Help on "unpartitioning" a HD

M

Mostly Harmless

Internet Traffic Regulator
=(e)=
Joined
Sep 10, 2007
Messages
3,042
I was looking around the web and found a video on unpartitioning a HD.


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-gvLhUpScI[/ame]

My problem is this. I have a 150GB HD as my main. I have it partitioned as 30GB and 120GB. The 30GB partition has vista on it, and its almost full. I have moved as many files as i can and with all the updates and what-not its not getting any smaller. i have 3.77 GB left.

What i wanted to do was delete the 120 GB partition without having to reinstall windows. the only thing that is on the 120GB is steam and I can reinstall that a lot easier than vista.

My question is. In this video he shows how to delete the partition, but what i want to know is will it effect vista if i do it this way because its on the OS drive? (if im explaining this right)
 
Might want to use Partition Magic, the windows thing might do it just not sure if i trust it. It can resize your partition without having to reinstall, as far as i know. There are risks involved and some stability issues that you might face down the road. Just make sure before you do anything that the partitions are defragmented well and i would run a check disk too.
 
Mostly Harmless said:
My problem is this. I have a 150GB HD as my main. I have it partitioned as 30GB and 120GB. The 30GB partition has vista on it, and its almost full. I have moved as many files as i can and with all the updates and what-not its not getting any smaller. i have 3.77 GB left.

What i wanted to do was delete the 120 GB partition without having to reinstall windows. the only thing that is on the 120GB is steam and I can reinstall that a lot easier than vista.

My question is. In this video he shows how to delete the partition, but what i want to know is will it effect vista if i do it this way because its on the OS drive? (if im explaining this right)
Click to expand...

As long as you do not touch the 30 GB where the OS is installed there should not be a problem at all and your system should boot just fine and you can reinstall Steam later on.
But as Frank says It is much better to use Partition Magic or Partition Commander they are both good software to use. Make sure you have the System restoration Disk just in case you mess up, but it should not happen.

Servant.
 
Yea, I'd definitely rely on a third party tool such as Partition Magic or Paragon Partition Manager.

If you don't touch the partition with the OS on it, everything will be perfectly fine. However, some registry settings (If you delete Steam on the non-OS partition) will be messed, but that's not a huge problem.
 
why delete your second partition when you can shrink it and then extend your primary partition where your OS is installed? I have not tried it personally but that should work.

Also, Windows Disk Management utility is fine.
 
I agree with spooky on this one. Just shrink the 120 so you don't need to reinstall anything. Leave some space for steam expansion on the 120 partition and then make the 30 bigger.
 
spooky said:
why delete your second partition when you can shrink it and then extend your primary partition where your OS is installed? I have not tried it personally but that should work.

Also, Windows Disk Management utility is fine.
Click to expand...

How is that done? using the management tool?
 
Control Panel > Admin Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management > Right click on volume and select shrink volume.
 
True that will work just fine Only thing why I did not suggest it earlier is because he said "He wanted to do was delete the 120 GB" But If resizing works good for Him then It is the best option as you guys have said.

Peace.
 
Best way I can think of is just to pop your vista cd in and boot computer from it.
After you boot from cd it will load a menu asking to install vista, click yes and it will take you to another option or two and then it should be disk driver options... all you need to do is click the 120GB partition and from the options below select format, it will format your 120GB drive in about 40 seconds and after this cancel out of the install menu and restart your computer and you should have a clean 120GB partition with the 30GB vista still intact. I have done it this way many times so I can't see why it wouldn't work for you.
 
Servant said:
True that will work just fine Only thing why I did not suggest it earlier is because he said "He wanted to do was delete the 120 GB" But If resizing works good for Him then It is the best option as you guys have said.

Peace.
Click to expand...

I honestly didnt think it could be done. I thought deleteing the partition was the only option. Ill give it a shot. Thanks for all your help fellas. :)
 
kILlInGSpReE said:
Best way I can think of is just to pop your vista cd in and boot computer from it.
After you boot from cd it will load a menu asking to install vista, click yes and it will take you to another option or two and then it should be disk driver options... all you need to do is click the 120GB partition and from the options below select format, it will format your 120GB drive in about 40 seconds and after this cancel out of the install menu and restart your computer and you should have a clean 120GB partition with the 30GB vista still intact. I have done it this way many times so I can't see why it wouldn't work for you.
Click to expand...

This will not change the fact that your 30GB partition is full and you have no real safe way of changing the partition size without the loss of data.
I once used a linux boot disk to change my windows partition size and it was successful and I didn't lose any data but it's kinda risky, not really sure if you would be willing to try it but thought I would let you know.
 
shouldn't you just be able to set the 30GB as the default boot drive then use the 120GB partition for all your storage?
 
I had a chat with mostly on vent earlier today and what he wanted to do was re-combine the 120GB Drive back into the 30GB Drive, the reason behind this is his OS drive (30GB) was nearing its space limit because of updates new programs etc etc.

Unfortuantly that is not possible to re-combine the 120GB to the 30GB it is however undenyably true that Pertition Magic can do the exact reverse even on an active pertition example, you got 150GB hard drive but you want a second Logical Drive for whatever purpose (not really a harddrive more like a vitural hard drive on the physical hard drive) but thats not what hes trying to do.

You could re-combine the Logical Hard Drive back as one but not without formating and losing all of the data on the hard drive.

The only option which in the end would have brought him to it if he had attempted to re-combine the hard drives without formating would have ended in failure and having to re-install and re-pertition and format the hard drive any way thus losing all the data.

Don't hold it against me, there may be a way to re-combine the Logical Hard Drive back as one without formatting but I have'nt heard of such a program that can do that right now.

If you know how to re-combine a Logical Hard Drive back as one without formatting and losing all the data please let us know.

-e MpTy
 
Sorry I just found out myself that there is a way to do it with Dual Boot but you need 2 phyiscal hard drives to pull this off, now I fully understand that video that Mostly has posted.

The person in the video Deleted the disk volume or also known as Pertition for Logical Drive to be re-joined as one, once he did that he then went to the 37GB drive and selected "Extend" at the time I did'nt fully understand the "Extend" Volume but now I do, what will happen is, it will extend the pertition from the 37GB to the logical drive to match pertitions and then format that logical drive effectly re-joining it as one again. Note: the 37GB drive does not get formated but the Logical Drive does to allow it to be re-joined.

FYI you can not do this while running the OS on the drive you are trying to extend, has to be done on another OS on another hard drive lets says Disk 0 and you want Disk 1 to be extend which is also your main system hard drive you use then you can extend it without error onto the logical drive without formating the OS Drive.

However Mostly does not have dual boot system so the only other option would be to use Linux on a Live CD.

I don't know anything about linux so if someone can suggest the best Linux Live CD version and a How-To it would save mostly from having to reinstall Vista.
 
Last edited:
kILlInGSpReE said:
Best way I can think of is just to pop your vista cd in and boot computer from it.
After you boot from cd it will load a menu asking to install vista, click yes and it will take you to another option or two and then it should be disk driver options... all you need to do is click the 120GB partition and from the options below select format, it will format your 120GB drive in about 40 seconds and after this cancel out of the install menu and restart your computer and you should have a clean 120GB partition with the 30GB vista still intact. I have done it this way many times so I can't see why it wouldn't work for you.
Click to expand...

Guess I wasn't really thinking to well here, lol, all you need to do is right click the drive and click format and it will accomplish the same thing... what I was trying to say is you have partitioning/formating options from your vista cd. Anyways linux should do the trick for this, you should just be able to delete the 120GB partition, resize the 30GB and create new partition with leftover space without the loss of data keeping your OS files intact.
Be warned it's still kinda risky so don't blame me if it doesn't work out the way it should. Good Luck!!

PS: I think when I did it I used an old version of Mandrake but I'm not really sure
that you can find it for download anymore cause they changed to mandriva and it's not the same OS but really any linux install disk should work.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

GracieTheCat
If you were to have one item from any video game, what would it be?
Replies
1
Views
222
LukePyro
LukePyro
Saf
  • Sticky
Official eGO Minecraft Player Guide
Replies
1
Views
1K
Saf
Saf

Latest posts

Back
Top