Partition question.

I have an old Sony Vaio PCG-K115s the hard drive is kaput. I am installing a new hard drive the old one was only 60gig the new one is 150gig. Because the laptop had problemes before the HDD went I am using the windows recovery disc that came with the viao to restore....My problem is that when I am given the option to partition it will only allow me to partition up to 80gig in the C drive or else all my space on the C Drive....It doesn't give me the option of putting 120 gig on the C drive and the other 30 gig on the D drive which I would prefer.....any ideas? This is the first time I have even loosened a screw on a pc...I am a complete novice...so playing this by ear.

 

Which version of Windows are you installing? I would assume it would be XP here judging from the age of the system... If memory serves me right (I'm sure someone will correct me if I am), XP's partitioning tools were rather limited, so the best thing to do would be to use a utility like Partition Magic that you can download for free and burn onto a disk to boot from. Once in there, you can create your 120 and 30 gig partitions, and then your OS install into those as desired. Partition Magic is quite good at guiding you through the steps required to set up your drives as you desire and I've certainly had no need to use other ones if the OS tools aren't enough (Vista and Win7 are much better than XP I think with support for disk management).

If you are doing it all within Windows, it is possible to play around with partitions after installing the OS. Assuming you ended up with a 80GB primary partition, leaving 70GB of empty space, go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Disk Management, and you should see the graphical representation of the disk as a coloured bar with a blank bit representing the empty space. Right click on the coloured bar and select "Extend partition" and enter into the amount you want to extend by (80GB to 120GB is 40GB, which is 40960MB as I have a feeling you have to enter the value in MB). Then right click on the empty bit and select "Create partition" for the 30GB bit of storage you want to create.

By the way, many people like to create a smaller partition for the operating system and programs, and a larger one for their own documents/music/movies etc. That way, it is possible to replace the OS without having to reload all your data, though programs would have to be reinstalled with the relevant versions for the new OS.

When I get home from work I'll have a look to make sure XP has the right set of tools (I may be thinking of Win7 with my Windows instructions above) and will update this thread as needed.

 

Hello IrishSumo, thank you for the reply. Right now I have a black screen that says Can't find operating system. I don't have a windows xp disc, just the sony vaio recovery disc that came with the computer....I am assuming the XP operating system is on there? (If not I am stuffed) My old hard drive died.

Das.

 

Ok, here's what I think you might need to do. Have you put the VAIO discs in the machine and booted with them in? Is this when you get "Operating system not found"?

You need to enter BIOS by pressing F2 when you turn your laptop on and the VAIO screen appears. There's a menu option for Boot Order or something like that. You need set the optical drive to be first in line before the internal hard drive. This will make your machine look to the VAIO discs before looking to the hard drive that's blank.

You should then be able to install your OS onto it.

 

Thank you anseio.....That is just what I did.....and bingo! XP is now on board. I have spent most of today updating windows.....This laptop has been laying dormant for ages....It was still on SP1 !! I have added SP2 and am in the process of adding SP3 as I type. You may be able to advice me what else I will have to do to get the laptop up to date....Will I have to update drivers etc? If so do you know how I find these.....I am not really technically minded....Just winging it here. Thanks for your assistance this far.

Das

 

Ahhhh - I'd forgotten to even think about that step that Anseio talked about! Did the partitions get created as you wanted? For now, just install the various updates as recommended by the Windows Update tool to begin with, get it working and then worry about upgrading it with latest drivers, etc. (if I remember correct SP3 is a HUGE dowload and install and takes ages to put in).

A trick I like to do during the creation of a machine is to take an image of the build of a computer when I have it working in a baseline configuration, using cloning software such as Paragon Backup & Restore, or Acronis True Image. This means if you break it whilst updating drivers, which is entirely possible, you can just reimage the drive without having to do the install to SP3, etc. In terms of driver updates, you'd have to run through the various items one by one and see if there are updates - remember that the components may be a bit old in there so just don't go and get the latest drivers from the manufacturer websites, as they will probably be aimed at newer components on newer operating systems. Most component manufacturers tend to have web based tools that will tell you the version that you should get and install. Good luck!