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Resizing An Existing Partition On A Single Hard Drive
The assumption here is the partition scheme
will be created on a hard drive with Windows XP already
installed. This is probably the most common situation that
users face when considering changing to a more sophisticated
partitioning scheme.
In spite of the fact that a
single hard drive can be configured in many different ways,
it's a pretty safe bet that an off the shelf system will
arrive in one of two basic configurations. Either the entire
drive will be partitioned as C: as shown in Fig. 01 or it
will be split into two partitions, one as C: that is
visible and another partition that is hidden and contains an
image of the operating system or the files that are used in
conjunction with system manufacturer supplied Restore CD's.
Fig. 01
It's unfortunate that many of the systems being purchased
today use the single partition approach that consumes the
entire hard drive. It would be far more convenient if the
system was supplied with a smaller system partition while
leaving the rest of the drive space unallocated as shown
below in Fig. 02. Much more efficient use of the hard drive can be made
by partitioning the unallocated space for different purposes.
Look at the upper section of Fig. 01 and you'll see that
14.75 GB or 92% of the space on drive C: is free or unused.
It's true that the only thing installed on C: at the moment
is Windows XP, but if there was additional Unallocated space
available it could be used for partitions to hold data and
programs. All we need to do is just reclaim some of that
unused space, converting it to Unallocated space, then
create new Primary or Extended partitions. Simple enough, right? Unfortunately, no - not that simple.
What we want to do is resize primary partition C: so there
is less free space available, taking that extra free space
and placing it into an Unallocated status as shown in Fig.
02. Here's the problem.
Fig. 02
You'd think that Disk Management
would be capable of resizing the partition. It can't. In
fact, Windows XP doesn't come with a utility that can
perform a right to left (making the partition smaller)
resizing operation. XP does ship with a command line utility
called Diskpart that can increase (or extend as
Microsoft calls it) the size of an existing partition into
Unallocated space, but it has many
limitations including being limited to left to right
resizing operations, making it useless for the task we want
to accomplish. So, how do you resize the partition in Fig.
01 to make
it appear as shown in Fig. 02? There are two options;
one good and one not so good. The methods are listed
below.
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Method 1 - Reinstall XP from a bootable
CD (exactly what I did in
Partitioning A Blank Hard Drive During XP Installation) and
create an install partition that is smaller than the
total capacity of the hard drive. Of course this method
has a very substantial downside; everything on the hard
drive, including data and applications, will be lost
when the drive is formatted. While this method is
effective it's only practical in a limited set of
circumstances, unless of course you enjoy wiping a hard
drive totally, designing a partitioning scheme in your
mind, and then setting it up from scratch.
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Method 2 - Use a program that is
designed to handle partitioning tasks from inside the
existing Windows operating system. The best known
program of this type is probably PartitionMagic by
PowerQuest, although there are many others including
PartitionExpert by Acronis and Partition Commander by V
Communications. A Google search will turn up many others
as well as some free utilities to accomplish the same
results.
I've been a long time user of Partition
Magic and it has always served me well until recently. For
some reason I've yet to determine, on several occasions while applying changes to
a partition scheme using the latest version of
PartitionMagic the system has rebooted
and failed to restart due to corrupted boot files. I've been
unable to replicate the behavior on any consistent basis but
I do know the only times it has happened is during
PartitionMagic use. For that reason I've been using
PartitionExpert by Acronis and will use it for these screen
captures.
Fig. 03
To begin the resizing process, select the
partition to be resized and click Resize from the Operations
toolbar.
Fig. 04
Compare the differences in the Resize
Partition dialog boxes that took place as the size of the
partition was modified. You can use the up and down arrows
to make the changes or just type in the entry to speed up
the process. In this example I wanted the Unallocated space
to be after the C: partition, but in some cases you may want
to shift the location to before the partition being resized.
Fig. 05
Once the partition size has been modified
and the Unallocated space positioned properly, click OK to
go back to the main PartitionExpert window and click the
Commit icon on the toolbar (I can't tell if it's a checkered
flag or a finish line representation, but it's the third
icon from the left) to finalize the changes you've made.
Fig. 06
Now that the partition has been resized and
unallocated space is available it's a straightforward
process to divvy up the space into additional primary
partitions or an extended partition and some logical drives
within the extended partition. How the space is divided is
up to you. Later in this article I'll show you how a couple
of my systems are partitioned.
Up
What Is A Partition?
One Partition or Multiple Partitions?
Partitioning A Blank Hard Drive During XP Installation
Reassigning Drive Letters
Resizing An Existing Partition On A Single Hard Drive
Creating A Primary Partition In Unallocated Space
Creating An Extended Partition And Logical Drives
Creating Logical Drives In An Extended Partition
Multiple Hard Drive System Partitioning
Converting Basic Disks to Dynamic Disks
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