hdd partition

aoa
guys wanted to ask that i have a hard of 500gb on my laptop i really like to partition it but its not partitioned and installed with all that hp stuff and win 7 that i dont want to mess i know when u partition a hdd u have to format all of it i mean lose all data as a consequence so is there anyway or software that can partition my hdd into two small partition or even one more without making me loose everything on that hdd
i know its not possible but still worth a shot asking u super techies out there
thnx in advance

The task of seeing a second partition added isn't difficult with any number of partitioning programs with some being free for home or one stricly open source being the Linux drive tool GParted.

First you have to know how drive space is taken up by the files already on the drive before you determine how large a new partition will be. From there you first need to shrink the C primary down leaving adequate space however for things like the paging file and system restore points. If you have over 240gb available you can split up the drive minus the 10-15gb recovery partition from 465gb to see over 200gb for each or shrink C down even further for a larger D partition.

can u ellaborate plz and steps woiuld be a nice touch ig u be kind enough

goats said:

can u ellaborate plz and steps woiuld be a nice touch ig u be kind enough

Click to expand...

Hi goats and welcome

there are alll sorts of tutorials on the subject here @ SF. this is one http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2672-partition-volume-shrink.html?ltr=P

Good luck

Ken

When you are running the OS installed on C itself you may run into a few problems where the use of 3rd party drive partitioning program would be advised. The one thing you will see noted in the guide is the caution on knowing how much free drive space is available and how large you want each partition.

If you shrink C down too far not leaving enough space for virtual memory and other things you might find that Windows won't even start up. If you decide to add a new program and see the "out of memory" error appear that's due to a lack of free drive space.

The other thing you may want to do before making any changes to the drive until you are more comfortable with partitioning itself is back everything up you want to keep from the drive onto removable media, another drive may be an external one just in case you have an "UT OH!"

Generally resizing goes easy but being on the safe when new at it is something to consider.

that smiley is so cute ok to the topic thnk u guys so shud i do it to my c drive or not

That will strictly upto you there! And yes the smileys are good here at SF!

Many leave a laptop with one single large primary on the drive and go for an external HD for backing things up while others will want a second storage/backup partition on the single dirve. In fact I keep GParted on a flash drive in case someone's optical drive doesn't work on a laptop for seeing this done as well as resizing partitions for people who asked for help setting up an RC install on older XP machines.
(I bought a new dvd burner as a gift for someone who wasn't able to use the dvd drive on one old boat for that some time back!)

First you have to decide how you want each partition as far as size is concerned and compare that to how much you already have on C. A good 80-100gb will allow some extra space for C regarding new programs added as well as new files created serving most well with a large secondary storage partition.

The documentation for GParted is well illustrated for how to go about resizing the present C primary and creating a new second partition where you then simply right click on the new volume and choose ntfs from the dropdown list of file system options. GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - GENERALITIES

Once you have C shrunk down to where you want that you click in the empty space created and click on the new button followed by the apply to watch the new second partition created. From there simply right click again on the new one to select ntfs and on the apply button afterwards. If you want to label the new D partition right click once more and type Data or Backup or whatever name you prefer and click apply one last time before restarting the laptop.

The step by step page for resizing partitions with that drive tool is seen at GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - RESIZING