Can you partition without erasing

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  1. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       #11

    You've only got 33GB free so you would need to make a small partition say 20GB. Move data into it. Gradually expand the partition and continue the process. Tedious and you need to be careful.

    You say you have a desktop but this is a small drive. If you have room for another drive I'd buy something like a 1TB WD Black and use this a data drive.
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  2. Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       #12

    AddRAM said:
    It`s software I`ve downloaded over the years, it`s not installed it`s the executable to install the software.

    Partition Wizard, VLC, all my ISO files, PowerIso, ImageBurn, all my picture backups, document backups etc, stuff like that.
    Kinda though that. Thanks
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  3. Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       #13

    mjf said:
    You've only got 33GB free so you would need to make a small partition say 20GB. Move data into it. Gradually expand the partition and continue the process. Tedious and you need to be careful.

    You say you have a desktop but this is a small drive
    . If you have room for another drive I'd buy something like a 1TB WD Black and use this a data drive.
    This is my laptop. The desktop has two 1TB disks and is win 7 64 bit. I just uploaded that screenshot as i am thinking of doing the laptop too. I might get a bigger drive. It is a sony vaio vgn nr11z/s and is 7 years old so do not want to spend too much
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  4. Posts : 78
    win 7 home premium 64 bit
    Thread Starter
       #14

    This is my win 7
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Can you partition without erasing-win7_disks.jpg  
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  5. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       #15

    I assumed your focus was the original disk management screenshot. So for the laptop I'd leave it alone or get a larger HDD and use (free) Macrium Reflect to move everything across to the new HDD. A 500 GB drive should leave you plenty of room for a data partition and shouldn't cost that much. You need to be comfortable doing this work.

    The OS drive (Disk 1 in the screenshot) of the desktop already has 4 primary partitions. Do not attempt to make a 5th partition because you will end up with a dynamic drive which is not good. The other options are
    1) to make the 2nd partition a logical drive and then you can add logical partitions. You should be able to have your OS on a logical partition since you have a separate system reserved. I haven't personally done this so you should get guidance from someone who has carried out this operation.
    2) make the 2nd OS partition active and delete the system reserved. This would allow you make a new 4th primary partition.
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  6. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #16

    On Disk1, only the System Reserved has to be a primary partition. All others can be logical partitions.

    How to Set Partition as Logical | MiniTool Partition Wizard Tutorial
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  7. Posts : 10
    Windows 7 Home Preminiun x64 Windows 10 home x64
       #17

    When I got the offer for Windows 10 I had Windows 7 x64 on a 300gig H/D so I used Disk Utility and used Shrink to split my drive in half then installed Win 10 on the new partition, thinking back it was a mistake to have the 2 on the same drive. But I think I should have gotten a larger drive for my laptop . I also went back and did it again on each install for my data, I'm not sure if this was the right way to do it.
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  8. mjf
    Posts : 5,969
    Windows 7x64 Home Premium SP1
       #18

    whs said:
    On Disk1, only the System Reserved has to be a primary partition. All others can be logical partitions.

    How to Set Partition as Logical | MiniTool Partition Wizard Tutorial
    Sure that's the logic as I stated. Have you actually done this yourself?
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  9. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #19

    I sometimes set primary MBR partitions to logical - especially for students in my classes. Many brand new laptops come with 4 primary MBR partitions from the factory. Then people don't know what to do if they want an additional partition. Fixed many dynamics in the past, LOL.
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