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The W - Internet & Computers - Resizing the NTFS System Partition
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El Nastio
Banger








Since: 14.1.02
From: Ottawa Ontario, by way of Walkerton

Since last post: 43 days
Last activity: 28 days
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#1 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.00
Yup, I need to resize my Windows System partition, because I have run out of space on it (guess I made the partition a little too small). So I figured I'd go online and see if there is any freeware which can assist....and it's all Linux based Command prompt stuff.

Now don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with said items....but my linux and command prompt skills (outside of network troubleshooting) is pretty small.

Do any of you fellow W's know of any freeware which can assist me in this quest? And will not provide any datat loss? I know there's commericalized stuff, but meh, I'm cheap (or rather I'd probably buy another hard drive, do an OSRI< and just move files over).


EDIT: I found something on Microsoft's support site about diskpart.exe, however it does not do system partitions. I wonder if I do an OSRI on another hard drive, boot off of THAT hard drive, THEN try to resize the old one if it would work?

(edited by El Nastio on 14.5.07 0135)


Yes, I finally have updated the Troll Moment of the Week! This week is brought to you by ;

"STONEBOY!" , who brought us the following such pieces of wisdom as:

STONEBOY!: "THIS GOES MESSAGE GOES OUT TO ALL CANADIANS ESPECIALLY MONTREAL WHEREVER THE F#CK THAT IS".

Kidbrooklyn: "Please god tell me that you're making fun of the douche who started this thread...

Wait, no he isn't. He's serious. I hadn't read his previous brilliance before. I apologize" (in reference to a reply by James1978).


Click Here (The W) to read the rest of it!

BXVI
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wmatistic
Andouille








Since: 2.2.04
From: Austin, TX

Since last post: 2561 days
Last activity: 1546 days
#2 Posted on | Instant Rating: 3.08
Eh I've heard people had luck with Gparted on XP systems so maybe try that.

Vista actually has this built into the Disk Management service so you don't need to buy anything. Not that it helps you here. :)
tarnish
Landjager








Since: 13.2.02
From: Back in the Heart of Hali

Since last post: 578 days
Last activity: 23 hours
#3 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.17

GParted can, indeed, resize NTFS partitions.

Click Here (gparted.sourceforge.net) and download the live-cd image. Burn it, put it into your system, and boot off of it.

The interface is not Windows, but it's not command-line either. I believe the intent was to be reasonably similar to PartitionMagic, which would be your first choice for commercial software for this purpose. You'll pretty much just have to slide the bar to the appropriate spot and click "resize".

Make sure you back up anything important on any part of the drive, not just the partition you're trying to expand. If something goes wrong, it could mess up the partition table, which means you could lose stuff on all partitions.

El Nastio
Banger








Since: 14.1.02
From: Ottawa Ontario, by way of Walkerton

Since last post: 43 days
Last activity: 28 days
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#4 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.21
Thanks guys, however upon trying to resize the primary partition using GParted it still won't let me. ARG!


Any other ideas? =(



Yes, I finally have updated the Troll Moment of the Week! This week is brought to you by ;

"STONEBOY!" , who brought us the following such pieces of wisdom as:

STONEBOY!: "THIS GOES MESSAGE GOES OUT TO ALL CANADIANS ESPECIALLY MONTREAL WHEREVER THE F#CK THAT IS".

Kidbrooklyn: "Please god tell me that you're making fun of the douche who started this thread...

Wait, no he isn't. He's serious. I hadn't read his previous brilliance before. I apologize" (in reference to a reply by James1978).


Click Here (The W) to read the rest of it!

BXVI
tarnish
Landjager








Since: 13.2.02
From: Back in the Heart of Hali

Since last post: 578 days
Last activity: 23 hours
#5 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.17

What error are you getting when you try to resize the partition with GParted?

Here's some notes on resizing NTFS:

Click Here (en.opensuse.org)
Click Here (gparted-forum.surf4.info)
Click Here (gparted.sourceforge.net)
Click Here (linuxquestions.org)

If none of those help, try searching using the error message you're seeing.
El Nastio
Banger








Since: 14.1.02
From: Ottawa Ontario, by way of Walkerton

Since last post: 43 days
Last activity: 28 days
ICQ:  
#6 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.21
I read all of the links there, and sadly it's no use. I can create and modify other partitions, but not the system partition (well, ic an shrink my system partition, but that wuld be redundent, I want to INCREASE it). May have to bite the bullet and FDISK....or buy another hard drive and install XP on that =\



Yes, I finally have updated the Troll Moment of the Week! This week is brought to you by ;

"STONEBOY!" , who brought us the following such pieces of wisdom as:

STONEBOY!: "THIS GOES MESSAGE GOES OUT TO ALL CANADIANS ESPECIALLY MONTREAL WHEREVER THE F#CK THAT IS".

Kidbrooklyn: "Please god tell me that you're making fun of the douche who started this thread...

Wait, no he isn't. He's serious. I hadn't read his previous brilliance before. I apologize" (in reference to a reply by James1978).


Click Here (The W) to read the rest of it!

BXVI
tarnish
Landjager








Since: 13.2.02
From: Back in the Heart of Hali

Since last post: 578 days
Last activity: 23 hours
#7 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.17

What's the status of the disk? How big is the whole thing? How many physical and logical partitions are already on it? Is there an extended partition? Is the partition you are trying to resize one of the logical partitions in an extended partition? Where's your pagefile? Is it on the partition you're trying to reize? If so, how big is it?

Because there's no Windows XP running when the GParted CD has been booted, there shouldn't be anything stopping you from resizing the partition unless there's an error or bad sector on the disk or if you don't have enough free space to do a resize. GParted doesn't care if it's a "system partition" or not, in other words, so there's something else going on here.

What is the actual error you're getting? Does it not let you move the 'slider'? Does it let you move it but say, "Cannot resize partition?"

My father hit me up for this same advice a few months ago, but I think I pointed him at Knoppix rather than the GParted LiveCD. I seem to recall he had to enable something with regards to NTFS write capability, but I believe that's supposed to be enabled by default on GParted.
El Nastio
Banger








Since: 14.1.02
From: Ottawa Ontario, by way of Walkerton

Since last post: 43 days
Last activity: 28 days
ICQ:  
#8 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.21
I have a 160 gigabyte hard drive. I partitioned 20 gigs (C:) for system files, leaving the D: for everything else. When loading up and using Gparted, I cannot move the slider on the system partition (C:) except to shrink the size. No error messages at all, just the nability to use the slider.


Someone suggested I use my MSDSN access and download Vista, boot the RE and use diskpart, but I don't know if thst will work....



Yes, I finally have updated the Troll Moment of the Week! This week is brought to you by ;

"STONEBOY!" , who brought us the following such pieces of wisdom as:

STONEBOY!: "THIS GOES MESSAGE GOES OUT TO ALL CANADIANS ESPECIALLY MONTREAL WHEREVER THE F#CK THAT IS".

Kidbrooklyn: "Please god tell me that you're making fun of the douche who started this thread...

Wait, no he isn't. He's serious. I hadn't read his previous brilliance before. I apologize" (in reference to a reply by James1978).


Click Here (The W) to read the rest of it!

BXVI
wmatistic
Andouille








Since: 2.2.04
From: Austin, TX

Since last post: 2561 days
Last activity: 1546 days
#9 Posted on | Instant Rating: 3.08
I don't know that it would work either. Did you first shrink the size of the D partition? If you're trying to increase C you must have free space first.
tarnish
Landjager








Since: 13.2.02
From: Back in the Heart of Hali

Since last post: 578 days
Last activity: 23 hours
#10 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.17

I'd check out what wmastistic said there: shrink the D: partition from the far right to create some free space and then grow the C: partition.

I don't think there's much chance that you've got an "extended" partition, but I also no longer know much about how Windows tends to set up disk layouts.

Is your D: partition quite full as well? Or is there plenty of free space. You may also need to do the above as a "two-step" process, i.e. shrink the D: partition, apply the change, and then grow the C: partition.

Merc
Potato korv








Since: 3.1.02
From: Brisbane, Australia

Since last post: 4733 days
Last activity: 4711 days
#11 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.71
    Originally posted by El Nastio
    I have a 160 gigabyte hard drive. I partitioned 20 gigs (C:) for system files, leaving the D: for everything else.

First off, you're insane for making a 20 Gb partition on a 160 Gb disk
Could I ask what's taking up the 20 Gb?
If you're having the problems you are trying to resize, wouldn't it be easier to move this data to your larger partition?
KJames199
Scrapple
Moderator








Since: 10.12.01
From: #yqr

Since last post: 226 days
Last activity: 7 days
#12 Posted on | Instant Rating: 6.23
    Originally posted by Merc
    First off, you're insane for making a 20 Gb partition on a 160 Gb disk
What makes him insane? I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything, I just don't know enough about hard drive partitions (or computer inner workings in general) to know.



JK
Guru Zim
SQL Dejection
Administrator








Since: 9.12.01
From: Bay City, OR

Since last post: 8 days
Last activity: 17 hours
ICQ:  
#13 Posted on | Instant Rating: 8.81
I'm not sure why anyone partitions their HD any longer.

It used to be that you were trying to minimize the cluster size by decreasing the size of the partition. Something about 8k vs 16k vs 32k clusters... it's all hazy. This was back in the day of 80 MEG hard drives. Now, with the amount of hard drive size I have, I don't care if every folder or txt file takes up 128k - 256k - 512k - whatever. My HD isn't full, most of it is contiguous storage used for pictures or Mp3 data, I don't have a bajillion folders to worry about.

Get yourself two drives (real drives) put your swap on one, your OS on the other, put your data on your swap drive and your apps on your OS drive, and life is good.

Don't fake out things by partitioning your one HD into two, then putting the swap on D and the Os on C. You are probably just causing your read heads to move more by doing this and I doubt you are gaining any efficiencies (I suppose your way you can ghost your OS partition and reapply it later if you have to, but does that make this worth it?).

(edited by Guru Zim on 15.5.07 1524)



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Merc
Potato korv








Since: 3.1.02
From: Brisbane, Australia

Since last post: 4733 days
Last activity: 4711 days
#14 Posted on | Instant Rating: 5.71
    Originally posted by KJames199
    What makes him insane?


Would you buy anything else and use only 12.5% of it for its main purpose?
He's not really gaining any benefit from having a partition just for storing stuff. That partition, one assumes, is formatted for windows anyway.
To me, it's kinda like he bought an 8 room house and will only use 1 room for his day to day living and just store his junk in the other 7 rooms.


El Nastio
Banger








Since: 14.1.02
From: Ottawa Ontario, by way of Walkerton

Since last post: 43 days
Last activity: 28 days
ICQ:  
#15 Posted on | Instant Rating: 7.21
    Originally posted by Merc
      Originally posted by El Nastio
      I have a 160 gigabyte hard drive. I partitioned 20 gigs (C:) for system files, leaving the D: for everything else.

    First off, you're insane for making a 20 Gb partition on a 160 Gb disk
    Could I ask what's taking up the 20 Gb?
    If you're having the problems you are trying to resize, wouldn't it be easier to move this data to your larger partition?



In hindsight, yes I'm insane. At the time I figured I'd keep things nice and tidy by having system files on one partition, other files on the other....and it turns out I MASSIVELY under-estimated the drive space I would need for system files. I don't install many programs or games, my PC eventually will be for graphic design/multimedia work. I figured 20 would be enough. And it was. However I finally DID buy a game, and that game takes up 10 gigs by itself on the c: if I install it there.

Whats on the C: partition right now? Nothing but system files, just the way I intended. And without the game everything is fine.


I could resolve all of this by doing an FDISK and the like, but I really really REALLY don't want to have to do an OSRI if at all possible....I do enoough of those at work.


Guru, you're abosolutly right, there's no reason to partition drives anymore. And I advise EVERYONE not to do so.


Thanks for all the feedback so far guys. I think I'll sit tight on this for awhile and weigh my options.

(edited by El Nastio on 16.5.07 0140)


Yes, I finally have updated the Troll Moment of the Week! This week is brought to you by ;

"STONEBOY!" , who brought us the following such pieces of wisdom as:

STONEBOY!: "THIS GOES MESSAGE GOES OUT TO ALL CANADIANS ESPECIALLY MONTREAL WHEREVER THE F#CK THAT IS".

Kidbrooklyn: "Please god tell me that you're making fun of the douche who started this thread...

Wait, no he isn't. He's serious. I hadn't read his previous brilliance before. I apologize" (in reference to a reply by James1978).


Click Here (The W) to read the rest of it!

BXVI
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I believe this is being marketed as a feature for parents to keep tabs on their kids. Or maybe I'm mixing this up with a similar "service.
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