partition question

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

does anyone know a good, free partition software for Windows xp? I didn't give myself near enough room and it's killing me.

Failing that, how do you change partition size when you reinstall Windows? You only lose the info on the partition that has Windows on it, right? Even if you resize?

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

So no? I found tons of free partition programs, but none of them did exactly what I wanted.

 

[Chrus]

Best one Ive seen/used is called Partition Magic... but its not really free... (unless of course ya know where to look...)

If your comfortable using Linux... theres a distro called Knoppix that boots and runs off a CD... Last time i used it, it had a program called QTpart (i think) that would let you format/resize/whatever the partitions on your HDD... Of course thats free being open source and all... but linux can be kinda hard for peoples who dont know what they are doin.

Apart from that, the only other advice i can give ya is to find a computer type forum and ask there...

 

[bradsul]

QPartd is destructive to NTFS partitions if I remember correctly. I believe Partition Magic is probably the best bet if you're not familiar with the process, I haven't used it in years but it had a fairly intuitive interface. Changing partition sizes in Windows setup will definitely destroy your data. Regardless of the option you chose make a full backup of your data (can't stress this enough).

 

[Brewing Clamper]

Why partition? I don't really understand the desire to partition a hard drive. Just use the whole thing as is. Want to keep some data apart from your main drive, buy another one, they're pretty cheap nowadays. I can't remember how many times I've had to "fix" systems (IT guy) because the engineers partition the hell out of their drives...

Ok, rant over, we now return you to your regularly scheduled forum.

 

[zoebisch01]

Fwiw, I partition my drive for a few reasons. The primary reason being that I allocate around 20 to 30 G for OS and installed software. The other is data. That way, if I ever have some critical problem (really haven't had any since I started using SpinRite though) I can just reformat the lower partition and reinstall software, preserving the data without having to x-fer etc.

Partition magic is good but not free, but can do it on-the-fly.

 

[Brewing Clamper]

Fwiw, I partition my drive for a few reasons. The primary reason being that I allocate around 20 to 30 G for OS and installed software. The other is data. That way, if I ever have some critical problem (really haven't had any since I started using SpinRite though) I can just reformat the lower partition and reinstall software, preserving the data without having to x-fer etc.

Partition magic is good but not free, but can do it on-the-fly.

I do understand this, I guess I've just seen way too many dissasters with people partitioning while not having a clue as to what they do. I just keep my os & installed programs in an 80Gb drive and all my data (Music,Pics,Vids,ect.) in a 400Gb drive. I have had a major OS crash that killed my os drive once... but all my data was safe...

 

[God Emporer BillyBrew]

That's my plan. But instead of buying Partition Magic, I think I'm going to spend the money on a new 300 gig hard drive. Then I'll partition my 60 gig drive to run windows and programs and use the 300 for data.

 

[Rick91981]

Why partition? I don't really understand the desire to partition a hard drive.

I do it all the time for dual boot purposes.


As for changing partition sizes, I have always used Partition Magic. There is a free program called Partition Logic. I haven't used it but some people have had success with it.

http://partitionlogic.org.uk/

VERY important to back up anything that is critical before making these changes because you never know what will happen.