My New Dell Studio 15 & Question...

Hi all,

I'll be receiving my Brand New DELL Studio 15 in these few days.. ( so excited ) This is my 2nd Laptop in life.
I'm happy and currently still using my 640M until my new toy arrive. My 640M has serve me v.well for almost 28 months. No Complain at all, she has been follow me to anywhere & anytime; it works when I turn it on.

Dell has created a v.gd impression and value for $$ in my mind. When I plan to upgrade my laptop, nothing comes close except DELL. Sound like a salesman but is true.

Question..
when I received my new laptop, it is necessary to format in order to partition my HDD? As I always practice and keep all my file and pictures in a separate drive; this is to avoid any data lost when my OS crash or virus attack.

Any good software to recommend or Window Vista itself can do the partition while the OS is On / Running ?

Thanks for your sharing...

 

You can try the 'shrink volume' function in 'Computer Management' and create a new partition. However, the space available for shrinking might not be much. It's best to defragment your drive before trying to shrink.

You can also use EASEUS Partition Manager to repartition your drive.
Link: http://www.partition-tool.com/

 

+1 for EASEUS Partition Manager. Thats what i used when i got my lap. There is 32bit free version

 

Oh thanks...

Is it safer to use the 'Shrink Volume' to partition my HDD? I plan to partition my HDD into 50% for both drive.

By the way, my dell package comes with 64bits Ultimate. Can this freeware support the OS.

 

From the website:

You can always purchase a cheap "hard drive to USB" converter cable and plug it into your current computer, then use Easeus to change the partition that way. I bought a converter cable kit for $20 that can plug into any kind of hard drive (except for SCSI drives).

 

Yes it is safer to shrink using Windows Partition tool, but like ps89 told, the amount u can shrink will not be much (maybe 20-30%). U can try defragmenting ur drive before shrinking, but that didnt make much difference to my drive when i tried, since windows just provides a very basic defragmenting tool.

And yes to run EASEUS Partition Manager on a 64bit OS u ll hav to buy it( not sure if there is a trial version available though). Or u could try using some freeware utilities like Gparted.

 

Thanks..

But that sound a little bit complicated to me.. I'm newbie in Vista or Partition.

Do you suggest that I should format and Partition the HDD during installation of fresh OS or I should take bro 'ps89' advise to "shrink Volume" in Vista- OS to partition the HDD ?

 

Thank again.

I've google 'Gparted' website, looks like the software is still not 100% working under 64bits platform. I guess the last option for me, is to take the trouble to format and partition the drive during the OS installation. In that case, I will have the option to partition my drive into 50% each.

 

I don't think using 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows will affect GParted in partitioning your drive because GParted runs independent of the OS. You need to create a bootable disc and boot it in order to partition your drive with GParted.

 

Using a USB cable converter is probably easier than fiddling with software. You simply plug it to your hard drive (which you do have to remove from the laptop), then you plug it into a USB port(on your old computer). Windows will find the drive, just like using a big USB flash drive, then you can use the free Easeus software to change the partition size.

I don't recommend formatting and reinstalling Vista fresh. If you're not sure what you're doing, you could end up deleting your system restore partition and Media Direct/utility partitions.

 

Oh sound ok Any website link to read the steps of doing this...

 

Sound good too

Do you happen to have the picture of the USB Convertor? I've Google it but there is too many model / device show up.

After plugging the cable, so I just wait for windows to auto detect the each other drive ?

Many Thanks

 

http://www.howtoforge.com/partitioning_with_gparted

There you go.

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812816014

The one I have looks like this. You plug the SATA cable to the hard drive, then to the connector on the adapter. then you plug in the SATA power to the power adapter, then plug that into the drive, then plug in the USB cable to your old computer. The drive will power up like normal and windows will detect it, just like using a USB Flash Drive.

 

Great info you have attached here... Thank you very much

Nice !

 

Good ! But I need to purchase the cable..

It don't really works for me as I only have laptop in my house, this will be another good way for those people who has separate HDD and wanted to partition other computer.

Thanks mate for your effort !

 

Don't you have two laptops? The cable works fine with all the laptops I've tried it on. Anyway, good luck to you however you decide to partition the drive.