Hi guys,

 

mate fo mine has got a new windows xp home pc from HP witha single 80gb hard drive and partition. Thing is he would prefer 2x40gb partitions which i didnt think should be hard to produce. We tried through windows but with no success. I got hold of a copy of partition magic versions 8 and 8.5 full regisitered versions, but still no luck in moving/resizing the partition.

 

Surly there must be a way of doing this without formatting the pc and re-installing windows etc...

 

trouble is hp only give a full recovery disc and no windows only disc so the recovery would return it to the same state.

 

Cheers guys

Partition magic should do it. I have used it many times to partition and alter partition sizes.

why 2X40 makes no sense?

 

just stick another 80GB HDD or bigger.

Most recovery disks use Norton Ghost as a method of recovering the PC. The only safe way is to blitz all partitions and redo. If you create 2x40GB then put in the recovery disk, it will still recover the first partition and you may find it will restore the PC but will only restore to first partition. This then leaves the 2nd partition for use. I have tested this with my own laptop as ACER did the same i.e 1*120GB partition and this is stoopid. It does however mean you have to wipe all to delete the big partition and make 2 smaller ones...

why 2X40 makes no sense?

 

just stick another 80GB HDD or bigger.

 

 

It means you can store all of your DATA to the 2nd partition so if you need to rebuilt the OS then you do not need to worry about recovering data also...makes perfect sense...

yea im a big fan of spilt partitions but partition magic doesnt do it at all. I have triedthe wizard and using the more manual (disc manager) style of re-sizing then making a new partition in the free space.

 

Just wondering if hp have some way of locking the partition or if version 8.5 is just too old to use on windows xp running ntfs partitions?

I can see no reason why PM will not do it...

do a google for XP and PM, see what you come up with...

Never been a fan of partitions, all I do is have a small fast OP-SYS Disk drive an install drive and a Storage drive.

 

ATM

 

AMD Athlon64 4000 939pin

2x7800GT's SLi

2x40GB IDE HDD (one XP-Pro the other XP64 on duel boot)

2x250GB SATA 300 (one install's for both op-sys and the other storage)

 

Put it this way im allways waiting for other players to join on a map change when playing BF2

having partitions means it is easier when things go wrong. I store all my music (40-50GB worth) on my laptop, also all of the software I need to rebuild it so I can do it even if I am stuck in a hotel somewhere. Since I am a consultant, I am away a lot so this makes it easier. I have external HDD's for backups etc but they are pointless if I am away and if your OS goes bad (as XP does) since your last backup then it means potentially lost data...

Partitions on Laptops make a lot of sense I thought it was desktop's he was on about.

 

My laptop has a 80GB split to 2x40 and I have a 2.5 60GB external drive (gets all power off USB)

Makes sense on desktops too, just to separate different data..which also makes backups easier etc. I separate music from data such as pics etc...Also means you can lock a drive down to protect your porn from the missus...lolol

yea im a big fan of spilt partitions but partition magic doesnt do it at all. I have triedthe wizard and using the more manual (disc manager) style of re-sizing then making a new partition in the free space.

 

Just wondering if hp have some way of locking the partition or if version 8.5 is just too old to use on windows xp running ntfs partitions?

It could be that your drive is fragmented and there are files at the end of the partition, so it won't let you resize. Try running defrag first.

 

Or it could be a problem with trying to change the boot partition. I haven't used PM for a while - can you create a boot disk, or will it allow you to boot into it in DOS to make your changes?

If the partition's NTFS or Dynamic then Partition Magic won't allow you to split them

 

For some reason split only appears on FAT32 drives.

 

J

partition is ntfs so thats obviously why partition magic doesnt work. Anyone know of any software that will allow me to get what my mate wants on an ntfs drive?

All my partitions are NTFS and partition magic always works fine and dandy and very simply! I do it for the same reasons as Angus and keep all my software and music,etc on the other partition so I can quickly re-install windows when it throws it teddies out of the pram. I can't understand why it isn't working for you?

 

Are you re-sizing the partition successfully first?

no PM wont even let me resize the partiton? As it stands atm it has one single 80gb parition on the drive. It only has about 3 gb of data, defraged etc. Want to reduce that partition down to 40gb, then make a new one in the free space, but its not working...? any ideas? what version of PM are you using?

I wonder if it is the pagefile or hibernation that is causing it.....

I've got several versions of PM but I think its the latest one I normally use, the older ones do NTFS anyhow.

Maybe as Angus says: check your page file by going right click my computer, properties, advanced, performance and theres a bit that tells you how much of your harddisk is being used for paging file (used as memory when the hardware memory is full). Maybe set it to 0mb and then try re-sizing the partition. Then set it back to what it was before after you've created the new partition. Also turn off hibernation and screensavers,etc

 

Dave

ok thanks, anything else likely to throw it off?

I recommend scrapping the lot, resize the partitions yourself and the recovery disk to the first partition...it's what I do...

i no but hp dont give an xp disc, and my xp is on sony recovery disc so same problem

Is it a 'Dynamic' disc?

i no but hp dont give an xp disc, and my xp is on sony recovery disc so same problem

 

So is your PC HP or Sony? Sorry, but don't see the issue...

Often before splitting a partition it needs to be defragmented so there are no clusters of files sprinkled all over the drive. If the drive is defragmented and a say chkdsk /f c: has been run there should not be a problem splitting the partition with a newer version of PM that can handle NTFS or FAT paritions.

my mates pc is HP but he only has a recovery disc. Yes the drive is a dynamic disc if that alters anything guys.