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General discussion

Resizing partition

Mar 8, 2004 8:19AM PST

I installed Windows XP Home on a barebones computer, and mistakenly made the partition for the C drive much smaller (1.96 G with only 33MB free) than the D drive (1.6 G used, 24.9 G Free). Now I keep getting low disk messages. I want to resize the partitions so that the C Drive is larger without having to reformat both drives if that's possible. The file system on the C drive is NTFS and FAT32 on the D drive.
CPU is 1.3 Ghz Athlon with 120 RAM. Appreciate your help.

Discussion is locked

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Re:Resizing partition
Mar 8, 2004 8:31AM PST

By today's standards your HDD is considered too small to bother with partitioning into two partitions.
Why not just make it a single C Drive?

The only way to resize your partition in Windows is to use Partition Magic which ($70.00) costs more than the price of a new 80GB HDD!

The easy and free method is to boot with the XP CD and delete all your partitions and start over.

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Re:Resizing partition
Mar 8, 2004 8:39AM PST

The easiest tool that I have found to do this is Partition Magic 8 By Symantec. There is a trial version that you can download from their website http://www.powerquest.com/downloads/eval-soho.cfm. It is a fairly expensive program for a one time use. And I believe the trial version will do what you want in about 2 minutes. I recommend buying it if you like it however. I use it all the time.
Best of luck!

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Re:'this' trial version?
Mar 8, 2004 8:58PM PST

This is an evaluation version of PartitionMagic which will allow you to experience the product features but will NOT allow you to implement any changes.

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Resizing partition using Linux.
Mar 9, 2004 3:17AM PST
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Resizing after using Nero Restore
Apr 1, 2008 2:18AM PDT

I recently replaced a 20GB hard drive with one of 160 GB. I formatted the entire new hard drive in a single NTFS partition (WinXP Pro). Prior to this, I had backed up the hard drive using Nero to avoid having to reinstall all the software. I successfully restored to the 160 GB disk, however, the Drive C partition was reduced to 20 GB like the original hard drive and the remainder of the 160 GB was converted to unallocated space. I have tried several programs to expand the system drive to include GParted in the Knoppix distribution of Linux. I can reduce the system drive, however I haven't found a program yet that will allow me to extend the partition beyond that 20 GB limit. Is there a solution to this problem other than having to reinstall everything?

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You noted XP Pro.
Apr 1, 2008 2:27AM PDT

XP Pro is limited to expansion to 127GB so that could be your issue.

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I want to resize the system drive up to at least 40 GB
Apr 1, 2008 4:03AM PDT

Actually I didn't need to use the entire 160 GB for the System partition, even though I should have made that decision on the original format. Nevertheless, when I restored the backup from the old 20 GB drive to the new 160 GB drive, the C: drive partition on the new drive was reduced to 20 GB and the remaining 140 GB was converted to unallocated space. I can create and even resize new partitions up or down in the unallocated space. However, I want to upsize the C: drive, to at least 40 GB but every utility I have tried will only allow me to downsize the drive below 20 GB while not allowing me to increase the size beyond the original 20 GB limitation that was carried forward from the old drive. I was considering trying Partition Magic, but if it is subject to the same limitation, then it would be a waste of money.

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PM should be the answer.
Apr 1, 2008 4:33AM PDT

I noted a limitation if your XP CD is not one of those with SP1 or SP2. While I can do this without PM most can't deal with the free but harder to use tools. And by creating that other partition you also created a much bigger problem to solve. So I'm going to say that in your case it's going to be PM.

Bob

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What about XP Home
Apr 1, 2008 9:51AM PDT

Can XP Home go above 127gb? Because I just purchased a 160gb HDD. Maybe just use it as a external. The 80gb that in the the computer now is a little noisy, but I could deal with it if I had too.

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No it can't until later.
Apr 1, 2008 11:31AM PDT

If only your CD was XP SP1 Home or XP SP2 Home then the limit is removed.

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Re:Resizing partition
Mar 9, 2004 2:41AM PST

I am a big fan of PartitionMagic (Formerly owned by PowerQuest) and I would also recommend PM 8.0 too. However, for a one time job (to resize partition once), you can download the freeware called Partition Resizer v1.3.4

Another software called Ranish Partition Manager 2.40 also can help you with the resizer.

Regards,

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Re:Re:Resizing partition
Mar 9, 2004 5:00AM PST

Thanks for all the great suggestions. Wish me luck!

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You're welcome and good luck. Post back to us the result. (NT)
Mar 9, 2004 10:58AM PST

.