Disk-partition question

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My HP computer comes with 2 primary partitions on one disk. Partition C (NTFS) holds the system and all programs, and takes up most of the disk space. Partition D (FAT32) is the HP recovery partition, occupying the remainder of the disk.
I’ve had this computer for 2 or 3 years, and I’ll never use the recovery partition (I have a set of recovery CD’s, if I need them). What I’d like to do is delete the D partition, and expand the C partition to occupy the entire drive (I’m not talking about grafting the D partition to C, but actually deleting the D partition and expanding C to occupy the entire drive). I know I can do this with a 3rd party program such as Partition Magic, but can I do it using the Windows XP Disk Management Utility instead? How about some other reliable freeware that would do the job?
I’m not hurting for disk space, so rather than purchasing a program that I’ll probably only use once, I’ll leave things as they are if I can’t do it with Windows or freeware.
Thanks for any instructions/suggestions.

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this is the best I have used, simple, fast and free….

http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

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Partition Wizard is also highly regarded (and free!)

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Diskpart.exe, which is on your machine, followed by Dell’s Extpart. All from within Windows.

Ultimately you are better off adding another disk, changing your home directory and moving all your data to the new disk. Then you can leave the recovery partition as is.

cheers, Paul

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Can the EaseUS product unallocate a protected recovery partition and move data if need be while running in Windows? Or is there a provision to boot with the product and perform such operations? I tried the product a while back but had to go with GParted live CD to get the heavy lifting done because the operations were not possible to perform from within Windows.

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Thanks all for your replies.

I have downloaded both EASEUS and Partition Wizard, and I’m studying them now to decide which to use. Also, I’d like to read the response to Byron’s question.

PT, I looked at Microsoft’s description and instructions for using Diskpart.exe (don’t have Dell’s program yet), and it looks like it would make what I want to do more complicated than it has to be, if indeed the other recommended programs would do the job. Also, I don’t need or want another disk. My C partition is currently 123 GB in size, of which I’m only using 18.1GB. I’d rather not add the extra heat and power load to my computer that another disk would bring with it, and I don’t want to put in the significant amount of time it would take to move my data to the new disk. I have both the recovery CD’s from HP and an Acronis disk image, in case I need to restore my system. I wouldn’t want to restore from the several year old D partition anyway – it took me a long time to remove the junkware that came with the machine. No way I’m gonna put it back!

Again, thanks for your suggestions – they’ve been very helpful.

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Thanks all for your replies.

I have downloaded both EASEUS and Partition Wizard, and I’m studying them now to decide which to use. Also, I’d like to read the response to Byron’s question.

PT, I looked at Microsoft’s description and instructions for using Diskpart.exe (don’t have Dell’s program yet), and it looks like it would make what I want to do more complicated than it has to be, if indeed the other recommended programs would do the job. Also, I don’t need or want another disk. My C partition is currently 123 GB in size, of which I’m only using 18.1GB. I’d rather not add the extra heat and power load to my computer that another disk would bring with it, and I don’t want to put in the significant amount of time it would take to move my data to the new disk. I have both the recovery CD’s from HP and an Acronis disk image, in case I need to restore my system. I wouldn’t want to restore from the several year old D partition anyway – it took me a long time to remove the junkware that came with the machine. No way I’m gonna put it back!

Again, thanks for your suggestions – they’ve been very helpful.

Les,

I did exactly what you are asking with Partition Wizard. it was very easy. I also was never going back to the manufacturer installed old OS and wanted to reclaim the space. It’s a 2 step process.

Warning: Be sure you select the correct partition to delete. Make sure the partitions you wish to save are named so it’s very easy to identify them from the recovery partition you wish to elliminate.

First you have to delete the partition. If I remember correctly you can select this partition and reformat. (You may have to delete it then reformat it). You then have to resize your OS partition to include this space. Since I have already done this, I am unable to give screen shots of the exact steps, sorry.[/color][/size]

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Byron,

I can’t answer your specific question. However, the Easeus product does do processes (such as resizing the booted OS partition) that require a reboot. When the machine reboots, it is running some sort of easeus shell. When the partition process is completed, the machine again reboots and windows starts normally.

One thing I can’t understand is its speed. I can resize a primary partition, create and format a new partition on the open space and it will complete all the processes in less than 5 minutes……

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One thing I can’t understand is its speed

That action is fast because there is no data to move, just a small modification to the disk record and the file table, all of which can be done with Windows running using the method I outlined above.

cheers, Paul

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My HP computer comes with 2 primary partitions on one disk. Partition C (NTFS) holds the system and all programs, and takes up most of the disk space. Partition D (FAT32) is the HP recovery partition, occupying the remainder of the disk.
I’ve had this computer for 2 or 3 years, and I’ll never use the recovery partition (I have a set of recovery CD’s, if I need them). What I’d like to do is delete the D partition, and expand the C partition to occupy the entire drive (I’m not talking about grafting the D partition to C, but actually deleting the D partition and expanding C to occupy the entire drive). I know I can do this with a 3rd party program such as Partition Magic, but can I do it using the Windows XP Disk Management Utility instead? How about some other reliable freeware that would do the job?
I’m not hurting for disk space, so rather than purchasing a program that I’ll probably only use once, I’ll leave things as they are if I can’t do it with Windows or freeware.
Thanks for any instructions/suggestions.

easus partition master for me

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Ted, regarding your warning about clearly naming my partitions;
They are currently named as follows:

HP_PAVILION (C:)
HP_RECOVERY (D:)

This should be sufficiently clear, shouldn’t it?

If I do choose to rename a partition, my understanding is that I go into My Computer, right-click on the drive/partition I wish to rename, and select Properties. Then it’s a simple matter of changing the partition name that appears there. Is this correct, or is there something I’m overlooking?

In any case, thanks for the warning – I’d hate to accidentally delete the wrong partition.

Also, if I delete a partition, why would I have to reformat it? Can’t Partition Wizard just expand my C: partition into the empty space where D: used to be?

Thanks for your insights.

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[quCan’t Partition Wizard just expand my C: partition into the empty space where D: used to be?

[/quote]

resizing, deleting, reformating and whole lot can be done by partition wizard and most partition softwares out there.

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Ted, regarding your warning about clearly naming my partitions;
They are currently named as follows:

HP_PAVILION (C:)
HP_RECOVERY (D:)

This should be sufficiently clear, shouldn’t it?

Thanks for your insights.

This should be clear enough. It just has to be clear enough so that you can help distinguish between the partitions. As Byron states you can also usually tell by the partition size. The point is you do not want to delete the wrong one. Mine is called TedWin7 (C:) Using a description such as this is even more important if you are dual booting with 2 seperate versions of Windows. I do not remember the exact sequence for renaming a partition in XP. I believe you are correct but I’m not sure. It has been a while since I removed my Recovery partition but if memory serves me correctly (That is definitely not a given) the deleted partition has to be formated so that the “C” drive can reclaim the space. Once deleted it is considered unallocated space. You may not have to reformat it, but a quick format takes very little time.

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Good Advise.
A backup or Clone of a drive is always good before starting to muck around with partitions.

Last week, I was working with a 6 yr old PC that was given to me. It had only the OS on an
80 gig HD, as all data files had been removed. (windows XP-home)

The drive still had the original Recovery partition on it which I wanted to remove and recover
the space. At least on that drive, the recovery partition is the first one on the drive.
Booting up in DOS, I tried removing that partition with “Partition Magic 8” and got an error message
when it tried to remove the partition.
Then I booted up with my new version of “Easeus Partition Master” and got a similar error message.
Yikes! that thing was indestructible, or so it would seem.

But it’s not nice to fool ‘The Doctor’.

In a last ditch effort to get rid of that offensive partition, I booted up with my DOS Utilities boot disk.
I ran FDISK and went through the process of removing all partitions. Then again with FDISK I created
one large partition and then DOS formatted it (FAT-32), using the DOS Format command.
I like the DOS Format because it thoroughly checks every sector on the drive and blocks out any bad
sectors.

After the format, I was able to load Windows XP-Pro-SP3 on the drive with no problem.
When it was up and running to my satisfaction, I again booted up Partition Magic 8 and created a second
partition (D:STORAGE). Ya gotta have someplace to put your stuff. Eh?

I like comparing a Hard Drive with only one partition to building a house with no walls, even for the crapper.:rolleyes:
Somehow, I just can’t imagine living in a house like that….. nor can I imagine ever running a computer with
no Storage partition on the HD.

We’re not born with an understanding of data storage, techniques and ramifications. That comes with years of experience.
My first drive was a Seagate 20 meg MFM drive. Storage wasn’t a big issue then.

Cheers Mates! Y’all have a great day now, Y’hear?

The Doctor

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HP_PAVILION (C:)
HP_RECOVERY (D:)

This should be sufficiently clear, shouldn’t it?

That may be good enough for you, but I need much more ! !

My data drive was known as “Data (D:)”
It is now known as “D_Data (D:)”

I like all my partitions to commence the label with the preferred Drive Letter then underscore then meaningful name.

One day something went wrong with XP, and it still managed to boot into the system drive and consider that as drive C:
BUT all the other partitions were allocated drive letters in alphabetical sequence that was partly related to the physical order of partitions,
and partly related to whether it was FAT32 or NTFS, and partly which HDD.

I was lost with 5 wrong drive letters allocated to partitions on the internal drive, and 6 more wrong on the external drive.
Desktop short-cuts were also bad.
I had no trouble changing a drive letter.
It was quite tedious trying to decide on an order of change;
if X: and Y: need to swap you cannot change X: to Y: until you change Y:, and vice versa,
and when 11 drive letters are badly mixed up a lot of partitions will have to shuffle through several tempory letters.
BUT THE KILLER was that I had not memorised the correct letters for each partition label, and that hurt, it took time and effort,
so once I finally fixed the drive letters I immediately added to each a drive label a reminder of the correct drive letter.

I am now ready for the next O.S. calamity.
I also like/need this reminder when using a Boot CD which shows labels but not the letters (partition manager or image restoration etc.)

Alan

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If the partitions are labeled as such in the partition management software then yes, follow that. I often use software that does not use such naming conventions and so the trick I use is to go by partition size which is always listed and is a good double check in any case.

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My HP computer comes with 2 primary partitions on one disk. Partition C (NTFS) holds the system and all programs, and takes up most of the disk space. Partition D (FAT32) is the HP recovery partition, occupying the remainder of the disk.
I’ve had this computer for 2 or 3 years, and I’ll never use the recovery partition (I have a set of recovery CD’s, if I need them). What I’d like to do is delete the D partition, and expand the C partition to occupy the entire drive (I’m not talking about grafting the D partition to C, but actually deleting the D partition and expanding C to occupy the entire drive). I know I can do this with a 3rd party program such as Partition Magic, but can I do it using the Windows XP Disk Management Utility instead? How about some other reliable freeware that would do the job?
I’m not hurting for disk space, so rather than purchasing a program that I’ll probably only use once, I’ll leave things as they are if I can’t do it with Windows or freeware.
Thanks for any instructions/suggestions.

Can I do the same thing on an Acer 5610z laptop that came with vista & then had vista removed and put xp home on?

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I am not sure if my system has a dual partition, nor am I savy enough to know where or how to check. I had a chip that came with the machine replaced with another size, again I am not a computer person so I am not sure exactlly what this chip is, I do know it has something to do with memory. Any way, the original was replaced with 2 chips to increase the “size” then I took vist off & put xp home on. So my question is this: Can I get more available space out of my original 120 gb hard drive on a Acer 5610z that came with vista but now has xp?

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I am not sure if my system has a dual partition, nor am I savy enough to know where or how to check. I had a chip that came with the machine replaced with another size, again I am not a computer person so I am not sure exactlly what this chip is, I do know it has something to do with memory. Any way, the original was replaced with 2 chips to increase the “size” then I took vist off & put xp home on. So my question is this: Can I get more available space out of my original 120 gb hard drive on a Acer 5610z that came with vista but now has xp?

Bruce, Welcome to the Lounge

Do you have a My Computer icon on your desktop? If so click it. It will open Windows Explorer. The right hand pane will show the different disks available on your computer. There will be a “C” drive, most likely a CD Rom drive, and possibly others. Please list what you have. If you have only one hard drive listed, Right Click on that drive and choose properties. This will tell you the size of your “C” drive. What does it show? Please answer these questions so we can gather more info.

Open your Control Panel and select System. This should tell you the amount of RAM (this is most likely what was added to the PC) There may be other useful info here as well. Please also include anything you find here.

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This is an extremely useful discussion for me. Has anyone had any success with Easeus or Parition Magic or any other for merging the several other partitions with the system partition (same physical drive) on a 2003 64bit server?

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Hi Les,

Just for reference ,I have a couple of computers ,some older ,some newer and have done numerous re-partitioning jobs on them.
Most have at least from 6 -10 partitions and all are bootable,except for the data partitions.

There are definitely some rules to follow when partitioning.

1.Always give your partition a label – like a useful name. (already mentioned, but worth repeating) It avoids confusion.
2.In addition to that, avoid creating partitions with exactly the same size. If you use a program that just lists the drive letters, you can still identify them by size,
so long as you’ve written down what belongs to which.
3.If at all possible ,partition outside of Windows, especially if resizing the System or Boot partition, then it is really a MUST.
You do this with a bootable CD -which afore mentioned programs give you a chance to make. (and should make )

I have also used Partition Manager from Paragon – the free version PartitionManager
Interestingly, they also have other free versions of other programs, check Paragon Express versions

So, in your case, you can try to delete the Recovery partition on D: ,but be aware that it may be locked.
The reason is that you also have HP software in Start menu > Programs ,that possibly is running in the background,since it provides acess to the restore function.

Also be aware that you will void the warranty if any still exists.

So your course of action ,if you want to go ahead with this is:
You can try to delete the Recovery partition either via Windows Disk Management or use any of the programs mentioned.
DO NOT resize at this time. just leave the space as ” unallocated” .

Resizing an active partition – in this case C: – has a high probability of data loss – don’t take that chance – however it’s up to you.
*BTW – Windows will not let you resize a System (active) partition and even if the partitioning programs can do it, they will warn you not to do it to the C: partition
while it is running.
Before you start ,you should take an image of C: and save it on a USB drive or similar.
Now for resizing C: , use the CD that you made and boot from that. then do the resize of C:.

Personally ,I would never use a whole drive for C: for several reasons”
Doing any job that involves scanning will take much longer – Defragging, AV- and Anti-malware scans etc etc.
I know it’s a personal opinion, but you’re much better off to have a System partion ,just to hold System files and programs
and a partition to hold your Documents and one for data/movie or music storage.

However ,you do as you see fit.

Good luck,
Pete.

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Hi, Peter.

Thanks for your suggestions.

This brings up a some of questions:
When you say the aforementioned programs allow me to make a bootable CD so that I can work outside of Windows, are you referring to both EASUS Partition master and Partition Wizard?
Also, if the D: partition is locked, would I have to unlock it to delete it within Windows? How would I unlock it? If I use a boot disk (i.e., perform the operations outside of Windows), would I still need to unlock the partition?

I’m not too concerned about putting everything on the C: partition, as that’s already the way it is, and while virus and malware scanning takes some time, it would take a significantly long time for me to reorganize my system to separate the data from the OS and put it on a different partition. This requires actual “face time” (more than the task is worth to me), while scanning can be done without having to sit in front of the machine.

Looking forward to your reply. Thanks.

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OK, I could use some additional help.

Using the Win XP’s disk management application, I show the following information for my drive:
D: FAT32, 7.51GB (1.24 GB free);
C: NTFS, 141.53 GB (123 GB free)

I downloaded the Partition Wizard Minitool ISO file from their web site, from which I burned a PW boot disk. I booted into PW (no problem, program seems to be functioning) and looked at its analysis of my drive.
It showed the following:
D: FAT32, 7.51GB (6.26 GB used);
C: NTFS, 141.53 GB (18.38 GB used);
Unallocated, 10.34 MB

Question: Why does PW show the unallocated space, and XP doesn’t? And shouldn’t the totals for the drive match exactly between the two programs?

And one more question. There are 2 freeware versions of PW available for download on their web site:
Partition Wizard Home Edition, v. 5.0.0.0, and MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition, v. 5.2.0.0 (the boot disk ISO that I downloaded is for the MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition).
What is the difference between the 2 programs, and which one should I be using (the web site is not clear on this)? I downloaded both of them, but have not installed either. It appears that the bootable MiniTool version that I burned from the ISO) boots into the complete stand-alone program, independent of Windows and requiring no installation. This seems to me to be the safest way to manage my partitions, but I’d like your advice.

Thanks.

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John,

Win2003 is easy to do using the method I outlined previously – I have done this many times.
You mention “merge” which I take to mean collect all data from 2 or more partitions and put it on one partition? This is only possible via backup/restore or copy and will require another disk or machine with sufficient space.

Les,

The difference in reported sizes is just bad maths on the part of the software author and is safe to ignore.

The un-allocated space may be a recovery partition provided by the computer manufacturer, or it may be space that is not available to be added because it does not match a size boundary used in the partition identifying entry on the disk.

After you have changed the size of C: (take it up to 15GB, you’ve got lots of free space) I would change the format from FAT32 to NTFS – NTFS is more reliable than FAT.

cheers, Paul

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Partition Wizard does allow partitions to be deleted and merged, etc. I deleted my recovery partition and merged this space into “C”. Partition Wizard does not do this within Windows, Instead you set up a specs for what you want to do as far as resizing and merging (Deleting a partition is done within Windows – As stated previously make SURE you delete the correct partition!) Once you have everything set up and choose Apply you will be told to reboot you PC and the changes will be made during the reboot, not within Windows.

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Regarding disk partition, deleting and reorganizing disk space, I have always been successful by using GPARTED (http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ – GNOME Partition Editor for creating, reorganizing, and deleting disk partitions). It is free and it is also a very good tool. Think you should try it too. Just download it, make a boot CD and go! When you come to its options window you could explore, analyse and decide to go on or cancel the procedure, without affecting your system. Whenever I used it, for this simple purpose of creating/deleting partitions, it has worked good.

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I recently used EASUS to delete a vendor supplied “D” recovery partition.
The steps I used are as follows.
1. Select or highlight the “D” partition from within EASUS.
2. Click APPLY on the menu to the left of the EASUS window.
3. Select or highlight the “C” partition (if it was not automatically resized by EASUS) to resize it.
4. Set the new size of the “C” partition, if necessary.
5. Click APPLY.

I found EASUS easier and less complicated than some of the commercially available programs.

HAC

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Success!
I decided to use the Partition Wizard boot disk that I burned from the free ISO download. Worked like a charm.
Here’s what I did:
First, I used the Windows disk management utility to delete the D: partition (right click on the partition, select DELETE, instantly turns into unallocated free space).
Then, I booted into Partition Wizard. Analysis showed that I had unallocated space in front of the C: partition (that was the space freed up when I deleted D:), and a small amount of unallocated space after the C: partition (the 10.34 MB mentioned earlier).
So I elected to move the entire C: partition forward (i.e., starting where the D: partition used to be), and then to expand C: to fill all of the unallocated space. This was all done graphically in Partition Wizard by dragging the entire C: partition to the left, and then dragging the right edge of the partition all the way to the right. A click on APPLY and we were off to the races. Took about 15 minutes, including copying all the files. It was a little scary when all disk activity stopped for a couple of minutes during the process (don’t know what was happening during this period), but it eventually completed successfully. Booted successfully back into Windows, and after a bit of disk churning, Windows message said that it had identified and installed new hardware, and asked to reboot. I don’t know why it did that – I assume it’s because the entire partition had been moved (not simply extended), and things were in a different location on the disk (just guessing here). In any event, after the 2nd reboot, everything was perfect.
PW is a good program, at a great price (free). Required no installation, and did all its work outside of Windows (in an iso linux environment, I believe).
Thank you all again for your inputs – I learned a lot.

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Les,

Glad out suggestions helped. Have an old version on you HD in most cases is just a waste of time. The only time it might be good for me to use the old recovery info would be in a situation whereby I want to wipe the partition and install the old system prior to disposing of the laptop. I do not plan on doing this so I wanted the space back. In my case I also had manufacturer’s disks to reload the old OS so why have the Recovery Partition as well. This is a redundancy I do not need.

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Les, the new drivers are just Windows way of telling you it had updated the disk details.

cheers, Paul

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Hey LesF,
I will recommend you never rely on the windows management utility. It’s not safe at all, especially when you want to extend your system partition.
It may cause the system crash and since you have only one partition contain everything, which means you are under the risk of losing all the important data!!!
I once used Easeus partition master to extend my system partition. It’s totally free and really did a good job!

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I can recommend Partition Wizardfor this partitioning chore.

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Partition Wizard is much alike Partition Master. But I prefer Partition Master Home, because it has a better reputation in download.cnet.com.

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I would only say that all of the information from everyone is very good. I would really say run a complete system backup to an external hard drive, so that in case something really goes terribly wrong, you won’t lose anything more than the time to run a restore from that backup. Beats the heck out of a complete reinstall of every application and then hopefully get your data back from where-ever.
Just my thoughts

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We have used both Easeus and Paragon free partitioning programs. Both work well and are fairly easy to use. they walk you through what you are doing. Overall, Paragon is a little easier to understand if you’re a first-time user. Think we downloaded them from http://www.download.cnet.com . (Also known simply as download.com).

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Just a footnote, but running a disk partitioning program from a CD (outside of Windows) is often safer and more effective than trying to start the operation from a program running from within Windows. Which is why I would never use the Windows tools to repartition the same physical drive upon which Windows is installed. You can get into a real mess that way.

-- rc primak

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