[Solved] Quick partitioning question...

When I setup my Win7/Vista dual boot...I didn't allow Windows 7 enough space...mainly because I thought Vista had my stuff and I may, at least one day, log back into it...

My 7 partition is 48.8GB...my Vista partition is 92GB. Now that they are both active, can I still somehow swap over space without having to reformat one of my OSes? I tried using GParted when I did my first install of 7 and didn't have any more luck than Vista's tool (even without MBR file and all).

If I can figure out how to get about 80GB total on my 7 drive...I would be very thankful.

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You should be able to resize drive partitions using the Disk Management wizard in both Vista and 7.

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Reply to The_Prophecy

partition magic would have worked, not sure if its still available.

however you could use a bootable cd (bartpe or whatever itwas called), move both sets of files from each partition to a seperate location and then re-partition the original drive, and replace the files, set the attributes so its bootable and that should work.

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Reply to 13thmonkey

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13thmonkey wrote :

partition magic would have worked, not sure if its still available.

however you could use a bootable cd (bartpe or whatever itwas called), move both sets of files from each partition to a seperate location and then re-partition the original drive, and replace the files, set the attributes so its bootable and that should work.

Not only is this method much more complicated than it needs to be, it also doesn't work. Re-partitioning the drive in this fashion completely screws up the Vista and 7 boot loaders. Partition Magic also can't read Vista and 7 created partitions (yes, despite the fact that they are still NTFS), nor can it properly re-create them.

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Reply to The_Prophecy

There's a utility called gparted that can shift your partitions around and it seems to keep boot loaders and such intact - I've used to do do a Vista 64-XP 32 dual-boot after Vista was installed and messed about with partition sizes after the event.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ and grab the disc ISO - all bootable and runs in a cut-down Linux environment.

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Reply to LePhuronn

The_Prophecy wrote :

Not only is this method much more complicated than it needs to be, it also doesn't work. Re-partitioning the drive in this fashion completely screws up the Vista and 7 boot loaders. Partition Magic also can't read Vista and 7 created partitions (yes, despite the fact that they are still NTFS), nor can it properly re-create them.

Good, that'll stop me doing it later on then...

Reply to 13thmonkey

LePhuronn wrote :

There's a utility called gparted that can shift your partitions around and it seems to keep boot loaders and such intact - I've used to do do a Vista 64-XP 32 dual-boot after Vista was installed and messed about with partition sizes after the event.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ and grab the disc ISO - all bootable and runs in a cut-down Linux environment.

Works almost just like Partition Magic but it seems to work faster and better also its free so my vote is for Gparted as well.

I love when something free works better then a paid version

Reply to JonathanDeane

LePhuronn wrote :

There's a utility called gparted that can shift your partitions around and it seems to keep boot loaders and such intact - I've used to do do a Vista 64-XP 32 dual-boot after Vista was installed and messed about with partition sizes after the event.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ and grab the disc ISO - all bootable and runs in a cut-down Linux environment.

Hmm... seems Gparted has had a few updates since I last attempted this. I tried on a Vista install about 6 months ago with the intention of repartitioning the drive to accommodate an install of one of the early 7 beta builds. I was able to change the partition structure to my liking, but when I tried to boot back into Vista, it wouldn't let me in no matter what I tried.

I still think that for what the OP is trying to achieve, the built in partition resizing options of Vista and/or 7 will do just fine, but if you want to use Gparted, then let us know how it goes!

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Reply to The_Prophecy

Also look at Partition Wizard, I was using it at work the other day(they actually had a free Business Edition). But that worked suprisingly well for just deleting 1 partition and resizing another. Was not perfect, but I was dealing with Ghosted machines, so that could be part of my issues. I used it in Windows XP, but it show Windows 7 support on their site.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

Message edited by ohiou_grad_06 on 09-22-2009 at 05:20:57 AM

Reply to ohiou_grad_06

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[Solved] Quick partitioning question...

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