How to un-partition without losing date

  • Thread starter Thread starter Tony P
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Tony P

Guys,
When I originally bought a Seagate 40Gb drive I partitioned it into 3 with
the C drive being 10Gb in size. My intention was always to keep this more or
less free of clutter so any new installs I put on a different partition from
C drive. Over time its got full up with various windows stuff & I'm down to
only 150Mb free! This is impacting on performance of the page file & I can
no longer defrag the disc as there isn't enough space left. I've done the
usual free disk space including removing all but last system restore point.
How can I claim back some of the space or even un-partition the drive to
increase the size of C drive which contains XP?

Tony P
 
Tony P said:
Guys,
When I originally bought a Seagate 40Gb drive I partitioned it into 3 with
the C drive being 10Gb in size. My intention was always to keep this more
or less free of clutter so any new installs I put on a different partition
from C drive. Over time its got full up with various windows stuff & I'm
down to only 150Mb free! This is impacting on performance of the page file
& I can no longer defrag the disc as there isn't enough space left. I've
done the usual free disk space including removing all but last system
restore point. How can I claim back some of the space or even un-partition
the drive to increase the size of C drive which contains XP?

Tony P
Click to expand...

Hello Tony:

If you remove a partition, all of your data in it will be lost. There is
partitioning software (Partition Magic, for example) that can be used to
break up one single partition into several smaller partitions without
loosing data. AFAIK, such software can also do the opposite, i.e., combine
several small partitions into one large partition without loosing data. The
standard Microsoft partitioning software can re-partition, but all data is
lost in the process.

If all of your partitions are approximately full, rearranging partitions
won't help that much. You have 2 choices: delete some files to gain space,
or get a bigger hard drive. A 40GB HD is not the huge storage device it once
was, especially considering the current extensive use of multimedia and
today's dynamic software. Get at least an 80 GB HD the next time you
upgrade, Prices have come way down. Even a 120 GB HD is not that pricy
anymore.

Regards
 
Tony

Acronis Disk Director can do what you want.. http://www.acronis.com

A proviso.. back all of your important data to a CD, DVD, or external HDD..
any major changes made to the hard drive can be problematic.. if you are
lucky, you will not have to use your backup.. not all people are lucky,
however.. :-)
 
Do not use any partition combining in PM, you're asking for trouble.
Shrinking an adjacent partition, then increasing the size of the partition
you want increased in size is much more reliable.
In fact, I use this method twice, once to increase partition's size, move
folders/files from the shrunken partition to the newly increased sized
partition. Then, finally, delete the smaller partition, and incorporate all
that space into the now much larger partition. This is the safest way to
move one partitions data into another and use all the space of a previously
existing partition.

Partition Magic program itself tells you to backup all data prior to using
its software.

I would get larger hard drive as others recommended as well. Read the docs
on how to move your hard drive data to another at the hard drive makers
website, or with the CD or floppy diskette that comes with a retail hard
drive.
 
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