programs will have to reviewed usually under OPTIONS/PREFENCES to make sure they point to the new locations.

Remeber ... we are talking data folders here not program file folders... I strongly recommend keeping program file folders in place because of the registry entries.

See this for free partition managers http://www.techsuppo...artition-manager.htm

Curt · « **Reply #9 on:** December 02, 2008, 08:10 AM »

Thanks, hpearce. The new "free" 310 GB partition is actually marked as "data", and the 157 GB partition is marked as "system". But I don't know if this labelling came from Vista, or when it came, and I don't know what to do with the information. I have looked my way arouned inside Vista, but have not yet found a way to tell it to move the entire \Curt\ incl My Documents, My music, etcetera, to another partition.

Curt · « **Reply #10 on:** December 02, 2008, 09:25 AM »

The disadvantage about having (too) many programs is, that you ("I") keep forgetting about some of them when I need them! All I had to do was to open my Easeus Partition Manager and delete the unwanted partition, re-size the other, and reboot. Everything seems to be in order, now. :-)

kyrathaba · « **Reply #11 on:** October 10, 2010, 05:05 PM »

I, too, need help to alter partitions. Since my need seems very much in line with this post, I thought I should post here, rather than start a separate topic of very similar content.

I have a single hard drive in my laptop. Per the screenshot below, you can see I have 40 Mb of unallocated space. Can someone give me some help using either "Partition Wizard" or "Easeus Partition" to return the 40 Mb of unallocated space to drive C.

4wd · « **Reply #12 on:** October 10, 2010, 10:04 PM »

First things first: perform a full HDD backup using imaging software. Here's a list of some free ones if you haven't any: Free Hard Disk Backup/Restore & Imaging/Cloning Utilities

Step-by-step instructions for Easeus are here. What you're doing is Case 2 followed by Case 3 for the Recovery partition, then just Case 2 for the C: partition.

Recovery partition:
1) Resize, (increase), the Recovery partition by dragging its left side as far left as it will go, (take note of how much free space it says to the left before resizing),
2) Resize, (decrease), the Recovery partition by dragging its right side 40MB to the left, (or actually the amount you noted in the previous step).

This will 'move' the unallocated 40MB between the Recovery and C: partition, so now:
3) Resize, (increase), the C: partition by dragging its left side as far left as it will go.

This will incorporate the unallocated space into C:, at this point click Apply to accept and perform the changes.

Just a note: In their examples they are extending or reducing the partitions in the opposite directions you want.

Then Reboot to test if it works.

MilesAhead · « **Reply #13 on:** October 11, 2010, 12:28 AM »

For 40 MB of disk space I wouldn't touch it. It could be your bios setup program or some other booting program in a hidden partition. If it was 40 GB that's another matter.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #14 on:** October 11, 2010, 03:31 AM »

Can I simply move "Curt" (incl Documents, Music, etcetera) to another partition?
Will Vista automatically understand and remember this?
-Curt (December 02, 2008, 07:43 AM)

No you can't because Curt cotains all the details of your user profile. You will be able to move a lot of it but it will leave you in a mess.

What you can (and should) do is to move all the user folders (Documents, Music etc.) to your second hard disk.

You can do this automatically by changing the location of the folder in folder properties - right click on the folder and use the options to move it.

The only problems you may encounter are:

Any files open/in use at the time won't be moved
Any programs with specific folder locations set up in their settings (eg. iTunes) will need to be told where the folder has moved to.

You can move the whole profile folder but it is a bit of registry editing - so I would personally avoid it and it doesn't achieve much anyway.

As for your hard disk being full when it shouldn't be have you tried turning off system protection and then turning it on again (used to be called System Restore). This can use up vast amounts of space without you knowing about it - especially in Vista and 7 where it doesn't only store lots of restore points but also store rollback versions of user files. Turning it off removes all the rollback and restore data.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #15 on:** October 11, 2010, 03:35 AM »

For 40 MB of disk space I wouldn't touch it. It could be your bios setup program or some other booting program in a hidden partition. If it was 40 GB that's another matter.

-MilesAhead (October 11, 2010, 12:28 AM)

Agreed - actually NTFS volumes always have some unallocated space - you can't reclaim it so don't try!

40Mb seems slightly larger than usual but it is a tiny amount of space that can be left alon and may simply be a reflection of the fact that you have logical partitions instead of primary partitions.

Curt · « **Reply #16 on:** October 11, 2010, 05:48 AM »

Can I simply move "Curt" (incl Documents, Music, etcetera) to another partition?
Will Vista automatically understand and remember this?
-Curt (December 02, 2008, 07:43 AM)

No you can't because Curt cotains all the details of your user profile. You will be able to move a lot of it but it will leave you in a mess.

What you can (and should) do is to move all the user folders (Documents, Music etc.) to your second hard disk.

You can do this automatically by changing the location of the folder in folder properties - right click on the folder and use the options to move it.

.....
-Carol Haynes (October 11, 2010, 03:31 AM)

-yes, I am aware of this, Carol, now. Sadly, my first attempt failed ( https://www.donation....msg162467#msg162467 ) because I did it the wrong way.

-------
Regarding the new post from kyrathaba:
I too would leave the partition as it is. 40 MB is almost nothing to fight for.

4wd · « **Reply #17 on:** October 11, 2010, 06:11 AM »

For 40 MB of disk space I wouldn't touch it. It could be your bios setup program or some other booting program in a hidden partition. If it was 40 GB that's another matter.
-MilesAhead (October 11, 2010, 12:28 AM)

Dammit! If I paid for that 40MB I'm going to make sure I use it

Although, as Carol says, normally it would only be around 8MB.

I would have thought that if it was any kind of BIOS setup/Boot program then it would show up as either a known, unknown or hidden not Unallocated as it does.

Personally, I'd wipe out the Recovery partition and grab that space as well - but hey, I'm greedy

@kyrathaba: I would however, recommend you divide your HDD into a System and Data partition and store all your data, (My Docs, etc), on the Data partition.

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #18 on:** October 11, 2010, 06:41 AM »

Dammit! If I paid for that 40MB I'm going to make sure I use it

Although, as Carol says, normally it would only be around 8MB.
-4wd (October 11, 2010, 06:11 AM)

Correct, however the only thing it is "required" for is the conversion to Dynamic Disk, which is fairly pointless on a workstation/desktop. I frequently use 3rd party software (like Paragon HDM) to recover said space because its wasted existence annoys me. On a side note the 40MB of space shown there is on the wrong end of the drive for a DD conversion.

I would have thought that if it was any kind of BIOS setup/Boot program then it would show up as either a known, unknown or hidden not Unallocated as it does.
-4wd (October 11, 2010, 06:11 AM)

That assertion holds true in my experience as well.

f0dder · « **Reply #19 on:** October 11, 2010, 09:07 AM »

Correct, however the only thing it is "required" for is the conversion to Dynamic Disk, which is fairly pointless on a workstation/desktop.
-Stoic Joker (October 11, 2010, 06:41 AM)

Unless you're going to run software raid-striping

4wd · « **Reply #20 on:** October 11, 2010, 09:57 AM »

I frequently use 3rd party software (like Paragon HDM) to recover said space because its wasted existence annoys me.
-Stoic Joker (October 11, 2010, 06:41 AM)

Drives me nuts as well

Stoic Joker · « **Reply #21 on:** October 11, 2010, 11:23 AM »

Correct, however the only thing it is "required" for is the conversion to Dynamic Disk, which is fairly pointless on a workstation/desktop.
-Stoic Joker (October 11, 2010, 06:41 AM)
Unless you're going to run software raid-striping
-f0dder (October 11, 2010, 09:07 AM)

You gotta want it real bad to go that route - Maybe 2% of folks could justify the trade-off. Not to mention it can't be done on the system/boot partition.

f0dder · « **Reply #22 on:** October 11, 2010, 11:27 AM »

Correct, however the only thing it is "required" for is the conversion to Dynamic Disk, which is fairly pointless on a workstation/desktop.
-Stoic Joker (October 11, 2010, 06:41 AM)
Unless you're going to run software raid-striping
-f0dder (October 11, 2010, 09:07 AM)
You gotta want it real bad to go that route - Maybe 2% of folks could justify the trade-off. Not to mention it can't be done on the system/boot partition.
-Stoic Joker (October 11, 2010, 11:23 AM)

Which trade-off?

I wouldn't do stripe for the system partition, that's just asking for trouble. But for a data partition where speed is more important than keeping that data alive, it works pretty well. And if you go hardware, you need *expensive* hardware before it's better than softstripe anyway

(there's almost no CPU overhead, so you'll only gain something by getting a card with on-board battery-backed cache).

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #23 on:** October 11, 2010, 11:54 AM »

Huhhh ? I used to run a striped System disk - thought that was the whole point of striping to make the system go faster.

I also had a striped data disk set.

So long as you keep regular backups there is no problem (and actually I didn't really have to use the backups more than on a standard system).

f0dder · « **Reply #24 on:** October 11, 2010, 12:01 PM »

Huhhh ? I used to run a striped System disk - thought that was the whole point of striping to make the system go faster.
-Carol Haynes (October 11, 2010, 11:54 AM)

Was that using built-in Windows RAID striping, though? A promise card or the like is a completely different story. And yes, the idea of striping is to make the system go faster, but you mainly gain on sequential read/write, whereas random IO usually doesn't gain much and can even become a bit slower... and Windows boottime and (normal) application performance has more to do with random-IO than sequential performance.