Help with Boot partition resizing

[Westify]

Hey, i'm attempting to re-size my main hardrives partition to reallocate more space to my system files partition (C\) but i'm having some issues. I removed free space from the other partition (D\) but i'm unable to now add the space to my primary boot partition.

I'm fairly new to Win7 and I don't remember this being an issue on XP, i've added a picture so if anybody has any ideas i'm all ears.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/202/parion.jpg/

 

[DaveSimmons]

Is D : a "logical drive" inside of an extended partition? If so, resizing it only frees up space up space inside of that partition until you move that partition's starting location.

[ primary partition = C: ] [ extended partition [[ logical drive D : ]] ]

In Acronis Disk Director you could resize the extended partition that holds D : in such a way that the free space appears before it instead of after it, I don't know how to do that in Paragon.

The other choice is to delete D :, delete its extended partition, resize C:, then re-create D :

 

[razel]

Yes, as Dave mentioned, you cannot extend primary partition C into an extended partition. Ideally you'll want your partition manager to shrink the extended partition that contains D and move it to the end of the disk.

Luckily you have alot of drive space. I would copy D onto 2TB E drive under a folder named OldDDrive. Delete D and the extended partition. Then you can partition freely at will. You don't need extended partitions unless you start to have more than 4 partitions. You are allowed 4 primary partitions under the 'old' basic disk layout.

 

[Westify]

If you check the screenshot again i believe i have the free space allocated in between the 2 other partitions, i'm not quite sure what an extended partition is tho.

Do i want to recreate D\ as another primary partition after i backup all my data?

 

[razel]

If you check the screenshot again, instead of the disk map, look at the partition listing for that drive. You'll see the 'extended partition' grouping above the 'unallocated space'. It contains the free space and your D drive. Click on the box left of 'unallocated space' and watch the 2 disappear. There's your issue. You cannot extend the primary C into what has disappeared. You must take it out of the extended partition or shrink it and push it to the end of the disk.

Ideally Paragon *should* do that, but you're better off pulling it out yourself since you have plenty of drive space.

 

[Westify]

ok well thanks razel and dave, but just double checking do i want to create the new partition as a primary instead of another extended?

 

[DaveSimmons]

Primary is better if you might resize again and if you won't ever need more than 2 more drive letters besides C: and D : on that specific physical disk.

Either one will work fine though.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

This is why I quit partitioning my disks nearly 10 years ago. Just not worth it.

 

[mv2devnull]

You haven't really quitted partitioning. You simply create just one primary partition per disk. While one can create a filesystem directly to a block device without any partition table, it is unlikely to be bootable.

Of well, GUID/GPT is starting to be possible these days.

i'm not quite sure what an extended partition is tho.

The common MS-DOS partition table is described here. (There is a link to "Extended partition" sub-page.)

 

[FishAk]

Alternatively, why do you need more space on "C"?

In my view, you would be better served by removing all your user folders (except AppData) to another partition to reduce the size of your OS partition's used space. Use something like GetFolderSize to see what else is taking up your space on "C", and see if you can move anything not required to be there- such as FF profiles, and other caches.

This approach will allow you to keep a few images of your OS to revert to when something happens to your install- without the images being too big to store. Keeping your OS backed up with a good image set is your best defense against many problems. It allows you to easily and quickly restore your system to a previous known good state with all your settings, activations, and programs intact.

I have several large programs installed on my primary computer- (although not games), and my W7 install is about 22GB- with image files @ about 10GB.

 

[corkyg]

...In my view, you would be better served by removing all your user folders (except AppData) to another partition to reduce the size of your OS partition's used space. ...

I buy that! Major space eaters that can be placed elsewhere are the Temporary Internet Files, and the Page file.

 

[mv2devnull]

In my view, you would be better served by removing all your user folders (except AppData) to another partition to reduce the size of your OS partition's used space.

And perhaps make use of symbolic links, or "junctions" as NTFS calls them. Here is one example.

 

[Zap]

This is why I quit partitioning my disks nearly 10 years ago. Just not worth it.

This.

Why even bother with the hassle?

 

[FishAk]

If you are interested in this solution, I recommend reading the thread titled; "How do I free up space on my C drive." in the "Software for Windows" forum. Sorry I am unable to link it here, but you can use the search function to find it, from the top of this page.

 

[FishAk]

This.

Why even bother with the hassle?

To keep image files at a reasonable size.

This allows one to keep several snapshots of their OS partition, reflecting several stages through it's history. Recovering an image is much faster and easier than installing the OS from scratch. Multiple snapshots means that if a bug attacked your OS in a sneaky way (also the modern way), and your latest image is also infected, you can still recover to an image from further back in time.

One would need a tremendous amount of disk space to keep multiple images if they don't partition and separate the data from the OS.

 

[corkyg]

Duplicate drives are faster and easier to manage than restoring image files.