Need help on drive partition utility

[vanvock]

I have XP home on a HDD with 2 other partitions, C which is active has the OS, D is empty & E which has data on it. All are the same cluster size. I need to merge or get rid of the D & E partitions so that the entire drive will be just C. I tried a PartMagic demo but it won't actually do anything. I don't want to pay $40-60 for a program I'll only use once.I've searched MajorGeeks, Nonags & found GParted recommended here but I'm not clear if it will do what I want. Thanks for any help.

 

[Nothinman]

No matter what software you choose you're looking at a pretty dangerous operation so you need to back everything up first. And at that point you might as well delete D and E, resize C to fill the rest of the disk an then restore the data from E, it'll take a little bit longer but it's safer.

 

[Seekermeister]

I have never used it, but I've heard that Ranish is good.

 

[vanvock]

Could that be done with fdisk or the drive makers software or must I have a utility for the re-sizing? Thanks.

 

[Nothinman]

If you're talking about old DOS fdisk it can't resize anything and it's not safe to use with NTFS partitions anyway. gparted should be able to do the resize, but I don't think it'll do any filesystem merges.

 

[vanvock]

Thanks again, I was refering to what I used to set up the drive initally, it was either the XP or Western Digital's tool. Your approach sounds like a good one. I guess the only risky part would be expanding the primary once the others are deleted or could the deletion bork something with the XP partition? If I did it that way would the links still function as before? The path would still be E:/whatever, right? With that logical drive no longer there could windows find the files? If I could just add D it would help but I'd rather get it all if not to big of a deal.

 

[Nothinman]

Enlarging a filesystem is simple, it's a pretty low-risk operation but there is still a chance that it'll fail and you'll lose the filesystem.

And no, once you delete D and E and enlarge C to fill the rest of the disk you'll only have C left, which is what you want, right?

 

[vanvock]

Yep, thats the goal now I've got to find a tool to do it with. I found a trial ver of Acronis hoping it was actually functional but it won't install due to not enough disk space which is the reason for this undertaking. It is a suite so I disabled what I could from the install & asigned it to another drive but no-go.

I don't have much left to scrub from "C" except Adobe reader,firewall & AV, even then may not be enough to defrag. Any ideas? Could I try to install in safe mode? Do you know of a tool that runs from a CD or floppy or small enough to install? The system can"t read the GParted stuff plus having to run the NTFS plug-in seems like too much. Maybe a link to a stand alone ver of Acronis partition manager.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

I think you could delete the empty partition and grow the System partition into the newly unallocated space using Gparted. That would still leave you with your third partition in tact, at which point you could copy all of that data into the new space on the resized System partition.

Repeat again by deleting the emptied partition and growing the System partition into the unallocated space.

 

[vanvock]

Would that keep the associations intact for the stuff in the 3rd?

I got WinZip so I could open the GParted files but I'm cluless as to what to do from there, this looks to be for programers or very advanced users & I'm not comfortable with it. I have no Linux experience.

Tried Paragon, yet another do nothing demo.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Originally posted by: vanvock
Would that keep the associations intact for the stuff in the 3rd?

I don't think so -- not for things like applications. When you move them onto the System partition you'll necessarily be changing the drive letter under which they will exist. I did almost the very same thing you're doing, but the only things I was moving were media files, photos & documents. All of my applications remained in tact on the System partition and root directory.

I got WinZip so I could open the GParted files but I'm cluless as to what to do from there, this looks to be for programers or very advanced users & I'm not comfortable with it. I have no Linux experience.

Gparted should come as an ISO image that you burn to a CD. It's bootable, so in your BIOS you set your machine to boot from your CD drive, and restart your machine with the disc in the drive. It'll boot GParted and let you edit the partitions.

 

[Pirotech]

try partition lodic, i think it's quite a good partitioning prog, and it's free.

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: Pirotech
try partition lodic, i think it's quite a good partitioning prog, and it's free.

That would be perfect except I'm working with USB, SATA, NTFS & Opteron, which rules that one out.

 

[vanvock]

As far as the GParted solution goes it I haven't found much info about it. Does it have a GUI or is it just Linux command line? While I can dwnld WinImage & learn about burning ISO files I'd be lost as last years Easter eggs in Linux. There also appears to be a plugin for working with NTFS which makes me a little wary of it.

 

[vanvock]

Tried the GParted CD, looks like the X Window program doesn't like PCIE video cards. I'ts starting to look like I'll have to give in & buy some software. I think I'll never partition a drive again unless it's HUGE.

 

[Nothinman]

Linux supports PCIE just fine, if the card doesn't work it's possible that your video card just doesn't work well with the free drivers.

And yes, partitions generally cause more problems than they fix. If you're just trying to organize things directories are a much simpler solution.

 

[vanvock]

Yep,That's what I got from their FAQ's, it only supports PCI & AGP.

 

[Pirotech]

Originally posted by: vanvock

Originally posted by: Pirotech
try partition lodic, i think it's quite a good partitioning prog, and it's free.

That would be perfect except I'm working with USB, SATA, NTFS & Opteron, which rules that one out.

yes you are right, but it's free, if you want more features then you need to buy partitioning prog, Partiotion Magic, Disk Director, etc

as for me i use Disk Director, and it does everything i need from partitioning prog, even it has an option to clone disks.

 

[vanvock]

Originally posted by: Seekermeister
I have never used it, but I've heard that Ranish is good.

Not sure if it works on XP or if it can change drive letters

 

[Nothinman]

You change the drive letters in Windows, not at the filesystem or partition level.

 

[vanvock]

Cool, I know about changing the volume lable or the name of the disk in Windows & controlling which drive letters are displayed in TweakUI but unaware of that. How about a quick how to?

 

[Nothinman]

My Computer->Manage then look in the Disk Manager or whatever it's called.

 

[vanvock]

Thanks, I can delete the D partition there as well so all I need is a tool to expand C & I'll be good to go.

 

[Nothinman]

Which is where I would normally recommend the gparted CD, if you had a video card worth using.

 

[vanvock]

I might still have an old 8meg PCI card out in the garage but I was hoping it wouldn't come to that