Expanding the system partition on my hard drive.

[Reactor Worker]

I need to increase the size of the System partition but the built in Utility that comes with Vista can only shrink the system folder. I have done a google search and I turned up 2 programs...

Acronis Disk Director  (downloading free trial as we speak)

and...

Partition magic (not available for Vista).

Anyone know of any free apps that might enable me to expand the system partition without reformatting?

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[Bisjac]

1) start-run "diskpart.exe"

2) enter "list disk" in the command prompt that came up

3) enter "list volume"

3) enter "select volume #" # is whatever drive you wanted as it shows numbered on that list there

4) enter "extend size=25000" if you wanted to extend it by like 2.5gigs

[Bisjac]

for step 4, you can also create, shrink, and delete

[Otis Da HousKat]

1) start-run "diskpart.exe"

2) enter "list disk" in the command prompt that came up

3) enter "list volume"

3) enter "select volume #" # is whatever drive you wanted as it shows numbered on that list there

4) enter "Extend size 25000" if you wanted to extend it by like 2.5gigs


i have only done this once, safety not guaranteed and cant help much more. without an app or OS doing it the easy way, i get nervous and back up my stuff lol

[Reactor Worker]

I was hoping for an app...that seems a bit too risky for me.

[VerticalHorizon]

Download the ISO for GParted, burn the ISO onto a cd and boot from the CD.

GParted is a very safe and super easy partition editor, with which I successfully removed a Linux partition, formatted it to ntfs and took up the space with my Vista partition.

[IbanZ]

Is a Patrition a physical or virtual division of the hardware?

[VerticalHorizon]

When you partition a managed system, you can assign the physical resources on the managed system directly to logical partitions. You can also share hardware resources among logical partitions by virtualizing those hardware resources. The methods used to virtualize and share hardware resources depend on the type of resource that you are sharing.

[Reactor Worker]

Download the ISO for GParted, burn the ISO onto a cd and boot from the CD.

GParted is a very safe and super easy partition editor, with which I successfully removed a Linux partition, formatted it to ntfs and took up the space with my Vista partition.

I have to make a CD? damn. I mean, I know how, and I probably have a spare CD sitting around here somewhere, but thats more hassle than I was planning on. I mean, that Acronis program would have worked without a disk if it weren't for it being a trial. I don't feel like paying $50 just to resize one partition.

[VerticalHorizon]

Just burn GParted, it's worth it and it's nice to have if you ever need it again, I still have mine in a jewel case on my desk.

[Bisjac]

the steps i supplied are running the same processes as that standard windows utility.
just without of course anything to look at. but that's the point, because what you were looking at ,your option was greyed out.

[Bisjac]

there i tested it myself. i can guarantee it working easy and safe.
i shrunk and extended my D volume by 10gigs, 3 times with no problems.
i even updated the steps so its even faster and easier


don't pay attention to otis, he don't know stuff

[IcyGamma]

If you want to be very safe, use Parted Magic (Not partition magic, make a note of that) Its a free linux distribution that can be run off USB or CD and used GParted too. I have resized, moved, and delete partitions several times with no issues.