Additional to the Partitioning of a Hard Drive

fmz65

Ok, so a while back my friend who helped build my computer partitioned part of one of my hard drives and now (3 years later) it's starting to run out of space. Does anyone know how to partition more space to this area, or would I have to go about unpartitioning and repartitioning to increase the size?

Captain Vash

It's not cheap, unless you're of the "Arrr" persuasion.
but it is most certainly the best option for this type of scenario.

http://www.symantec.com/norton/partitionmagic


Disclaimer: Piracy is bad mmkay, don't pirate things.

Topweasel

Acronis disk director is like $50 and is really good and easy for it. If your cheap and want to give it a try, a Live Linux distro like Knoppix and use qpart.

Ramen Noodle

Whoa whoa screw all these suggestions that cost money. Look into GParted, it's a specific Linux distro that solely manages hard drives. You can create and adjust the size of individual partitions.

fmz65

Hmm, but wouldn't I have to install Linux? I'm on Windows XP Pro (sorry if that makes a difference).

Also, if I remember correctly my friend partitioned it without having to use any programs the first time around, is that now impossible?

Topweasel

fmz65 wrote: »

Hmm, but wouldn't I have to install Linux? I'm on Windows XP Pro (sorry if that makes a difference).

Also, if I remember correctly my friend partitioned it without having to use any programs the first time around, is that now impossible?

Its a piece of cake to create a partition prior to installing windows. Its a pain once information is on it. Thats where these programs come in handy. Knoppix and Gpart are what they call Live Distro's. You boot to the CD and it loads a Linux operating system into memory. So you don't actually install anything. Its great for fixing drive issues or just using a pc as a chassis and not having to worry about what is loaded.

fmz65

Hmm, when I have some time in the next few days I'll have to look into GParted.

Satsumomo

If you decide not to go with Gpart, Acronis is way superior to Partition magic.

Partition magic deemed one of my HDD's "Unusable and damaged" while Acronis detected it, fixed it, and I'm still using it.

fmz65

Hmm, so I looked into Gparted, but I think I'm way over my head here. I can't decipher if I need to have Linux installed as my OS to use it or not. I don't suppose anyone knows of anything that is like this, but for Windows? I'd love to have something free like Gparted, but with some kind of reputation so I don't brick my system.

RBach

GParted comes as an ISO disc image that can be burned to CD/DVD using just about any disc burning program (Roxio, Nero, etc). If you don't have anything like that, ImgBurn is free. Once the disc is burned you should then be able to reboot the computer with the CD in the drive and the computer should start from that. It'll take a little while to load (CDs are rather slow after all ), but when it finishes you'll find yourself in a basic Linux environment running off that CD. From there you can start the GParted program itself and get down to business.

fmz65

Hmm, have you used this program before RBach? Is it fairly simple to just increase the space of the partition or are there little loops and tricks I need to know before dealing with it?

RBach

To be honest I haven't used it in this exact scenario. I've used Gparted to create and delete partitions, but I don't think I've ever resized one. All I know is that it is capable of it. Make sure you have everything important backed up before you start messing with it.

fmz65

Dag, I actually have no way to backup my HD... would you recommend going out and buying an external HD and backing up or taking the chances of partitioning it?

RBach

Well, I think you should have a backup regardless. Unless there's really nothing you couldn't do without. Any number of things could result in you losing data even ignoring this partition resizing you're about to undertake. Having some sort of backup of your most important data/documents is always prudent.

fmz65

Hah most of my stuff is useless (still in college) and easily retainable. Thanks for the info and I'll try to get to this tomorrow!

RBach

Good luck.

fmz65

Hmm so I rebooted my PC, but unfortunately the only thing that happened was that it flickered off and then popped up with the Windows XP log-in screen and basically froze like that. I burned the ISO as a data CD and left it in the CD drive. Did I do something wrong or should I have waited longer? Also, is the ISO only ~99 MBs?

Edit: Also do I need to have these two files installed?
http://www.gnu.org/software/parted/download.shtml
http://gtkmm.org/download.shtml

RBach

What comes up when you try to read the disc within Windows (say, in Windows Explorer/"My Computer")? Do you see nothing but a .iso or .zip file? If so, you did it wrong. Here is a Youtube video that shows you how to burn a .iso file properly:
Burning an ISO file using ImgBurn The guy in the video is using ImgBurn and since it's free you might as well go ahead and use it so you can follow his instructions exactly. Also, he's burning an Ubuntu ISO file, but that doesn't change anything about the steps he's taking. Also, I'm pretty sure the GParted live cd is in fact ~100MB. Let me double check...Yeah, that's the right size.

Oh hey, cool. The forum automatically embedded the video.

fmz65

Thanks for all the help RBach, just burned it and going to do a reboot now! I'll let you know if it worked!

Edit: ARRRGH. Ok so I burned it with the right clicking of the ISO and selecting "Burn using ImgBurn" and it worked (there are more files in there than just the ISO), but for some reason it won't autorun when I reboot my computer. Also, my computer is recognizing it as a picture CD. Should I reburn a third time or am I not waiting long enough at the Windows log-in screen?

RBach

I'll assume everything has burned correctly for the moment. In that case, it's most likely that the computer simply isn't configured to boot from the cd (or more precisely, it's set to boot from the hard drive first). This is easily solved, however.

When you turn on/reboot the computer, you should hear a single beep accompanied with either a logo of some sort or maybe just a bunch of text. Some other stuff may also appear (perhaps more text), but soon afterward Windows XP starts loading. Anyway, what you're seeing at this point is called the BIOS (Basic Input/Output System), and it's responsible for the most basic operations of the computer including the boot process. You're going to need to hit a particular key on your keyboard while the BIOS is still displaying whatever it happens to display (for example, my Intel motherboard displays the Intel logo at this point). Usually there will be some text somewhere on the screen that will tell you which key this is. It's usually something like "Press F2 to enter SETUP" or some variation. Most of the time the key you'll need to hit is the Delete key, but I've also seen F2, F10, and even the Escape key.

Once you've figured out the key to press and have in fact pressed it you will be taken to a new screen with all kinds of options. What's available varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and from BIOS to BIOS so I can't be too specific, but you're looking for something along the lines of "Boot" or "Boot Order". Once you find it, you should see a list of devices that you can boot from: items like USB, CDROM, HDD (Hard drive), etc. You'll probably find that your hard drive (or hard drives in general) are listed higher than CDROM drives. There should be instructions on how to make adjustments somewhere on the screen to guide you the rest of the way. Once you've made the necessary changes, look for an option somewhere in the menus that mentions saving and exiting. Once you select that the computer should reboot, run through the BIOS' boot screen(s) again, then (hopefully) begin to load that cd. If you have any questions at all do not hesitate to ask--what you're doing isn't dangerous by any means, but it's still easy to screw things up if you start poking around at other things without knowing what they're for.

Also, Youtube again comes to the rescue with an example of what I'm talking about. Again, specifics will vary based on your system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smL4hDBrN2A

It's a little hard to follow since this guy doesn't show the whole screen at once, but it's better than nothing. Here's another example (this time in Moon Language! ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX6B2VWgB5Y

fmz65

Ugh, ok so I'm in Gparted and I'm trying to re-partition. I shrink my "normal" hard drive to no free space. Then I increase my partitioned drive by about 7 gigs and then I restore the "normal" hard drive to it's regular size. BUT, when I go to do the operation, it never gets past the first step. Can you help me out with why? Also is there a way you can walk me through this? Either by google chat or something? I am so lost

Edit: Wait, shazam I only decreased it by about 6 gigs and it appears to be working. Only an hour 44 mins until it's done :P

RBach

I hope the lack of a followup post doesn't mean something went horribly wrong...

fmz65

Hahaha, sorry. It took like 5 total hours for it to move everything and whatnot. Everything worked and I can not say thank you enough RBach! I was so happy when it finally finished.