I'm Cheap - Need free disk / partition resize software

[thatsright]

I have my main rig running Win XP and it was installed FIVE YEARS AGO!! The pc is fine for most activities. But in the last two years it has a penchant for explorer.exe to crash. Always when I am in Windows Explorer or My Computer working on my Nikon camera files or other pictures. To hell with troubleshooting, its time to wipe it down and start over.

I have two hard drives. Drive 1 is five years old and has C: D:, and E; Drive 2 is about 3 years old and has F: and G: partitions. I?d like to wipe down C: and create a new C: drive on my second physical hard drive. Doing this as its ?newer? and Drive 1 seems likely to fail before Drive 2. But to create a new C: partition, I will need to resize and create a new partition on Drive two.

Anyone knows of a free utility/program (not partition magic, etc) that will let me do non-destructive partition resizing and creation?

 

[Gooberlx2]

gparted live cd

 

[corkyg]

Seems there are a few:

Part

I don't think I'd want to be "Cheap Charlie" in such an area.

 

[Nothinman]

I don't think I'd want to be "Cheap Charlie" in such an area.

The idea that paying for software gets you higher quality is so wrong that it's not funny.

 

[bruceb]

That may be true in some cases. But for this type of job, I would go with a well respected name that has been around,
tested and gotten decent reviews. Personally I like Partition Magic (not free) although some folks have allegedly had issues
with it. Usually in my view, user caused.

 

[Nothinman]

Personally I wouldn't really consider paying for one since you should do a backup before anyway so if the free software f's up your filesystem you just recreate it at the new size and restore your data and move on.

 

[nova2]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Personally I wouldn't really consider paying for one since you should do a backup before anyway so if the free software f's up your filesystem you just recreate it at the new size and restore your data and move on.

likewise.

 

[lxskllr]

Gparted works great. It's my first choice partitioner regardless of price.

 

[corkyg]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The idea that paying for software gets you higher quality is so wrong that it's not funny.

That's not what I said - I was speaking about my own preference in this area accompanied by a wry smile.

I have used several of these packages, - PM 8 was my standard - but now Acronis Disk Director Suite is way more powerful.

 

[Nothinman]

I have used several of these packages, - PM 8 was my standard - but now Acronis Disk Director Suite is way more powerful.

I've never used Acronis but I used PM8 back in the day and there was a reason that many people called it Partition Tragic. I'm all Linux at home now and rarely do anything like that with the few Windows machines I use at work so I haven't had a reason to look at commercial tools again.

 

[catheryy]

Partition Magic free alternative - [spam] Partition Manager Home Edition, free for home usrs...

 

[sourceninja]

I've always had good success with gparted.

 

[Blazer]

Acronis Disk Director, not Free but not expensive either.

 

[capeconsultant]

*****

 

[nordloewelabs]

Gparted!

 

[C1]

You probably have everything you need, but it would be a bit easier with something like partition commander.

Presumably you will make drive 2 the main (ie, primary) drive as Drive 1 has too many miles on it.

1. Copy F and G files to drive 1 (these should be data files and this is temporary so it is OK to do this). (Note: As an option, after copying files over, you could boot into WINXP on drive 1 and deleted all volumes on drive 2).

2. Make Drive 2 primary master

3. Install WINXP on drive 1 as FAT32. At the time of install you will be allowed to specify the partition size for C.

4. Use a WIN98 or WINME start up disk to make C non-bootable

5. Install original primary and slave drive configuration. Boot into old WINXP and format the remaining empty space on drive 2 as NTFS.

6. Copy over your files from F and G on drive 1 to drive 2.

7. Make newer drive 2 primary and throw drive 1 away. (Note: If you want to still use your original drive 1 and it is NTFS then you need a utility to make the old C drive non-bootable or else ensure that it is off line).

8. Use WIN98/ME startup disk to re-toggle WINXP C partition to active/bootable.

9. Boot into WINXP and use the convert tool to convert FAT32 to NTFS.

 

[Fox5]

Gparted. Many Linux live cds will come with it (ubuntu for example) and it will partition windows partitions (and just about any other file system) while giving you a full desktop environment to browse the net or something in. It's a bit slow though, but works fantastically.

 

[Leros]

Any partition resizer (paid or free) has the potential to trash the harddrive.

 

[0roo0roo]

yup u better have backups.
even pay software is not without risks. this is not something you do with stuff you can't lose.