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Partitioning Hard Drive

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Parsnip1973

Junior Member
Is it possible for me to create a partition on my exisiting harddrive given that I have performed a new install of XP on a new harddrive and didn't select "Create partition" during XP installation? When I go into Disk Manager I don't see an option for me to create a partition on my existing HD and I wondered if that would mean I would have to reinstall - not a disaster, since I performed the install less than a week ago.

The reason why I believe this would be a good idea is so that I can have my OS XP on a separate partition from the rest of my files (eg Excel spreadsheets, databases, word docs etc) - perhaps you guys could advise me if I am barking up the wrong tree or am indeed wise to wish to create a separate partition.

Many thanks

Richard
 
Is it possible for me to create a partition on my exisiting harddrive given that I have performed a new install of XP on a new harddrive and didn't select "Create partition" during XP installation?
Click to expand...
This is standard with Linux, but as far as I am aware, not possible (for free) with Windows.

There are lots of ways of doing this, but probably the simplest is to use a Linux Rescue CD or the Live CD

http://easynews.dl.sourceforge.net/sour...rge/gparted/gparted-livecd-0.2.4-2.iso

which is only a 29 MB download. Use the program gparted, it will split your Windows partition (VFAT or NTFS) in two while leaving all your original stuff alone (well it might move it to the center of your drive (so that the outer section can be sliced off)).
 
Of course, Partition Magic does this for windows users.
And I suspect Paragon will do it.
You just have to cough up some bucks, that's all.
 
Grab a Linux Live CD like Knoppix and use GParted to resize the NTFS partition and create a new one, just make sure you backup any important data first because it's not a fool proof operation.
 
Paragon does all sorts of crazy stuff, including shuffling space between partitions if you want.

Cool utility. Coulnd't live with out it. Not free though.
 
Originally posted by: spikespiegal
Paragon does all sorts of crazy stuff, including shuffling space between partitions if you want.

Cool utility. Coulnd't live with out it. Not free though.
Click to expand...
Sounds like a great product.
Might have to purchase a copy.
 
Thanks for all the replies - I liked the look of trying a GParted LiveCD, so have downloaded the ISO image onto my computer and have burned it to a CD (via both Nero Express and via XP itself on different discs). Unfortunately, the computer simply won't boot from these discs: I get a message saying "Boot from CD", and then it goes and boots from the hard-drive as usual. I have set the boot device in the BIOS as CD-ROM. I think the problem is the computer is not recognising the CD as bootable media. If anyone has any ideas of what I might be doing wrong, I would love to hear them! I am burning the ISO image by the way, not unpackaging and burning the files.

On another thought, however, I have a second, currently unformatted hard-drive in my system which I intend to install a linux installation and FreeBSD on. Could I install say a Linux distro on this drive and then use GParted from this drive to partition my current C-Drive (which contains my XP Pro installation)? If i can do this, this sounds like quite a pain-free way of achieveing what I want.

Thanks for all the help so far - I wouldn't even have had any clue as to where to start without you guys 🙂

Richard
 
Make sure you're burning the ISO as an image and not just putting the ISO on the disc.

And yes, the second method will work as well.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Make sure you're burning the ISO as an image and not just putting the ISO on the disc.
Click to expand...


I know I'm going to sound clueless asking, but what's the difference?

Thanks

Richard
 
Originally posted by: Parsnip1973
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Make sure you're burning the ISO as an image and not just putting the ISO on the disc.
Click to expand...


I know I'm going to sound clueless asking, but what's the difference?

Thanks

Richard
Click to expand...
The ISO file is a replication of a CD image. If you burn the ISO as an image, it will recreate the proper CD file system and the files contained in the image. If you burn the ISO as just a file, basically it's just a file on the CD file system... almost useless.

Think of it like a Ghost image of a hard drive. The image file itself is just a file. But when you use Ghost to restore the image to a hard drive, then the files contained in the image are available.
 
Scottws - thanks, I think i understand what you're saying 😉

dBTelos - thanks, Managed to burn the image to my CD. This then booted fine. Unfortunately, GParted kept saying there were errors when it tried to resize my partition. No idea why, but anyway, since I was using a new install anyway, I just reinstalled Windows. Have almost finished (3 hours later) but now have a couple of partitions on my main drive!

Thanks to everyone who left a message!

Richard
 
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