Discussion on:

Repartition your hard disk on-the-fly with Windows Vista

This is the first feature I have seen in Vista that makes any seense. But I am still not switching.

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Just shrank a partition from 36 to 30gb, non-destructively, and fairly quickly. Seems to work fine. . .

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Is it MY fault you weren't here? I thought about waiting, but it was getting close to lunch. . .

Do you believe you have a penis? I know you can't see it, but you believe it.

Believe it dude...I did this, very quick no hassle. very cool!!!

That's nice, but it's obviously no partition magic. Looks like another Microsoft first stab at replacing another third party utility - with the usual mediocre results. Once they get it improved it'll be more useful - I mean what's up with the 7 Gig limitation? makes the whole thing almost worhtless.

The reason for the 7 Gb limitation was very clearly spelled out in the article.

There is no 7GB limitation. The system used in the example was only able to create a 7GB partition due to the placement of unmovable system files. If you have more contiguous free space after the last unmovable file, you can create a larger partition.

wow, I even had Outlook 07 open and did a send/receive.
Too bad Vista cannot determine that I have 1 floppy drive connected (it thinks I have 14 connected and refuses to either let any of them work, or let me remove it/them, even when disabled).

But this was fast and simple, among the other inconsistancies of junk bundled in.

I have used it and it works fine. Who needs Partition Magic?

Who needs Partition Magic? Nobody, but it's cheaper than "upgrading" to the public Beta version of Longhorn.

I tried it and it works but what can you do with such a small partition?

"I tried it and it works but what can you do with such a small partition?"

It's on your computer!

That's a good start! Now, what else does it do to make up for WGA that locks me into the same hardware set, even if I buy a retail disk instead of an OEM?

Microsoft reversed that stance before Vista was released; you can 'move' your retail license from one PC to another, to another. Don't be surprised if you're asked to call MS to activate if you move it that many times though!



I still hate the new WGA crap though (and it is crap), what with the 'phoning phone' and checking the status of your activation...that's still too much for me.

I tried it and it says there is no space available to shrink (I have over 80 gigs of free space). I presume this is becuase of the unmovable files. The article mentions trying to work around it. Any advice?

Who cares... Drive space is SO cheap today, go buy another drive. Who really wants to store vital data on a partition on a boot (system) drive anyway? If the drive fails for any reason, you data is probably gone as well... Ever hear of a little thing calle "drive contention"? Drive contention is the VERY reason I put my swap file on a second PHYSICAL drive...

Will it allow me to delete the partition, and EXPAND the volume to regain that dataspace, should I change my mind, or if my drive is already partitioned, and I want to add a second drive?

who buy Partition Magic!

This will also be a feature on the next Windows Server version - now what do you say?

Not everybody has the money to, ?just buy another hard drive? or 3rd party software.
This is good, for example, if you only have one drive, what to format it, but first save your files on another partition, (on the same existing drive), before doing so.

Thanks for the tip.

This could prove usefull; but, has anyone tried using this to Expand a partition?

...and it's in the screenshots above. Appears as though you can extend a volume. Almost NOBODY will ever need to do this, therefore the "feature" is bloatware. Personally, I think it's a rediculous "feature", adding to the "oversizedness" that is the NEW Windows.

wooo... hoo. (Make sure you get ALL of sarcasm DRIPPING from that...)

Can I remove this "feature"? Do I NEED this "feature"? Probably not, and No. Another example of Microsoft and their demanding, overwhelming, and all-consuming desire to be completely monopolistic of all forms of software.

Check into this little article:

http://aaxnet.com/editor/edit043.html

If it's NOT good enought for the DOT, NIST, FAA or TI... It's NOT good enough for me. I'll keep my W2K boxes until I can't run 'em any longer, then I'll go to Ubuntu, ( http://www.ubuntu.com ) dedicated. I am already running it on my laptop, and it's fantastic. Yes, I can run Windows applications, including Office (not that I need that - with OpenOffice, ( http://www.openoffice.org ) I already HAVE it, without M$'s help). Not being a Linux guy at all, I was scared, but having tried this distro... I'm probably hooked! Redmond is in deep kimchi if this distro catches on, and there is no reason it shouldn't. Fast and stable. Time to start exploring alternates, people. With Linux and WINE, ( http://www.winehq.com ) there is no reason to stay with Window$ anymore.

I got a laptop with vista on it. I repartitioned the HD to give me another partition to load XP Pro. Now I have a machine that is dual bootable for those apps that dont run on vista (CAD)

Thanks

Ed

Great tip, thanks

Greg,

Thanks for taking your time to explore the capabilities of Vista and sharing them with us. It saves some of us time and helps us learn the new OS before we deploy it. I am sure there are many more who appreciate the info than the few who take the time to throw stones.

There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation

How much space is available? How large is the partition you're trying to create?

I have used PartionMagic since it's inception, so I am very familiar with the usage of such features. PartionMagic has always been a very functional utility that was always improving and expanding in usability and features over the years.

Since Symantec bought them out, the development of this software came to a grinding halt and is not even available for Vista.

I was glad to hear that Vista was making the capability to manipulate our hard drive partitions as a native part of the OS. It only makes sense to have this essential capability to manipulate our hard drive storage topography.

I have already used this Vista feature and it does work well for what it can do, but it is very limited. It does not allow for any "moving" of the partitions within the free space areas.

In my example, I needed to shrink one partition so that I could expand the partition that was immediately in front of it. However, upon shinking this partition, Vista placed all the free space at the end of the new partition with no capability to move it elsewhere.

Without the capability of moving the partitions within the free space areas you are limited to expanding or making new partitions only in the immediate free area proceeding (after) the "shrunk" partitions. The partitions preceeding the "shrunk" partition cannot be expanded; the freeded up space is useless to any partition that comes before the "shrunken" partitions.

Vista could easily solve this huge limitation by at least giving the option of putting the new free space that results from shrinking a partition to either the front or the back of the shrunk partition.

Partition Magic actually allowed you to "slide" any and all partitions graphically to any location within available free space on the drive.

Hopefully Microsoft will continue to improve on this feature.

Hopefully Microsoft will fix this because that will be a major issue.

I agree with your assessment of PartitionMagic also, but it's not alone in its fate. It seems every product Symantec has bought has suffered the same fate. Look at what happened to Ghost. Remember PC Tools? Absolutely great utility package. Their only problem is they were becoming more popular than Norton Utilities. Symantec bought it from Central Point and crushed it. They never had any intention of supporting it or enhancing it. And people complain about Microsoft!

hoping users will upgrade from home premium to ultimate to use their instructions??
...and neither my laptop manufacturer nor their 3rd party tech provider knew about it. For the giant hard drives being shipped now, this is wonderful...and worked flawlessly.

I have just got a new
lenovo notebook with Windows Vista Home Basic, infact I could do the partition just by reading the instructions mentioned here, and for a non technical person like me, this is worth mentioning,
thus i must say, its a great piece of information and it works well!
Thnks for such a wonderful information.
Pramila

I followed the same procedure mentioned. There was a shrinkable space of 49GB/120GB. When I clicked finish, an error message pops up which says "There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation.

Please help! Thanks in advance.

Best Regards
VJ

i got an error when i applied simple volume on unallocated space. as soon as i pressed FINISH i got error saying "there is not enough space available".
Could you please tell me why is this happening.

i was able to increase the size space to shrink. All we need to do is disable the pagefiles, hibernate option (clean the hibernate file with the disk cleanup before disabling the hibernate option), disable the core dump file creation containing debugging information, and remove the auto-restore points for the drive.
The page file can be disabled from Computer > Properties > Advance Options > Advance > Performance Settings > Advance > Click change button > Set No page file and click set button. This will disable the pagefiles.
To clean the hibernate file run the disk cleanup for that drive and select the hibernate file. Then disable the hibernate option by opening the command prompt in admin mode and running powercfg -h off command.
To disable the core dump file creation, go to computer > properties > advance options > Advance tab > Setup and recovery section click settings, in Write debug information select none instead of Kernel dump file.
To disable the auto-restore option go to the computer > properties > advanced > System protection tab > Deselect the drive in the automatic restore point section.
Restart PC and now try to shrink the drive.
I hope this information helps.
Prashant

I want to try this so I can run XP Professional as well as Vista. But is the process reversible? Will I be able to get rid of the partition (and perhaps Vista) without risking a catastrophe?

Peter

It was very much helpful. Btw, i also faced the problem with limited shrink volume. But when i tried after doing the following a)disk cleanup (deleting restore files) b)disable system restore, i was able to get unrestricted shrink volume.

I done as you described above i had now 3 partitions. On the first (C) i have W. Vista Business and on second (D) i would like to install XP and on third (E) i would like to install W. 2000 Pro. What do i need to do to install XP on D and W 2000 Pro on E? And i would like to have all three OS visible when i switch on my computer.

Would you please explaine to me how can install xp and 2000 pro?

Thank you very much.

Jasna

Good job, Greg. Thanks.

Ok, I just followed these staeps in an attempt to repartition my laptop. I created an unallocated space of 42.17 GB but when I clicked the finish buttom for the new simple volume wizard, it gave an error that I did not have enough space to complete the task. what do I do now.

It wont let me shrink my hard disk... anybody help

i tried doing it, but i am getting a error msg. "there is not enough space available on the disk to complete this action"

wht do i do now ??

I think there is better approach than using Vista.
1. Create disk image using Ghost 12
2. Use WD Data LifeGuard Tools or or Maxtor MaxBlast III to re-partition/format partitions with the amount of disk space you desire - not what amount Vista can shrink.
3. Use Ghost 12 CD to restore disk image.

I've got 19.53GB Unallocated space & wen going thru d "New Simple Volume Wizard" I get d error "There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation".

So wat to do wid dis???