Need help with disk partition (OEM Windows 7 Home Premium)

[gregrocker]

I believe Disk Mgmt will create a Logical sub-partition there now that he has an extended.

My recollection is that it will only offer Dynamic if it's at four Primary limit with no Extended.

What you think?

 

[karlsnooks]

Another idea, IF he has everything off of those two logical partitions, then is after the shrink, use disk management to delete the two parttions, and from the resulting space create two logicals.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I believe Disk Mgmt will create Logical sub-partition there now that he has an extended. My recollection is that it will only offer Dynamic if it's at four Primary limit with no Extended. What you think?

That's worth a try, as long as he knows not to accept a Dynamic under any circumstances.

 

[TigerPunk]

This sounds good. From what I understand, I need to delete everything from the logical drives.
Then, I should go ahead and shrink up the 136 GB space which is available in C drive for creating a volume.
Following which I should delete the two logical partitions using disk management which would then free another ~280GB space.
Then I can create 2 logical partions from the available space keeping in mind that I dont have to accept a dynamic partition at any point or it would worsen the situation.

 

[karlsnooks]

Tiger,
Sounds good to me.

 

[mjf]

You would have been better using Partition Wizard for the whole job.

Here is an example is an example I ran using PW alone. No data was unloaded from partitions.
I think it models your problem?
Note Disk 3
Before

After.
Unallocate a region on the right of I:. resize the extended via J: into it. Fix up some unallocated remnants.

 

[TigerPunk]

Thanks for the valuable suggestions folks. I think I have enough information now to achieve what I need but I'd wait for the recovery disk to arrive. This would take another 15 days.
I'll update you guys about my progress.
See you in 15 days.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Be sure to post back with an update.

 

[mjf]

Addendum

For others reading the post with a similar problem.
See the trivial/quick solution offered in post #26. (It took 5 minutes!)

Windows Disk Management is NOT the tool to use. It is too limited here.
Partition Wizard (V6) IS the tool to use.

(The extent to which you can shrink the OS partition only depends on the presence of any unmovable files. Generally you won't have a problem. It has nothing to do with "file systems running" referred to earlier).

 

[gregrocker]

Michael, we asked the OP to see how much Disk Management offered shrinking the 292gb C partition, which turned out to be 150gb -nearly the 120gb the OP was hoping for.

Since he only wanted to turn the shrink space into more data storage I suggested he do both the shrink and add a new logical sub-partition using Disk Management to save the trouble of using PW CD. The option was also offered to Resize D from the left into the shrink space using PW CD, which you repeated with a nice illustration.

There wasn't any issue with the OP not being able to shrink enough but had there been PW CD would have offered more shrinkage because time again again we see that System files can be more easily moved when they are not running.

 

[mjf]

I need to remember to always state that any partitioning operation comes with a risk (often slight). Partition Wizard was a one stop shop for this problem.
I still don't understand the need to delete anything in the process. I didn't in the test example I ran.

 

[gregrocker]

I never mentioned deleting anything:

Use Disk Mgmt to safely shrink C - it offered you more than expected.

Then I'd Create a new logical sub-partition in Disk Mgmt, or you can use Partition Wizard CD to Resize D to the left and adjust the size of E.

 

[mjf]

I never mentioned deleting anything:

Use Disk Mgmt to safely shrink C - it offered you more than expected.

Then I'd Create a new logical sub-partition in Disk Mgmt, or you can use Partition Wizard CD to Resize D to the left and adjust the size of E.

I know. I didn't attribute it to you.

But in post #24 the OP stated
"This sounds good. From what I understand, I need to delete everything from the logical drives."

All I'm saying for the sake of others is that deleting the extended partition data is an unnecessary nuisance.

 

[gregrocker]

I concur.