Windows 7: Hard Drive Partitions - Changing with GParted

The Windows 7 "Disk Management" utility fulfills some basic partition management functions. However it is limited. The Open Source GParted is a full featured partition management utility and is easy to use. In the following example, the Windows 7 partition (labled X) needed to be expanded. Unfortunately, as it was the second partition, Windows 7 was unable to move the partition to the left and absorb the unallocated space.



Here, step by step, is how to use GParted to change the partition size:

1. Go to this site and download "SystemRescueCD". GParted is one of the programs on the CD. After burning the ISO to CD, you have a bootable, live cd (meaning the programs run off of the CD and nothing needs to be installed to the hard drive) that you can boot to and run the program.

2. You can use Windows 7 to burn the ISO file to CD which will make it bootable.

3. Boot to your SystemRescueCD and this is what you should see:

4. Press ENTER to boot and continue.

5. Press enter to use the default keyboard and continue.

6. TYPE: startx to open the graphical user interface.

7. GParted is the icon next to the start button. A single click will start it.

8. Right click on the partition you wish to change and select "Resize/Move".

9. Make changes to the partition with the sliding bars.

10. Click the green check mark, and verify with "Apply".

11. When the process is finished, click "Close".

12. Exit GParted ...

13. ... and Exit the GUI.

14. Finally, TYPE: Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot the computer.

After you reboot into Windows (be sure to remove the CD), "checkdisk" may want to check your file system. That is OK, let it finish. The X: partition, in this example, should now be nearly 10GB bigger.

Robert

Nice find on the System Rescue CD.. As a long time Linux user, I have used gparted quite a few times.. A Ubuntu Live cd is always in my toolkit for instances like these...

Another fine tutorial..

Thanks Tews!

Actually, thanks should go to DarkDavil for the inspiration to put this together and the collaboration with Dave76 and Night Hawk who made valuable contributions to the thread. I was sort of in a hurry at the time, but I though it might be easier to find if I moved it here so search could find it.

Many thanks!

Robert

Good Tutorial Robert

Did you ask about putting it in tutorials?

There is a lot of software. Whereas some of it, like this Open Source utility, can be useful, it is not Windows or Windows 7 specific. It is just too easy to clutter up the Windows Seven Tutorials with everybody's favorite prog, when the Tutorials should, at least in my opinion, feature Windows and Windows 7 specific software. This is fine. It is here and search can find it. Its not about credit. Its about helping.

Robert

I believe that someone said Gparted is not Windows Specific so I was just curious if it works on Win XP ??

Thanks

This I did from Win XP because I don't have a burner setup right now on the Win 7 machine.

I must have done something wrong. I downloaded systemrescuecd-x86-1.2.3.iso. I then burned the disc image file using Roxio. As far as I can see, it is not boot disc. Any clues ???

Thanks

Hi huffman!

What is meant by not Windows or Windows 7 specific is the software is not written by Microsoft or on Windows code.

Many Open Source programs are written to run on Windows. In this case, GParted runs off of the CD which, because it is bootable and a "live" CD, the CD becomes the OS allowing the programs to run on any computer that will boot to the CD.

GParted is able to work with many file systems including Windows NTFS and fat32, as well as many used in Linux.

So yes, you can use GParted to manage your XP hard drive partitions.

Robert

huffman;

I have a copy of Roxio 8 and have wasted many CDs I thought were going to be bootable. They just don't make it easy, as easy as Windows 7 does.

With Roxio 8, you must select to "Burn the Image" like here:





I hope you can find something similar in your copy of Roxio.

Robert

This is what ImgBurn lives for.

The Official ImgBurn Website

You might as well uninstall Roxio. :P