Partitioning a HDD

[flogit]

Hi,I'm using windows 7 home premium with two HDD one is C and the other is E. The C is of course the main one with the OS on it,Also has all my programs. That's all is on that drive,It's a 500gb and the OS takes up 54gb now the rest is just empty space.
Drive E,That's where all my Documents/Music/Pictures/Video are.That drive is a 2TB HDD. Now regarding the empty space on the C drive,Would it be possible to partition that off from the OS section and have about 300gb of spare to store something rather than leave it empty.
Also I have a weekly backup of the OS by means of a Macrium backup software,That is backed up to the E drive. Then also the E drive is also backed up to an external HDD.
Is there any help on this if possible,Its got to be easy I'm not very technically minded regarding computing.


Thanks
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[FuturDreamz]

Can you post a screenshot of disk management? I know you tried your best but your description of your setup is hard to follow.

Thanks.

 

[flogit]

Screen shot here...

The one that I want to partition is the one with the red cross C drive,Have tried with using the windows set up but I can only get a partition of 40.22GB for some reason when trying the set up the available to shrink is 41186.I thought that I could leave the OS on a 100GB and then have a 300GB partition but failed to get beyond the 40.22GB.

Thanks.
Any help please

 

[mmkarimi]

use Paragon Partition Manager to do so...

 

[AddRAM]

Why do you think you have to partition it to store data on it ? Just store your data in my documents, pictures etc.

You can partition it with Partition Wizard.

Best Free Partition Manager Freeware and free partition magic for Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista and Windows XP 32 bit & 64 bit. MiniTool Free Partition Manager Software Home Edition.

 

[bassfisher6522]

I'm not a big fan of partitions either and the only time I do use/create a partition is for dual booting for testing an OS.

That being said, there are plenty of videos on youtube showing exactly how to partition a drive using the above mentioned and using MS native partition.

 

[FuturDreamz]

There might be some unmovable files on your C: drive. Try running disk defragmenter, and show us the result (that graph thing)

 

[Alejandro85]

It's possible for sure, but I would not do it. Partitioning the system drive with an OS running on it is generally a dangerous operation if anything happens to go wrong.
And besides, the free space you have right now can be occupied by just putting files on that drive, nothing prevents you to use it for data files in addition to system. What I generally do is to create a few folders in a separate location, like from the root, and throw your data there. For your system backup, simply skip that folder, and for data backups, include that folder too.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Partioning is useful to reduce the size of and time taken to create/restore Macrium images. As ADDRAM mentioned, use the bootable version of Partition Wizard to do that.

This is the definitive guide to accomplishing that:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93322-partition-wizard-use-bootable-cd.html

Post back here if you need more help.

Regards,
Golden

 

[flogit]

Thanks all for all the support,Think its getting rather complicated for me.
If I decide to make a folder in the C drive and called Spare then I could save some items there.The only problem that would be there,I use Macrium backup to back up my OS & program files that runs once a week and saves the backup to another drive.
Now with this new folder called 'Spare' on the C drive will the Macrium backup pick up that folder under the backup procedure every week,That's something I'm trying to avoid by means of making a new partition in the C drive.
If Macrium wont backup that folder just the OS as normal,All will be okay.
Any thoughts on that Please.

Thanks.

 

[bigmck]

Macrium will backup the entire partition, so the "spare folder" will not help you. Go to this site Partition Wizard Bootable CD allows user to manage partition directly with partition manager bootable CD. and download the free file. Get the "Bootable CD" version which will be on the left of the screen. You can d/l the file and make the bootable CD. Then insert the CD and boot your PC and you can make the partition as you like. It is not that hard. Let us know how it goes.

 

[flogit]

Many thanks to all regarding my issue.
Someone asked for an image of the C drive.As the image shows there is plenty of space there so why cant I get more than 40.22GB.
Well Xmas is upon us,So think we all need a rest think I will look further into this after the holiday.
Any comments regarding the image would be most appreciated.
Thanks all & have a Merry Xmas to all.


Image....

 

[4wd]

Hi, the reason windows won't do the job is very probably because of data scattered all over the drive, and windows won't (can't) move it to create free space for the new partition. Am using EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition - CNET Download.com for these jobs, has been excellent even when doing complex tasks. Your job is very basic, and easy to do.

Click on the drive you want to work on.

1. Click on the right edge of the drive and drag it to the left to shrink the drive as much as wanted, an Unallocated part will appear.
2. Right click on Unallocated and choose Create Partition (in the settings window that appear you have some options, in your case the default will be fine, maybe label it or choose another letter, click OK).

Then click Apply (top right). The pc will restart, partition master will move data as needed, the partition will be created.

After reboot, if you use System Restore, check and eventually reset the settings.
btw, I always do this first when doing work on any drive: check drive for errors, defrag, complete backup\image (all this is up to you). Good luck.

 

[FuturDreamz]

That's why I want you to run disk defragmenter.

In Windows XP it used to show a visual graph of the location of fixed files, but at the bare minimum it should move files closer to the beginning of the drive.

 

[flogit]

4wd.Well I took on the challenge followed your info,btw this job is on my desktop I'm on the laptop here with this update.
Well downloaded the software you suggested and installed it,then came to the nitty gritty of the job.
Took a few minutes to work out the drag from one side to the other but got threre in the end.

Its now in the process of moving data after reboot,There are 146722 files and when I left it to get this msg to you it was on 387 a while to go.
I have all fingers and legs crossed.Will get back to you with good news or bad news,I do hope that it will be the first one ''good''

Will be back Thanks very much.

 

[flogit]

FuturDreamz Thank you also.

 

[gregrocker]

If you can't shrink C enough in DIsk Mgmt, then you were given the best tool to do it, the one which has helped countless thousands of users here without a single failure: Partition Wizard boot CD.

Since several senior-most members (we wear badges) recommended Partition Wizard I don't know why you would use another partition manager known to fail with total data loss, but even more importantly why you would use the Home version when you were repeatedly advised to use the boot CD which cannot fail.

Only Disk Mgmt cannot fail during resizing without using a boot disk. You should always use Disk Mgmt, then if it won't resize enough after defragmenting as suggested, use Partition Wizard boot CD.

 

[flogit]

Sorry

 

[gregrocker]

No need to apologize. It was posted as much for others who find this thread.

I'm just glad you didn't lose your data, as I did years ago when using Easeus - and the boot CD, at that. Since then I've seen several more users lose all data during resizing with Easeus Home Edition, once using Partition Wizard home edition - but never once using Partition Wizard CD in countless thousands of operations we've helped with.

 

[flogit]

Well good news all round here,Job just completed without any loss of data.
The C drive now contains the OS That partition is 120GB left it open for extra programs etc.
New partition is now 345GB and named as K,Empty at the moment but who knows.

Well I must thank all concerned in this major job of mine,Very much appreciated all the assistance from you all.

Have a Merry Christmas & a Happy new year.
​

David South Wales UK.