HDD application needed.

[Strazos]

While scrambling around trying to find space on my partitions, I happened to go into the device manager for some reason and took a look at my HDDs. Hmm, what does this "Populate" button do...

Oh yeah, now I remember: I didn't want to wantonly burn up HDD space installing every game ever, so I purposely did not partition it all, saving about 25GB for when, someday, I really needed it.

Well, I really need it now. Anyone have a lead on a nice, FREE application I can use to claim that fresh, fertile disk space? I've heard of/seen PartitionMagic, but I've also heard/read about problems with it. Also...I think the trial doesn't actually function? I'd like something that not only works, but isn't going to destroy my drives or data.

[Tebonas]

For what its worth we regulary used Partition Magic at work before we got the new software management system and I had a problem exactly twice in around three years.

Of course that was data I personally didn't care about and those two times fell under the "Yeah shit happens, you DO regulary back up your sensitive data like the company requires you to do" policy. 

[Yoru]

You could just use the built-in disk/partition manager and use that to create a new logical volume.

Or does it have to seamlessly integrate that 25GB into your existing volumes?

[Engels]

If your originalf partition is dynamic, you won't be able to attatch more space to it. If its basic, Parition Magic allows that, but I don't think the built in disk management in XP lets you add. I may be wrong tho.

[Strazos]

How do I know if it's Dynamic? Yeah, it's Dynamic. Oddly enough, my older drive is Basic, for whatever reason.

Right now on HDD in question, I have partitions G and H.  The 25+ GB in question is also on that HDD. I want to be able to use it. I don't need to add it to either of the existing partitions - making Another would be perfectly fine with me. It would actually end up being B: as I haven't used the letter B yet for some reason.

[Yoru]

How do I know if it's Dynamic? Yeah, it's Dynamic. Oddly enough, my older drive is Basic, for whatever reason.

Right now on HDD in question, I have partitions G and H.  The 25+ GB in question is also on that HDD. I want to be able to use it. I don't need to add it to either of the existing partitions - making Another would be perfectly fine with me. It would actually end up being B: as I haven't used the letter B yet for some reason.

B: is usually reserved for removable media; Back In The Day(tm), you used to have both a 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drive. Or 8" and 5.25", if you want to go back farther.

Anyway, Administrative Tools -> Computer Management, expand the 'Storage' item, click on 'Disk Management'.

This'll show you all the partitions on all your drives, as well as having blocks for unallocated space. I believe you can just rightclick on the unallocated space to create a new partition out of it, although I don't have a computer handy with spare space to verify that. I know there's some way to do it from that screen.

[Strazos]

Ahhhh, I've seen this screen before. I totally forgot where it was.

Too. Fucking. Easy.

This is great, because it saves me about $100 I was gonna burn on a DVD burner and a ton of dual-layer DVDs. Well, I'm still gonna buy all of that eventually. But now I can push that off a very far distance.

Also...heh, B isn't even an option when assigning a letter. I remember the good ole 5.25 floppies. Too bad they died so easily.

[Strazos]

Also, my system thanks you personally:

http://users.rowan.edu/~astill71/pics/partition.bmp

[Yoru]

Also, my system thanks you personally:

http://users.rowan.edu/~astill71/pics/partition.bmp

You keep waaaaay more crap around than I do. :)

Then again, I have a DVD burner, a shitton of DVD-Rs, and a secondary computer that I use as a file-server/archive. :P

[Yegolev]

Ahhhh, I've seen this screen before. I totally forgot where it was.

From your prompt of choice, exec `diskmgmt.msc`.

I was kinda hoping for something to come from this thread.  My C: partition is 4.05GB.  It is very old, laugh away.

Buy a new disk?  I want to do that.  I should get a new mainboard first, though, since I'm out of SATA ports (two).

Aw, shit, modern mobos only have a single IDE port.  Suck.  Never had any luck with those PCI add-ons; they seem to prevent my machines from booting.  The good mobos have six SATA ports, though, so I'll lump it.

Have to get a new CPU with that mobo.  The kid in me wants a Core Duo.  Need a new HSF for that, no matter what I pick.

Have to get a PCI-E GFX card for it, too, if I want any sort of lifespan from the mobo.  Hard to find a "good" PCI-E GFX card with 15-pin DSUB.

Need new DIMMs for it.  Sigh.

Looks like putting a new C: partition on my rig is going to cost me at least $700, unless I decide to get creative.

[Engels]

While we're on the subject, I have a problem.

I have two hard drives installed. One is IDE, with 64 bit windows, the other is a SATA, with regular 32 bit Windows. Now, when I installed the second 32 bit OS, I must have done something or not done something about what was considered the primary OS, since now, when I boot up, it offers both OS as a multiboot. That's fine and dandy, but the thing is, when I unplug the IDE with the 64 bit OS, the SATA won't boot!

I've checked, and the 32 bit OS is an Active, Primary partition on the SATA, and the bios is set to boot from that.

I think the problem is that the Master Boot Record on the SATA is not pointing to anything, and the system relies on the MBR from the IDE to point to the SATA Os for booting.

The question is, if I wipe the MBR on the SATA, will that 'reset' the disk so that it can boot from the SATA's primary active partition?

[Furiously]

"fdisk /mbr" the disk that wont boot.

[Riggswolfe]

I have to ask, why are you bothering to partition at all? NTFS pretty much doesn't require partitioning anymore especially since it limits the upper size of clusters pretty well.

[Yoru]

I have to ask, why are you bothering to partition at all? NTFS pretty much doesn't require partitioning anymore especially since it limits the upper size of clusters pretty well.

Personally, I do it for a number of reasons. I do it so it's easier to back-up datafiles and user-installed programs; also, I can theoretically reinstall Windows on my system partition if it were to get fucked somehow without necessarily losing my data/programs partition.

I also do it so that my System partition doesn't get horribly fragmented, and so that my data partition will have fewer immovable blocks for more efficient defragging. I keep my pagefile entirely on my data partition, so that should also lead to a minimum of fragmentation on my system partition.

Finally, I dual-boot and sometimes want to get data off my NTFS partitions from Linux, so this way I can only mount the data partition without mounting the system partition. If there's a bug in Linux's NTFS support that corrupts stuff, I'd rather have it simply corrupt data instead of my system drive as well.

[Engels]

"fdisk /mbr" the disk that wont boot.

Thought that might do it. Thanks!