Extending Primary Partition in Vista

[NaOH]

So I used to have XP pro installed on a 320gb hdd. I installed vista on a 40gb partition to dual boot and test it. Well, now I want to format the XP partition and extend my vista one. I right click on the vista partition in the disk management tool in vista and it won't let me extend? Anyone able to do this?

 

[xollox]

You need to make it a dynamic disk in order to resize partitions.

 

[Solema]

xollox is right, though I would be wary about making it a dynamic disk. I've never been sold on dynamic disks, and have had problems with them in the past.

 

[xollox]

I've only done it once in Vista. I was able to delete my linux partition, make my Vista partition dynamic, then resize the Vista partition with zero problems and zero reboots.

YMMV.

 

[pcgeek11]

Originally posted by: xollox
You need to make it a dynamic disk in order to resize partitions.

Vista will resize the partitions and they do not have to be Dynamic disks. Been there and done it several times, making room for Linux.

I would stay away from "Dynamic Disk " at all cost. They are a disaster waiting to happen.

pcgeek11

 

[Griswold]

Originally posted by: pcgeek11

Originally posted by: xollox
You need to make it a dynamic disk in order to resize partitions.

Vista will resize the partitions and they do not have to be Dynamic disks. Been there and done it several times, making room for Linux.

I would stay away from "Dynamic Disk " at all cost. They are a disaster waiting to happen.

Well wrong, just recently I tried that myself and Vista does turn it into a dynamic drive when you try to extend a partition. Its just not possible to physically change the size of a system partition while the OS is running. For that I use acronis disk directior, does a wonderful job.

Edit: I think I know what happened there, you just chopped off a piece of a partition and created a new partition, right?. Yes, it does not turn that a dynamic drive indeed, however, when you try to extend (increase) the size of an existing partition that way, it will become a dynamic drive.

 

[Nothinman]

Well wrong, just recently I tried that myself and Vista does turn it into a dynamic drive when you try to extend a partition.

Maybe it depends on how you extend it, I just shrunk and reextended a partition in Vista RC2 and it stayed basic. If you extend it to another drive or a non-contiguous partition Windows would have no choice but to change it to dynamic to create the software RAID set.

Its just not possible to physically change the size of a system partition while the OS is running.

Sure it is, it's been that way for years in most OSes and I just did it in Vista RC2 and it worked fine.

 

[pcgeek11]

Originally posted by: Griswold

Originally posted by: pcgeek11

Originally posted by: xollox
You need to make it a dynamic disk in order to resize partitions.

Vista will resize the partitions and they do not have to be Dynamic disks. Been there and done it several times, making room for Linux.

I would stay away from "Dynamic Disk " at all cost. They are a disaster waiting to happen.

Well wrong, just recently I tried that myself and Vista does turn it into a dynamic drive when you try to extend a partition. Its just not possible to physically change the size of a system partition while the OS is running. For that I use acronis disk directior, does a wonderful job.

Edit: I think I know what happened there, you just chopped off a piece of a partition and created a new partition, right?. Yes, it does not turn that a dynamic drive indeed, however, when you try to extend (increase) the size of an existing partition that way, it will become a dynamic drive.

Well there Griswold you are wrong as I just checked MINE again and it is still a BASIC Disk. Let me spell it out for you:

Drive had one Primary "C" and an extended partition with a logical drive "D".

1. Deleted the "D" Logical Drive.
2. Deleted the Extended partition.
3. Then I Extended the Primary "C" partition to take the entire drive. This was done from Within Windows Vista on the C Partition. Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Computer management> Disk management.

And you know what, I shrunk and extended the C drive again tonight just for you. And it still says Basic Disk.

So find out what you are doing wrong and get back with us. Thanks for your input anyway. 🙂

pcgeek11