Tried GParted. Any other?

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slowcheetah

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Hey guys. Hopefully someone can give me some advice.

I'm trying to partition my hard drive. It's already got data on it and I downloaded GParted, as it came up in search results as an effective and easy tool to partition a drive.

It's basically an application that you write onto a CD which then makes the disc bootable with the program. Unforunately for me it doesn't work. Don't know if it's me that's being stupid. I select the sizes of the desired partition and then upon trying to apply it it crashes with a simple error message saying "could not complete actions" or some such.

Is there an easier way to partition a drive? Could it be that my drive can't be partitioned due to it being used for too long. I'm not that clued up on storage devices. I'm running XP at the moment.

Thanx in advance!
 
Synaesthesia said:
You can also try a Windows install CD or DVD, or UBCD.
Click to expand...

Thanx for the reply!

I'll try it tonight. So I pop it in and instead of running a windows install it will give me an option to create a partition?

Sorry but I'm a noob at this.
 
Are you trying to resize partitions? Are the partitions you want to resize mounted ?
 
sn3rd said:
Are you trying to resize partitions?
Click to expand...

At the moment from how it looks the drive is devided into two, a big part (70gb) and a small (like 10GB) part. This I never knew until I ran GParted.

So I'm not actually sure whether I should just resize the smaller part (bearing in mind that I'm not really sure what it's for and why it was created) or create a new partition. Could the small partition be what windows created when I installed it?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but how I understand it is, if you create a partition it looks like a new disc when you display it in "My Computer". I mean it gives you an extra drive letter. This has never been the case as I've always only had C:, so not sure if what I'm talking about is an actual partition.

sn3rd said:
Are the partitions you want to resize mounted ?
Click to expand...

Sorry but I'm not familiar with that terminology. I mean I know what mounted means LOL, but not in relevance to a hard drive partition. So I'm not sure.
 
you shouldn't be messing with the partitions if you don't know what is on it and why it was created. Could end up wiping your data....
 
slowcheetah said:
Don't know if it's me that's being stupid. I select the sizes of the desired partition and then upon trying to apply it it crashes with a simple error message saying "could not complete actions" or some such.
Click to expand...

Defrag & check the drive for errors first. (G)Parted is not very fond of fragmented drives.
 
Is this a laptop by any chance..

and the 70gb is your normal drive and the 10gb is a "hidden" partition that you've never seen?
 
ToxicBunny said:
Is this a laptop by any chance..

and the 70gb is your normal drive and the 10gb is a "hidden" partition that you've never seen?
Click to expand...

No it's not a laptop. The 10gb is only shown when I run GParted. In windows I only see my C drive. So I guess it is hidden.
 
Is it an OEM machine at all?

Usually they have hidden partitions that are used as "recovery" partitions.
 
ToxicBunny said:
Is it an OEM machine at all?

Usually they have hidden partitions that are used as "recovery" partitions.
Click to expand...

+1. It is most likely a recovery partition. So if something crashes on your computer you can run the backups from this partition through Windows repair.
Best you leave that partition alone. There is a reason you are not seeing it in My Computer or Explorer and only through GParted or Disk Management.

Now. Sorry for the Hi-jack.
I have 2 partitions on my laptop HDD. One has Vista on and the other I installed Win 7 on. Will Partition Magic or Gparted or even Acronis True Image be able to enlarge my partition with Win 7 on?
When I installed 7 it was just to test it but I am so impressed and amazed with it that I will now be running it as my primary OS. Problem is I only allocated a small part of the drive for the installation and now want to increase that Partition to about 50GB.

Thanks
 
APoc84 said:
+1. It is most likely a recovery partition. So if something crashes on your computer you can run the backups from this partition through Windows repair.
Best you leave that partition alone. There is a reason you are not seeing it in My Computer or Explorer and only through GParted or Disk Management.

Now. Sorry for the Hi-jack.
I have 2 partitions on my laptop HDD. One has Vista on and the other I installed Win 7 on. Will Partition Magic or Gparted or even Acronis True Image be able to enlarge my partition with Win 7 on?
When I installed 7 it was just to test it but I am so impressed and amazed with it that I will now be running it as my primary OS. Problem is I only allocated a small part of the drive for the installation and now want to increase that Partition to about 50GB.

Thanks
Click to expand...
Yes - or at least gparted will - I dont know anything about Acronis.
 
win vista and wqin7 have built in tools to shrink and extend partitions.
lets give an example of deleting a second partition and extending the first partition to fill all the space..run "diskpart" from an administrative command prompt

sel disk 0
sel par 2
delete par override
sel par 1
extend
exit

and that is all.

to see the partitions on a disk, select the disk first, then do
list par
to see all the partition

i.e.
sel disk 1
list par

and so on and so on...tree structure...sel disk, then sel par, then do action,

last example...shrink partition 2 and make some space for a new partition, make the new partition and then format it

sel disk 2
sel par 2
shrink desired=10000
sel disk 2
create partition primary size=1000
sel disk 2
sel par 3
format fs=ntfs label="spare" quick
assign letter=s
exit

easy as pie..

ok, last one, change partition type to hidden ntfs
sel disk 5
sel par 8
set id=17 override
exit

(partition type 17 is hidden ntfs)

if you are stuck, use
list disk
and
list par
to get an idea of where you are
also
detail disk
and
detail par


winxp can do all of the above except for changing the partition type and the shrink part...it can extend just fine though
 
Last edited:
werner said:
win vista and wqin7 have built in tools to shrink and extend partitions.
lets give an example of deleting a second partition and extending the first partition to fill all the space..run "diskpart" from an administrative command prompt

sel disk 0
sel par 2
delete par override
sel par 1
extend
exit

and that is all.
Click to expand...

Sounds easy enough.

So if I want to Shrink Partition 1 (C:\) and extend Partition 2 (G:\):

Code: 
sel disk 0
sel par 1
shrink desired=30000 (I am guessing this is MB)
sel par 2
extend desired=30000
exit

????? Right or wrong?
 
wrong...
extend desired=30000 is not necessary....
extend will just extend till the disk space is finished.
.
.....
...
shrink desired=30000
sel disk 0
sel par 2
extend
exit


in the above, the second sel disk 0 you issue isnt strictly necessary, but it does no harm and helps to make it look sane and you can be sure youa re working on the right drive.
when making new partitions, it IS necessary to go back up the tree and sel the disk again, so diskpart can reread the partition table before you can start working on the new partition

so,
sel disk 0
sel par 1
shrink desired=10000
create partition primary

will fail

but
sel disk 0
sel par 1
shrink desired=10000
sel disk 0
create partition primary

will work ok...

bear in mind, shrink has a funny way of working out how it will handle "free space"..it cant move system files etc, so best to defrag and get your house in order first.

you can do
sel disk 0
sel par 1
shrink querymax

to get an idea of how much it can shrink the partition, this wont make any change, just query the max it can shrink, hence querymax

p.s. yes, the numbers are in mb...

aside, diskpart can take input from a script...type create a bog standard text file with your diskpart commands in it, save it as any name you want.
so, lets make a text file called shrinker.txt, containing
sel disk 0
sel par 1
shrink desired=10000
exit

then run from a batch file or whatever
diskpart /s shrinker.txt

or you can use standard dos type redirects.
diskpart < shrinker.txt

if you want to run long diskpart commands, i would highly recommend breaking the commands up into pieces that complete one section at a time, then running them consequetively (f*** cant spell consequetively anymore i dont think :-) )

i.e.
diskpart /s shrinker.txt
pause a bit
diskpart /s extender.txt
pause a bit
diskpart /s makenewpartition.txt
etc
because there are some timing issues...so the command may look like it has completed, but the disk is still busy, so the next command will fail.
 
Last edited:
Cool. I think I've got it.
Will test it when I finish work today. At least it all makes sense.

Thanks Werner
 
APoc84 said:
+1. It is most likely a recovery partition. So if something crashes on your computer you can run the backups from this partition through Windows repair.
Best you leave that partition alone. There is a reason you are not seeing it in My Computer or Explorer and only through GParted or Disk Management.

Now. Sorry for the Hi-jack.
I have 2 partitions on my laptop HDD. One has Vista on and the other I installed Win 7 on. Will Partition Magic or Gparted or even Acronis True Image be able to enlarge my partition with Win 7 on?
When I installed 7 it was just to test it but I am so impressed and amazed with it that I will now be running it as my primary OS. Problem is I only allocated a small part of the drive for the installation and now want to increase that Partition to about 50GB.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Yes

bwana said:
Yes - or at least gparted will - I dont know anything about Acronis.
Click to expand...

So you came right?
 
sn3rd said:
So you came right?
Click to expand...

Oh. Sorry. I am stuck at work till 12h00 so can only do it when I get home.
Will post results when I am finished.

I will be going the cmd --> diskpart way. Seems easier and quicker. And that way I don't need to install more unnecessary sofwtare.

if you were asking bwana. Ignore this post.
 
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