Evening all ....

A few weeks ago I was given a Laptop which was destined for the bin.

With your help I got it going, I won't embarrass the member who was great with his help - you know who you are

Anyway - I have now got it working via Wi-Fi and am typing this on it now .... it's all great!

However, when I was trying to get it working I formatted the HD into 3 partitions ..... one was only 2Gb, simply because it would format fast and I could try to get the thing working with a small amount of disk space.

Now, I have filled up that 2Gb - of course - and it is complaining.

I don't want to go right back to re-formatting and losing all I have done .... and having to reload everything

But I must do something.

Can I move everything on block from C to D drive?

Can I enlarge the partition without losing everything?

 

It depends on what you mean by "everything". No, you can't move Windows or its components. If you move programs then they might not work, and the start menu will need extensive editing as all the pointers will go to the wrong place.


Your better solution would be to resize the partitions, which needs a third-party tool. I use partition Magic personally, which is good, and will do what you want. It's out of production now though, so you may be stuck with illegal methods of obtaining it. This also assumes you have XP, as it doesn't work with Vista.



M

 

Yes I have XP.

Partition magic - I have heard about that ..... I literally have no space left on my drive C - would it work if placed on drive D?

 

There are tools that can do this. There are paid for solutions, but you probably don't want those. Acronis Disk Director can be bought, installed to a different drive. Then use it to make a boot CD, enlarge your partition and its job done.

UBCD comes with some free partition managers, but I've never tried them.

 

Pete

Partition Manager by Paragon is better and much cheaper than Partition Magic, I actually bought a copy a few years back I was using it that much on customers mis configured Severs as they were all running out of disk space on Drive C

The best way to use it in your case is to extend the 2Gb partition to a more reasonable size using the free space you have

If you try and merge partitons you may have problems with programs running correctly

Also if you look around ( you may find a 'portable' version which runs as is without installation (apart from a few temp files)

 

I agree that extending/increasing the C Drive is the way forward - I am a bit loathe to buy a program as I could just reformat and start to reinstall everything again.

It shouldn't be too hard to do should it - why can Windows Disk Manager not do it?

 

Its only the time and pain of having to go through the whole install again and setting everything up again

Plus you have to be a little careful with XP activations, do it too many times and you end up having to phone Microsoft to tell them that you have rebuilt your PC yet again (been there, done it, got the T shirt)

Like I say though you could try an 'evaluation' version

 

And where may I find these evaluation versions?

 

*cough* torrents *cough*

 

Torrents?

You may as well have said "hgdkgkfklhlhdbbx" for what it meant to me

I guess it's some sharing software thingy? Like Limewire maybe?

 

yep that sort of thing

btjunkie - the largest bittorrent search engine

 

Now, bear with me here ....

How about if I reload XP onto the D Drive?

Would that be possible?

And just don't use the C Drive at all?

 

You could do that, but woudl be easier just to let the XP install format the drive as one big partition again

 

Right, you mean start from scratch again?

I don't have a great issue over doing that, but 3 things make me think twice.

1. Will the XP instal with the authentification code I used last time - bearing in mind that the first XP installed with the code on a sticker on the rear of the laptop - reinstalling it wouldn't accept the original code ...... had to use another, luckily that worked. So, I may not be able to load XP again.

2. The Wi-Fi Drivers were a real problem getting - I only got them buy hardwiring the laptop to the internet. I suppose I could get them again? but it's a real pain! - could I put the drivers onto another partition (if I created a E drive?) and then formatted C and D as one big drive?

3. The HD had problems with bad clusters .... it took hours and hours to go through them and attempt a repair - making one big drive would probably pull those bad clusters into the OS?

Now, if I installed the XP onto D (this is formatted in FAT32, is that OK for XP?) ..... could I simply tell the laptop to boot from D and ignore C completely? It is only 2Gb after all ......

Or, just use something like Partition Magic? I have looked on the Torrent site and most available for download have people saying that they are full of viruses and trojans ... not sure if its just scaremongering or true?

 

Just had a thought, maybe it's a daft one .... but ....

How about if I can copy my entire C Drive to an external HD, Windows XP included ......

Then, format the laptop HD into one big C Drive ...... and transfer everything back as it was copied off?

Would it work or am I looking at it too simply?

 

In theory you could use Symantec Ghost to image the C partition on to a new laptop hard drive (if you have one in an external caddy) this will allow the partition to essentially extend to the full size of the disk

Then you can swap the hard drives over in the laptop and use that

ALternatively you have an incoming PM in about 5 minutes

 

Cheers mate - I've pm'd you back