How can I resize this partition???

I un-installed some games from my C partition, so I had quite a few gigs left

My D drive with all my data was running a little low on space, so I used the drive manager in computer management to shrink the C partition by ~12GB
It worked and the C drive was sucessfully shrunk, but when I try to extend the D drive, the extend option is greyed out so I now have ~12GB of unallocated space on the drive:



Is there anyway I can take this un-allocated disk space and add it to the D drive without having to re-format the D partition???????
I have data on it that I have not backed up yet, and I need the space on D

Thanks alot

 

I might be wrong, but regardess of Vista or XP, you will never be able to use up to the last (g or m)bytes of your hard drive.

This has to do with the way the OS chopping the drive in blocks/sectors to work.

cheers ...

 

Thanks for the reply

But, I am not trying to use up all my space
I have sucessfully managed to shrink the C drive, and now I have ~12GB of space that is unallocated (being wasted )

I want to find a method/program that I can use the extend the D partition to use this excess space, without having to format D

 

You should try using some third party software (e.g. Paragon). It is usually more efficient than the built-in MS stuff. I've been using Partition Magic for years and experienced no such problems.

 

Thanks

I'll try partition magic (is it free)

Also does it require the drive to be formatted????

 

hi Rayyan,

get Paragon or Acronis Partition Manager first, and before doing
anything backup your data, just in case.

you have a little problem, because you've got four
primary partitions already, so you can't make the fifth one.

but if you have nothing on the last 3GB partition, you should
delete it, next create the primary partition from 11.87GB
unallocated space, let's say "F".

then merge the partition 'D' and "F" together. after that you
can restore the 3GB partition to the previous state.

guess, i could help

 

Partition Magic is free? Regardless, I don't think it works with Vista if you have that. You're better off using a live CD such as Gparted. You should back up D before trying to extend it.

 

Yeah, I got a program called partition logic, and I will try to re-size using that

I have backed up my data

I'll let you know how it goes

 

The problem you have is that the unallocated space is in FRONT of the partition you want to increase. To increase the size, the unallocated space MUST be after the partition. You need a third party tool that will let you SLIDE or move the partition down. Then the unallocated space will be after it. I know that BootIT NG has such a slide option. Not sure if Acronis does or not. Anyone else know?

Gary

 

Thanks for the info gary

I have decided to do the following

I am going to get GParted live and create a bootable disc
I will borrow a friend's hard drive and backup my whole D drive

If i cannot extend the D partition using gparted, then I will delete the D partition, as well as the 3Gb hidden partition (it is not recovery, that is the 9Gb one) and make a new D partition using all the available space

This plan will hopefully be carried out on wed/thurs

I'll keep you guys updated

 

Please do. There's nothing worse than never hearing back.

 

That will work but before you do it that way see if GParted will let you MOVE the partition. If it will it saves you a step. (I'd still backup the D: partiton to be safe. But if you can move the partition, you won't have to do the step of copying back from your friend's drive.)

Gary

 

I know
i've been there man

I am definitely making a backup no matter what, which is why i haven't already done this (gparted live has downloaded).
i don't have any space on any drove for a backup, so I've decided to wait. (I've had bad experience with hard drives and not backing up when I was a n00b )

Thanks for the tip, I'm just wondering if you could tell me hoe i could carry that out, or link me a guide on using Gparted, as I've never used it before

Thanks again, gary, you have been a big help (+ rep )

Also, can gparted also be used to shrink the C partition to say ~40 Gb????

 

Sorry I have absolutely NO experience with Gparted. I always use BootIT NG for such operations.

Gary

 

Playing with GParted may prevent Vista from booting(corrupted/missing files), it happened to me the last time I used it to repartition/resize my drive. I had to repair Vista(boot repair).

 

Thanks for the info ATG

But I don't know of any other way to re-partiton the drives

Also, can it be repaired using the recovery disk?????

 

ATG: Were you modifying the C: partition? And if so what were you doing to that partition?

RaYYaN: I would think, note the word THINK not the word KNOW, that as long as you don't touch the C: partition in any way, you should not have any trouble. But even if you did you would only need to repair the boot info as ATG had to do. That's a fairly minor repair.

Gary

 

Yeah I was. I had W7 beta installed and decided to remove it so I deleted the W7 partition and added the unallocated space to C:. On restart, Vista reported a missing file(winlogon I think) and stopped so I had to repair it.

 

Ok
Thanks for the info guys
I'm not going to mess with the c partition so I should be ok
I have a recovery disk anyway so I should be safe

I'll update once I give it a go

 

Well, guys just to update, I did it

I tried burning G-parted but it wouldn't work, so I just made a bootable USB stick instead, using the guide on thier site

I booted into G Parted, then I deleted the 3GB hidden partition, moved the D drive up, and extended it to take up all the space
I hit apply

Took ages but once it was done I did a re-boot, windows did a disk check and found no problems, and all my data was intact, so I didn't have to waste time copying it back again

This is my layout now:
Much more space for data


Thanks for the help guys

Once I get time (in the summer vacation I think), I will use this to shrink the C drive to 32 Gb, while extending the D drive to 200GB
Followed by a clean install to re-vitalise the laptop

 

RaYYan,

Well done! Nice to know that G-parted DID allow you to slide the D: partition.

Gary

 

Guess who's the first one to congratulate the OP and reap in all the thanks!

 

Hey now. I didn't see YOU helping out in this thread. ...big ol' grin...

But seriously I'd asked him to let me know if G-Parted did allow him to move/slide the partiton down. I know other folks who have had to backup a partiton, delete it, create a new on in the proper place and restore from the backup because the tool they used DIDN'T support moving a partition. (I use BootIT NG, which does but can be a bit cryptic to use.) Now I know I can recommend G-Parted for this sort of thing.

Gary

 

Yep, it worked

Thanks for the tip beforehand, saved me having to delete the partition and create a new one, THEN copy ALL my data back onto the new drive

Also, Gparted has one of the simplest easy-to-use interfaces I have ever seen
Even I figured out what to do quickly

 

PM had never been free and Vista-supported, which is a pity for fans.
I have uninstalled it from my Sumsung R since I install Vista, now I install free Partition Master Home Edition, feeling is not bad, but it could not support 64-bit Vista.
So I can not upgrade my Vista to 64-bit, I' m searching another software to replace it for my upgrding。

 

I never ever use a partition manager app that runs while Windows is active. I always use one that supports bootable media. That way it doesn't matter what my native OS is, 32 bit or 64 bit, Windows, Linux whatever.

Gary

 

I'm not so practical at hardware and I'm interested in software.

Whatever, thank you at the same.

I'll search a free partition software like Partition Master to install on my 64-bit Vista.

 

This really isn't a hardware versus software situation. All I was trying to point out is that there are some very real limitations on what you can do to the OS partition, when you use a partition manager that is actually running within that OS. For example, it is difficult, if not imposssible, to shrink the OS partition while the OS is running if there are non-movable files open beyond the area consumed by the new targeted size of the partition.

If however, you boot from a CD containg a separate OS and a partition manager, you don't have any of these sorts of limitations.

Gary

 

It should be done with care, but it's not impossible - for example, I just did it with EASUS' Partition Master, which accomplished the task by rebooting and running a DOS utility to do the actual resizing before the OS fired up.

 

Which just goes to prove the point I was making. The OS on the partiton being resized was not running while the size was being adjusted. DOS was running. EASUS has done a good job of implementing this such that a bootable CD isn't required, but it is still doing the work while the primary OS is not running.

Gary

 

It's really a pity for me, on 3 April, I found the 64-bit-supported Partition Master was givenaway on Giveawayoftheday, I download it smothly. When I finish installing and testing on my machine, I recalled there is still a thread I should to reply, It took me a long time to find out the thread. the giveaway id over, but I can not tell you to get the software for free.
I'm terribly sorry for that, so I email to Easeus for a free 64-bit edition, luckly I got one trailpay of Partition Master 64-bit free,I hope it will be helpful to you.

 

these are the few links where you get the information about the creation of the partition.
you can create a logical partition in the hard disk . you have lot of space in the hard disk.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_05.htm

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/help/resizing-and-moving-partition.htm

 

I just resized two partitions using Acronis Disk Director which performed the task the same as you described for EASUS. It couldn't have been easier.