Can you partition without erasing

[April Raine]

Can you partition a drive that is in use without erasing the contents. Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit and 1 TB disk. The OS and programs are on the same partition so if I reinstall windows I have to wipe the programs too. Can i repartition so the OS is on a different partition and reinstall windows only. Or do I have to wipe everything, partition and reinstall windows on one partition and the rest on the other?

 

[AddRAM]

Of course you can create another partition, (if the drive has room for it) but why do you want to reinstall windows ?

Post a full shot of Disk Management before you proceed.

You can install and use Partition Wizard, but it`s safer to make and use a Partition Wizard Boot CD to manage partitions.

Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free

 

[whs]

If you reinstall Windows, you will have to reinstall the programs anyhow.

 

[AddRAM]

The rest of what ???

Windows and your programs go on the same partition.

Please post the shot and ask any more questions you have before you proceed.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[April Raine]

I thought you could put just windows on one partition and everything else on another. I was hoping to do what the op at http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...programs-partition-separate-os-partition.html was hoping to do

 

[LMiller7]

You can install applications on a partition separate from the OS. But applications will also have registry entries, etc in the OS partition. So when you reinstall the OS you have to reinstall the applications as well. There really is no practical way to avoid this.

 

[April Raine]

OK thanks. can you repartition and move data files/photos/movies word processing files etc etc without erasing?

 

[AddRAM]

Yes, in fact all your data should be installed on another partition or even a hard drive if you have more then one.

The perfect scenario is to have windows and all your programs on the same partition/drive etc, and your data and what not on another partition/drive etc.

This way you can create proper disk images.

Here`s an example of mine, but everyone has their own way of doing it.

 

[April Raine]

OK thanks folks

@AddRAM . What does the software on your E partition refer to? It is not installed software? I have Paragon Hard Disk manager 14 which will partition. One option to tick is for a logical drive. What is the opposite to a logical drive?

This is my laptop.

 

[AddRAM]

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.

 

[mjf]

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.

 

[April Raine]

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

 

[April Raine]

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

 

[April Raine]

This is my win 7

 

[mjf]

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.

 

[whs]

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

 

[vtails]

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.

 

[mjf]

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?

 

[whs]

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.