Expand Primary Partition into unallocated space (laptop)

[HughR]

Hi this is my first post on the forum, and my first week in this job! Sorry if it's a noob question - or in the wrong place, but I have searched elsewhere and here (without success) for a similar post.

 

We have a number of laptops running XP Pro SP2 which were provided pre-partitioned with the primary partition in NTFS and the second partition as FAT32, C: and D: respectively. The partition sizes are 12.9GB each.

 

Most users are not aware of the existence of the second partition and as a result the primary partition fills rapidly and the second partition remains unused. I would like to delete the second partition and expand the NTFS primary partition to fill the unallocated void.

 

This can be done fairly easily using Partition Magic but the school don't have this and are unlikely to pay for it. Is there any practical way of doing this without using Partition Magic?

 

Thanks.

[Polski]

"Partition Commander" from I have used it for a few years and found it priceless.

 

Though my old copy (version 8?) does not work with SATA.

 

I need shallower pockets or longer arms I guess!

 

Partition Commander 10: The Easiest, Most Powerful Partitioning Software Available

[FN-GM]

Another option would be to ghost the system partition, then restore the image of the partition onto the whole drive or make a larger partition for it.

[craiglay]

Hi

 

Built into windows is a program called Diskpart. Its a command line utility but is very powerful and can do what you want.

Download: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0FD9788A-5D64-4F57-949F-EF62DE7AB1AE&displaylang=en

How to use: A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility

[HughR]

Thanks for all your feedback - I'm looking into Gparted at the moment - though I'm a little nervous about Linux, I have had no exposure to this at all.

 

'Partition Commander' unfortunately costs and cost is a definite barrier, although I do feel that some form of partition tool/s would be beneficial.

 

I considered ghosting the drive and repartitioning - but there's no software, apart from a facility in an imaging utility, for that either!

 

I was aware of Diskpart but the command line aspect shelved it for me for the time being. I'll review this if I have no luck with Gparted.

 

Thanks for all your help and the rapid responses - I'll let you know how I go on.

[mac_shinobi]

I normally use ranish partition manager

 

Ranish Partition Manager. Hard Disk Partitioning Software. Download freeware tools and source code...

[craiglay]

Hi, got a bit more time to play with Diskpart

 

Load up a cmd window, type diskpart and you should be presented with the diskpart console: DISKPART>

If you type "list volume" you will get a table of all the volumes on the computer. C, D and CDDrives will show

To delete the old partition, type "select volume" and type the number associated with the partition you want to delete, eg. "select volume 1" Then type "delete volume"

 

You should now have just the one partition, the NTFS partition and some free space.

Type "select volume" then the number associated with the partition you want to extend and type "extend"

 

The Microsoft article has a section on how to script this so its more automatic for more than 1 machine too.

 

There may be a few bits i missed out or different but i think thats basically it. I would be inclined to try it on VirtualPC or VMWare first or a laptop you don't mind re-imaging if it goes wrong.

Once again, i'm not responsible for any damage or loss of data.

 

Craig

[HughR]

I tried GParted today and it worked perfectly. Absolutely fantastic.

 

I will try Diskpart next time and see how that goes, it's useful that it's part of Windows and you don't need a CD as with GParted.

 

The GParted disc will be filed in my 'useful stuff to keep' drawer for future use.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions!

[SpuffMonkey]

Has anyone used GParted on a 2003 server? I'd like to change some partitions - other posts on the web suggest its OK - just wondered if anyone here had any practical experience?

[RabbieBurns]

this is quite a timeous thread as we have a server that there are unused partitions needing removed and the primary partitions extended into this free space.

 

My question is does the diskpart command line utility exist on windows 2000 server?

[john]

Yes I used it on one of my live servers the other month, some reason the HP SmartStart made a RAID5 array of a total fo 60GB when it should have been around 220GB. Don't quite know why the space was there just not allocated, so I stuffed it in, did the drag on the scale and it was great. Had to reboot the server twice as the 1st time the database had a little moan (runs SQL on it) but on the second reboot was perfect as it nothing had changed