Question

Move/resize system partition?

Asked by: rmmarsh

I have a brand new Toshiba laptop... the HD is partitioned into two partitons: a system partition with no drive letter, followed by a C: partition.

I want to create a new partition before the system partition for paging (it would be next to the spindle).  It appears that the system partition is bootable, so I'm afraid to farkle with it...

Can I safely do this?

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-10-28 at 09:32:06ID24851599
Topic

PC Laptops

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
7

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Partitioning
    Hello all! Can I ask the following: I have a 40Gb Hard drive with Win ME on it, taking up approx 9Gb space with other bits'n'bobs on it. I would like to partition this (using partition magic 6) to create a primary partition and give: c:\ (current partition, win ME = 20Gb) d...
  2. Bootable CDs and Hard Drive Partitions
    I am unable to boot from bootable CD-ROMs. Yes, I have already gone into my BIOS and changed the boot order appropriately; I even get a "Boot from ATAPI CDROM: Failure..." message when I start up my computer. Yes, I am sure that the CDs I am using are bootable. ...
  3. Resizing a partition
    Hi, I have RH9 but am down to less than 200 megs free, I've resized my windows 2k partition using partition magic, and this has given ~5gb of unallocated space - however PM7 won't for some reason let my resize my RH9 (ext2) partition to scoop up this 5gb. Whats the safest w...
  4. resize partitions
    I am running microsoft small business server with 2 hard drives each of 80 gig partitioned as follows Drive #1 partition 1 drive c 16 gig used for windows and programs partition 2 drive f 6 gig used as a page file partiton 3 drive g 58 gig used as data drive Drive #2...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: wolfcamelPosted on 2009-10-28 at 10:12:21ID: 25685595

there will not be much to gain from doing this - despite the logic of the paging partition being near the spindle - the system will still need to move the heads to get real data, apps, and most importantly temp files.
as for the specific issue questioned..you would need to use some imaging software such as acronis or storage craft, then restore the images to newly created partitions being sure to make the system partition bootable.
plus I would seperately backup your data first

 

by: rmmarshPosted on 2009-10-28 at 10:15:10ID: 25685632

Ahh yes, but having the paging file next to the spindle makes the reads/writes faster (the tracks near the spindle move at a much faster rate because of the distance the head has to travel).

Thanks for the comments.

 

by: garycasePosted on 2009-10-28 at 10:38:58ID: 25686005

Yes, you can safely do that with a good 3rd party tool (e.g. Boot-It NG) which supports "sliding" a partition ... but I agree there's not a lot to be gained in this case, since you only have one drive and this will cause notable thrashing as it moves between the paging area and the OS partition.    This concept works much better if the OS is not on the same physical drive as the page file -- not something you can do in this case.

By the way, the first sector is NOT "near the spindle" --> it's on the outermost cylinders of the drive (furthest from the spindle).     It IS, however, much faster, because the transfer rate is notably higher on the outermost cylinders, since they have more sectors/cylinder.    Doesn't help with access time;  but makes a notable difference in transfer rate.

A better choice to keep good performance would be to resize the OS partition to a modest size (typically 40-60GB, depending on the OS), and create another partition for your data.    This would keep the entire OS partition (including the page file) on the outermost section of the disk, so boot times;  program loads; page file accesses; etc. would all be occuring in the faster outermost cylinders.

 

by: rmmarshPosted on 2009-10-28 at 10:58:19ID: 25686224

Wow... I had it backward then... I always thought that if you got closer to the spindle the data transfer rate was higher, but I guess I was wrong... now I have to go and move all of my paging partitions to the outermost cylinders.

Thanks for the info... btw, I already have a "data" partition... I'm gonna move the C: and data partition so C: is nearer the outside of the drive and see if performance improves...

Thanks again...

 

by: rmmarshPosted on 2009-10-28 at 11:06:09ID: 25686317

I have one more question:  if the mapping of the drive is: system partition, C: and then D: as seen on the partitioning software, does that mean that the system partition is on the outermost cylinders? or is Drive D:?

 

by: garycasePosted on 2009-10-28 at 21:31:17ID: 25690663

The first partition on the disk is on the outermost cylinder (i.e. the fastest part of the drive) ... so in your example the system partition is on the fastest part of the disk.

 

by: rmmarshPosted on 2009-10-29 at 06:56:08ID: 25693658

Thanks Gary...

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...