csharp_guru
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How do I extend a hard drive partition in-place?
On a Win XP Pro desktop, I have an IDE drive partitioned into C: (System) and D: (Data).
Now I'm building a new PC, also Win XP Pro, with a SATA C: drive, and I want to transfer the above IDE drive to it, blowing away the old C: partition and extending the D: partition to cover the entire IDE drive.
I'd like to extend the D: partition in-place, as I don't have any unused hard drives of this size (200 GB).
I've heard that Partition Magic can do this, but can I do it using Windows tools only? Any other software can do it better? Is it straightforward to do, with Partition Magic or otherwise?
Thank you very much for your help.
Now I'm building a new PC, also Win XP Pro, with a SATA C: drive, and I want to transfer the above IDE drive to it, blowing away the old C: partition and extending the D: partition to cover the entire IDE drive.
I'd like to extend the D: partition in-place, as I don't have any unused hard drives of this size (200 GB).
I've heard that Partition Magic can do this, but can I do it using Windows tools only? Any other software can do it better? Is it straightforward to do, with Partition Magic or otherwise?
Thank you very much for your help.
Use the utility program that came with the new hard drive, which will mirror over the C: partition to the new drive. With that done, restart with the new drive as the boot drive, and use Partition Magic to remove the C: partition on the old drive and then resize the old D: partition to the whole drive.
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you can do manually the things done by partion magic, but you need any extra hard drive.
or if you want to reinstall the things as what ever you want.
partion magic also has lot of problems while repartioning the hard drive.
better to backup or mirror entire hard drive in to another hard drive.
and then repartionin your old drive. remirror or get the backup from the stored one.
lot of free tools also available for resizing and repartioning the hard disk drive.
but lot of risks are there in doing so.
pls avoid the problem by doing in the right way, by mirroring.
better do defragmentation before doing any partion related job
or if you want to reinstall the things as what ever you want.
partion magic also has lot of problems while repartioning the hard drive.
better to backup or mirror entire hard drive in to another hard drive.
and then repartionin your old drive. remirror or get the backup from the stored one.
lot of free tools also available for resizing and repartioning the hard disk drive.
but lot of risks are there in doing so.
pls avoid the problem by doing in the right way, by mirroring.
better do defragmentation before doing any partion related job
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why not copy all the data to the second disk and then reformat the first
or is your second disk too small?
Also it is better to set your main drive to C:
or is your second disk too small?
Also it is better to set your main drive to C:
hi Titanium_Sniper
we can't do copy paste kind of thing in the drive in which bootloader is located. that is active partion.
we can't do copy paste kind of thing in the drive in which bootloader is located. that is active partion.
ASKER
Great answers! The challenge for me is to do it in-place on the 200 GB IDE drive, because the only other 200+GB drive I have is my backup drive, and unavailable for this purpose.
BTW, I don't know why I mentioned the SATA drive, it was not really relevant here! All I am trying to do is to delete one partition on an IDE drive and extend the second partition in-place to cover the entire drive. Also being a newbie, I realized after posting this question, that I had posted it in Hardware by mistake, so I posted it again in Storage.
So for the most useful answers, I'm splitting points 3:2 between Darwinian999 and etwyrick, with grade A. Thank you all.
BTW, I don't know why I mentioned the SATA drive, it was not really relevant here! All I am trying to do is to delete one partition on an IDE drive and extend the second partition in-place to cover the entire drive. Also being a newbie, I realized after posting this question, that I had posted it in Hardware by mistake, so I posted it again in Storage.
So for the most useful answers, I'm splitting points 3:2 between Darwinian999 and etwyrick, with grade A. Thank you all.
ASKER
Very, very sorry that was actually Darwinian999 and Nobus. Etwyrick had a great answer but not relevant to the in-place situation. I appreciate your help, Etwyrick, and hope you don't mind this slip on my part.
partition magic is nice for making them larger, but do not shrink a partition with it because it fragments your page file