Expanding a Partition

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Calleja

Calleja

Ok, so I have a dual boot lappy with Windows XP (came with the laptop) and Windows7 (I installed that).

I have 2 partitions, one for each OS... EXCEPT that to avoid losing all my documents if(when?) windows crashes, I'm used to having one partition for the OS, one for documents. That way I can nuke from orbit the windows partition and not have to back up anyting in the other one.

In this case I have C:, the XP partition (I never boot to XP anymore) as the documents partition for E:, the Win7 partition.

The problem is that for some reason (still tracking down why) the win7 partition is running out of space, so a couple extra gigs on it would be great... except I've never actually just EXPANDED an existing partition by REDUCING another one... I've always partitioned from scratch and let the original sizes remain.

How dangerous would it be for me to do the former? I use PartitionMagic, usually. If I were to tell it to reduce C: and expand E: ... how much trouble could I possibly be getting into?
 
M

Matt²

you can run into problems kinda randomly. 9 times out of 10 you can resize it and it works perfectly, but breathe wrong and you get that 10th time that ruins shit. I've not used Partition Magic, but I have used Easeus, and it's pretty good. When in doubt, I'd have "Getdataback" ready for that 1 in 10 chance.
 
Shakey

Shakey

Make sure to dun a defrag and scan disk on both partitions first, and have everything backed up on another drive or DVD or whatever. Resizing partitions can be risky, but it should work.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

Repeating same. Resizing partitions is usually a no-brainer, assuming you have the proper software. I'd start investigating why the one partition's space is running down, though.

--Patrick
 
Calleja

Calleja

Fuck... Ok, I'm bumping this cause I think I need help. I've decided to take 3GBs from partition C: and move them over to partition E:, the Windows 7 partition.

Now, Windows7 has its own tool to manage partitions, so after defragmenting I went to this tool and shrunk C: by 3 Gigs. This worked fine and there seemed to be no issue. Then I tried to expand E: but it wouldn't let me, the option was just grayed out. I checked the Help file and it said the tool can't expand the boot partition. So I switched over to XP, opened Partition Magic and, sure enough, I see the 3gigs of "unallocated space", but the Resize option is greyed out for BOTH partitions.

It seems the only thing it will let me is format the unallocated space, assign it a new drive letter and everything, which I don't think would help in letting E: expand those 3gigs, will it?

Help me Halforums-wan kenobi!
 
GasBandit

GasBandit

Staff member
You aren't going to accomplish this with windows' tools alone. You'll need a program like partition magic or easeus.
 
Calleja

Calleja

Didn
The Mex said:
So I switched over to XP, opened Partition Magic and, sure enough, I see the 3gigs of "unallocated space", but the Resize option is greyed out for BOTH partitions.
Click to expand...
I am using Partition Magic... I only used the windows tool in windows7... which, by the way, WILL let me expand C: to re-include the 3 gigs I took from it, but won't do it with E:

In XP Partition Magic won't do shit, it's all greyed out. I downloaded EASEUS...Blue screen as soon as I opened it. Not BSOD thankfully, it's a bit different, but still restart-inducing blue screen.

WTF!?
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

Staff member
When I was mucking around with resizing partitions earlier, I booted from an Ubuntu CD and used gparted to do it. Worked well enough.
 
PatrThom

PatrThom

This isn't a primary v. secondary v. dynamic partition issue, is it?
I'm curious as to whether iPartition could do it, but I'm not sure if you have the means to test it.

--Patrick
 
Calleja

Calleja

I've finally got it, a combination of booting on XP, reducing, booting to XP, expanding and so on and so forth got the trick done.

Is 2.5 gigs of RAM enough to turn paging completely off?
 
Cajungal

Cajungal

Staff member
Goddamnit, I've been thinking it since yesterday. I'm just gonna say it, get it out of the way. I can't look at this thread title without hearing a voice in my head saying, "I'd expand YOUR partition."

That's better. Sorry, carry on.
 
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