Trying to enlarge my partition containing my Windows 7 Home 64-bit OS

MSwhip said:

I have installed every piece of software on every disk only cause i do not know better.

I can't imagine why you should install your software on every disk you have.

The second picture in post 27 is the most convoluted and unnecessarily complex set of drives and partitions I have ever seen on this forum.

I am unclear about what you are trying to accomplish with those 21 partitions spread across 6 drives. It's a mess.

Can you write 4 or 5 simple sentences that explain your need for 6 drives and 21 partitions? Why have you done this, in simple terms?

You are grossly exaggerating the fragility of SSDs. Are you similarly worried about the fragility of your spinning hard drives, which may well all fail before your SSD?

Put Windows and applications on the SSD, most likely using a single partition. No need to install the applications on all drives.

Find out how much total storage space you need for the original versions of your data. Put that data on one spinning hard drive partition if it will fit there.

Back up this data partition to another spinning drive.

Back up your SSD with its OS and applications to a spinning hard drive via an image made with Macrium, EaseUS, or Acronis.

I can't imagine that whatever you think you are accomplishing cannot be done much more simply, with less confusion and far fewer partitions.

Unless you are knee deep in video and need multiple terabytes of storage space, you shouldn't need over 3 or 4 hard drives total for the entire system, including OS, applications, data, data backups, and OS backups. And likely no more than 5 or 6 partitions, rather than 21.

Thank you all for your contributions, my issue is now solved

in response to Ignatzatdsonic:

I am sorry I have tried all my life to be succint but I have concluded that im incapable of doing that so I will explain myself as briefly as I can.
1. a solid backup strategy eludes me. I have tried but I think I am unable to grasp it. I know the theory, I think I have the tools but I was not yet able to backup and ensure that it is easily retrievable.
2. I have downloaded.Acronis free for Western Digital HDD owners, Easeus Todo Backup, Macrium Reflect, Paragon Backup and Recovery 2010 Free (Plus the Windows 7 backup utility).
I have tried to create the 'capsule' in Paragon to back up everything including OS Software and Data, so I did not have to mess with different parts.
So failing all that, I decided to go the disk redundancy way and have several large HDD.
3. Lately I decided to prepare myself for my next and last computer, I am in my late 60's so i bought a SSD to prepare myself to use Intel's SRT with a future PC that runs on a Z68 MOBO with Ivy Bridge when it is launched to use the speed of the SSD and speed up the HDDs too (with the SSD acting as cache).
I have tons of videos, TV shows on my large HDDs which I want to keep. Tried to upload to cloud to save space on my HDD but unloadable cause of the sheer individual file size.

I would like to rely on free cloud space as I know of a place that offers 50GB of free space per account but as most other places it wont let you upload larger than 2 GB files. Free FTP does not seem to exist, at least I havent found it yet. So im stuck to saving and keeping those videos on the HDDs.

Other than eliminating excessive number of partitions, do you now have any other suggestions?

Thank you.

What was the problem with Acronis free WD version? It works fine every time for me and many others who use it here with our help. Simply install and save the Win7 backup image to external, make the boot disk if you ever need to recover it.

Likewise Win7 Backup Imaging couldn't be easier to save a backup image and will offer to make the System Repair Disk for you. Saving both of these utilities' images will give you more than adequate backup.

External HD's are very inexpensive right now - less than $50 for 500gb if you shop.

If by external you mean an external enclosure like Western Digital My Book or others as such, I prefer to stay away from them. The only Hard Drive that ever died on me was a WD 500 GB that came in one of those. I removed it from it and was srtill dead.
Regardless I have enough external space in 2x 2 TB ea. + 1x1.5 Tb + 2x1 TB ea. + 1 500GB.

I will try again with the info you are now giving to me.

Also. I will initiate a new thread about Windows 7 capabilities on all the management issues I do have.

Thank you again

to AddRAM:

In your case you have 2 mechanical drives, is that what i see in your C and D drives?

No SSD right?
Regarding partitions, maybe all I have read ended up confusing me. From what I understood Ithought that keeping the OS in one partition and maybe all other software on a second and all Data on a third was the strategy when someone has just one HDD.
You seem to indicate that if just one partition inlcuded all 3 the disk would spin less. Am I understanding what you said?
So then what good purpose would serve to create more than one partition?

Why have people been creating multiple partitions for?

I would like to see your views on this.

Thank you

Keep the OS and Programs on C since Programs write themselves into Registry Keys so are integrated into the OS until they are uninstalled. It doesn't matter whether you have the 100mb System Reserved partition or not - hardly worth a second thought.

The benefit of separating out your User folders to another partition is so that it keeps the OS/Programs image smaller for imaging purposes. If Win7 becomes irreparable simply reimage the OS partition in 20 minutes and the latest data set will be waiting, safe and current in it's own partition.

MSwhip said:

2. I have downloaded.Acronis free for Western Digital HDD owners, Easeus Todo Backup, Macrium Reflect, Paragon Backup and Recovery 2010 Free (Plus the Windows 7 backup utility).



3. i bought a SSD to prepare myself to use Intel's SRT with a future PC that runs on a Z68 MOBO with Ivy Bridge when it is launched to use the speed of the SSD and speed up the HDDs too (with the SSD acting as cache).


I have tons of videos, TV shows on my large HDDs which I want to keep. Tried to upload to cloud to save space on my HDD but unloadable cause of the sheer individual file size.

I would like to rely on free cloud space as I know of a place that offers 50GB of free space per account but as most other places it wont let you upload larger than 2 GB files. Free FTP does not seem to exist, at least I havent found it yet. So im stuck to saving and keeping those videos on the HDDs.

Here are my specific suggestions:

Pick just one or two of those backup programs, not 4. Macrium and EaseUS are probably the easiest to use.

The Ivy Bridge/Z68 idea is all well and good, but you need to focus on simplicity. I wouldn't bother with the idea of using the SSD as cache. Just plan on putting Windows and ALL of your applications on the SSD. DON'T install applications anywhere other than the SSD drive, which will be C.

Sit down with a pencil and piece of paper. Add up the total space required for ALL of your data. How many GB is this, excluding "backups"?? I mean just for the original versions.

Don't use more than 1 partition on any single drive unless you have a very strong and over-riding reason. I can't imagine a strong enough reason in your case. Think in terms of FOLDERS, not partitions.

Somewhere, you got the idea that multiple partitions were necessarily superior for some reason. Ditch that idea. Period.

Ideally, you would have C for operating system and programs, D for data, and E for backups. Three partitions, not 21. You may need more than 3 if your original data will not fit on any one single drive. But not 21.

The first thing you need to do is to come up with a GB total for all of your data---movies, mp3s, and whatever else it may be. And then try to put that data on as few partitions as possible.

After you have done that, start thinking about a backup strategy.

I would not make an image of anything except C. Just use ordinary file-by-file backup programs for your data partitions.

The "cloud" is problematic for backing up large amounts of data, as you have found. I'd think in terms of backing it up on my own hard drives instead, but you first have to know how much data you have.