Partition question...

Hi guys,

I have a 30 gb partition for C drive and 149 for the D drive... but now, there's only 4.5 gb left on my C drive and I've noticed this is affecting the performance of some programs... so I would like to increase the partition size to about 40 or maybe even 50 as I'm going to be installing some more programs and I read somewhere that they run faster if 50% of that drive is free?

I used partition magic to make the 30-149gb partitions in the first place, so I think I'm going to use that again. Now, I'm going to wipe out my D drive as it's backed up, and increase size of C drive to occupy some of the D drive - is this safe at all? If not are there any other recommendations to create some space? Thanks...

Carthik

 

There are applications that will re-size partitions for you, though I can't name any off the top of my head. Theoretically if you just re-size your D: partition, and then re-size the C: using that newly available space, you shouldn't have to blow away any data.

That's assuming of course your partitions are on the same drive, which it sounds like they are.

 

There are a lot of software out there that can do it easily, quickly and safe. The risk of losing data is very low.

 

Easeus has a partition manager that can do this. But any application is going to have to move the current D: partition to create the new space contiguous with the current C: partition.

Because of that, I would certainly want to have a complete backup of D: before you start. And given that, your idea of deleting d:, resizing C: and recreating D: would probably take the same amount of time as the partition managers would to move D: in the first place.

Gary

 

Thanks for the responses guys...

Brandon, by same drive do you mean same platter on the hard disk drive? If so, then I'm certain they are cos it's a 200gb and I remember reading it's on 2 platters - of 100gb each.

Gary, is the Easeus magic partition manager software going to work similar to the symantec's partition magic software? If so, then can I use partition magic instead?

If I can, could you guys let me know about how to do the actual partition process? This is what I plan to do based on what I've learnt from the above posts - please do let me know if you have any suggestions.

Format D drive
Defragment C drive
Open the partitioning software
(not very certain from here)
Reducing the size of D drive would create a new partition called E drive? or would it add to the C drive?
IF it's adding to the C drive, is there any chance of losing data on there? Also is there anyway of storing the serial for the XP i'm running on my laptop? in case i lose all my data or something?

Thank you so much guys...

 

My favorite partition tools is partition magic from symantec.
I've use it many times without any problem

 

Yea I remember partition magic was the program I used to partition my drive in the first place... but I was just wondering if it could do what I'm trying to achieve - that is increasing the size of my C drive without losing any data on my C drive... I'm formatting the D drive though as I have it all backed up...

 

If you are starting with that sequence let me suggest you need NO partitioning software at all. Vista can do this.

1. Delete D: partition
2. increase C: partition size
3. Create new D: partition
4. Restore data to D:

Gary

 

I don't think Vista can increase the size of the C: partition, because that's the system partition, and I believe it will refuse to make changes to the system partition. But... you should be able to use nearly any third-party partition manager to do it.

 

Well I know it will let you decrease the size and I am pretty sure that as long as you have unallocated space just beyond the end of the C: partition it will let you extend it. I have not played with this in so long though, I can't be 100% certain.

Gary