I recently bought a laptop. It has vista installed. It only has c drive. I want to partition it without losing the data. Wats the safest way to do it if at all it is possible
Partitioning a drive
| ssthanapati wrote: |
| I recently bought a laptop. It has vista installed. It only has c drive. I want to partition it without losing the data. Wats the safest way to do it if at all it is possible |
Use PartitionMagic. Its the easiest and safest way to do it.
dont use partition magic.. it very unreliable...
try using acronis disk director suite.. its gr8 n reliable.....
ne help u need contact me..
try using acronis disk director suite.. its gr8 n reliable.....
ne help u need contact me..
You can also try GPARTED (that comes with Gnome based Linux, like Ubuntu)
If have partionned all my computers this way : it works fine and it is free !
If have partionned all my computers this way : it works fine and it is free !
| ThePolemistis wrote: | ||
Use PartitionMagic. Its the easiest and safest way to do it. |
partition magic almost always worked with me too
Yep partition magic is the way to go. I've always used it.. for partitoning win/*nix and ... yeah ^^
| ssthanapati wrote: |
| I recently bought a laptop. It has vista installed. It only has c drive. I want to partition it without losing the data. Wats the safest way to do it if at all it is possible |
Try vista's built in disk managment, I created a 10gb partition with it , and of course its free if you allready have vista
gparted is great would have to agree with this for free partioning tool. but if you have vista then just its built in one.
If you´re in doubt just back up your files to an external drive or that first
If you´re in doubt just back up your files to an external drive or that first
| Tumbleweed wrote: | ||
Try vista's built in disk managment, I created a 10gb partition with it , and of course its free if you allready have vista |
Where is it?. Cant seem 2 locate it!!
| ssthanapati wrote: | ||||
Where is it?. Cant seem 2 locate it!! |
Go to Control panel - system and maintenance - administrive tools - computer management - storage..... or right click "My computer" and select manage,
Shrink your selected partition/drive and create a new partition with the now unallocated space.
| Quote: |
| Try vista's built in disk managment, I created a 10gb partition with it , and of course its free if you allready have vista |
dats what i did due, created total 3 partitions , it works real good without any issues[/quote]
Partition magick works very well, but its not faultless...
you should at least backup you "unreinstalable" data into a dvd ....
you should at least backup you "unreinstalable" data into a dvd ....
| ssthanapati wrote: |
| I recently bought a laptop. It has vista installed. It only has c drive. I want to partition it without losing the data. Wats the safest way to do it if at all it is possible |
Just a word of caution.
Use what ever you want to use but no matter what you heard or read about a particular utility's reliability. Remember three things
1. BACKUP
2. BACKUP
3. BACKUP
If you already have vista installed and it seeems to do the job then just use it.
Personally, I always have a knoppix CD handy, so t hat I have ready access to F/LOSS tools in case some goes haywire and data becomes inaccessible I can always recover.
i normally use partition magic for partitioning jobs. but there are other similar softwares out there that can achieve the same thing. it is up to you which one you want to use. i have only use partition magic under windows so far, so that's the only one that i can recommend as it is reliable as far as i am concern.
I would say use the tool that comes with your OS whenever possible. Vista apparently does have an NTFS resizer tool in its built in partition manager, so use that. Next up would be loading a livecd and partitioning from there, as NTFSResize for Linux to resize the filesystem, combined with FDisk to actually resize the partition, managed through GParted to make things easier for yourself, does a pretty good job. And yes, remember to backup everything.
you have to backup ur data once and then partion ur hard drive ..
incase if u use inbuilt disk management .. if somehow ur vista crash then u r in nomans land and think how u recover ur data so its better to have small backup and partion ur drive
then ur drive there is no worries from data ur data will be safe in other partion ...
incase if u use inbuilt disk management .. if somehow ur vista crash then u r in nomans land and think how u recover ur data so its better to have small backup and partion ur drive
then ur drive there is no worries from data ur data will be safe in other partion ...
You should ALWAYS backup a partition before resizing it, as several Frihosters have already pointed out. But you should also check that you can restore the backup, should the need arise.
This is especially true (both backup and restore check) when you're dealing with the ACTIVE partition (i.e. the one containing the operating system).
You managed to resize your partition using Vista's built in resizer - that's good.
But imagine if you had lost power, or had a sytem crash for some other reason, during the resize procedure. You might well have lost the contents of the partition, and wouldn't be able to boot your PC.
So how to backup a partition, and check that you can restore the backup?
My favourite software for backing up is Norton Ghost (currently v. 12.0). You need really good backup software like this to backup the active partition and then be able to restore it should the need arise (booting from the recovery CD).
You can backup your partition to free unpartitioned space on the disk - my favourite - but of course this requires that you have free unpartitioned space available, which most folks don't. Otherwise, backup to an external drive.
Then check you can restore the backup by actually doing so. Once again, free unpartitioned space on your disk comes in handy. Actually, it was when I tried this with my new PC that I found I needed to upgrade my Norton Ghost from 9.0 to 12.0, as the 9.0 recovery CD I had didn't recognise my disk controller. The new version allows you to load a driver from diskette (just like Windows XP installation does). If I hadn't noticed this, I would have had a perfect backup with no way to restore it!
Hope you guys out there take notice of these wise words and thus avoid grief in the future!
This is especially true (both backup and restore check) when you're dealing with the ACTIVE partition (i.e. the one containing the operating system).
You managed to resize your partition using Vista's built in resizer - that's good.
But imagine if you had lost power, or had a sytem crash for some other reason, during the resize procedure. You might well have lost the contents of the partition, and wouldn't be able to boot your PC.
So how to backup a partition, and check that you can restore the backup?
My favourite software for backing up is Norton Ghost (currently v. 12.0). You need really good backup software like this to backup the active partition and then be able to restore it should the need arise (booting from the recovery CD).
You can backup your partition to free unpartitioned space on the disk - my favourite - but of course this requires that you have free unpartitioned space available, which most folks don't. Otherwise, backup to an external drive.
Then check you can restore the backup by actually doing so. Once again, free unpartitioned space on your disk comes in handy. Actually, it was when I tried this with my new PC that I found I needed to upgrade my Norton Ghost from 9.0 to 12.0, as the 9.0 recovery CD I had didn't recognise my disk controller. The new version allows you to load a driver from diskette (just like Windows XP installation does). If I hadn't noticed this, I would have had a perfect backup with no way to restore it!
Hope you guys out there take notice of these wise words and thus avoid grief in the future!
I recommend not using any fancy backup software. Just copy over everything important to a cd-r, floppy, dvd-r, zip disk, or whatever you have. Usually most programs can be reinstalled, it's the data you made that matters, so it doesn't take too much space. Then if something goes wrong, you know you can reinstall everything and still have your one-of-a-kind data.
please do not use any third party software for formatting..
the best option would be to right click on my computer
select "manage"
go to "disk management"
and from there create partitions.
its an disk management utility provided by Microsoft..
also convert your Disks to "Dynamic Disks"
it will increase the performance and also give you ability to create RAID drives and enable advanced disk management features..
the best option would be to right click on my computer
select "manage"
go to "disk management"
and from there create partitions.
its an disk management utility provided by Microsoft..
also convert your Disks to "Dynamic Disks"
it will increase the performance and also give you ability to create RAID drives and enable advanced disk management features..
I've always used Gparted for partitioning. It's really easy and I've never had any problems with it. You just need to burn the iso file to the cd, and boot up with the cd.
| justtj wrote: |
| please do not use any third party software for formatting..
the best option would be to right click on my computer select "manage" go to "disk management" and from there create partitions. its an disk management utility provided by Microsoft.. also convert your Disks to "Dynamic Disks" it will increase the performance and also give you ability to create RAID drives and enable advanced disk management features.. |
Well how do i partition it from there... More details please
I agree with the poster slightly above. BACKUP. I've never had partition magic do insane things to me... but it can happen and has happened to other people. You might be able to use windows built-in disk management too.
Hello Sillyman
Your advice on 23rd March:
is very practical.
The reason I suggested a solution that allows you to recover the system drive intact is because I personally have a lot of software installed, some of which requires a good deal of configuration, so I save many hours of reinstallation using this technique.
But I guess that for the great majority of folks out there the key issue is just to make sure you have a backup of your own documents and data.
Your advice on 23rd March:
| Quote: |
| I recommend not using any fancy backup software. Just copy over everything important to a cd-r, floppy, dvd-r, zip disk, or whatever you have. Usually most programs can be reinstalled, it's the data you made that matters, so it doesn't take too much space. Then if something goes wrong, you know you can reinstall everything and still have your one-of-a-kind data. |
is very practical.
The reason I suggested a solution that allows you to recover the system drive intact is because I personally have a lot of software installed, some of which requires a good deal of configuration, so I save many hours of reinstallation using this technique.
But I guess that for the great majority of folks out there the key issue is just to make sure you have a backup of your own documents and data.
 |