[Grimm]

so i got my second drive working and obviously, i need more .

i just got windows vista home prem and i amnot gonna install it on my little 40g, so im gonna partition the big 300 into 2 seperate volumes with 150g each. now, how do i do that?

theres windows xp on a full 300g partition already installed, so can i cut this partition without losing data? and if so, will i do it from my 40g/thru command prompt/a program?

i have the original cd for the 300 drive that includes a partitioner, but im not sure if i should use it or not, idk. any help from anyone?

[Darfin]

This post might as well be a PM to Chantelle. Lol. Chantelle knows everything

[saunby]

haha, yea, i just dont get these things ^_^

[Grimm]

well i know mel is great at this stuff too, along with numerous other ppl, so its an open topic for now

[RaVeN]

http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1778

[Grimm]

i looked at that ravem but i dont think it fits wut i have. cuz i have a full partitioned hard drive with an OS on it that i cant access from the second hard drive....i could try making it a dynamic hard drive but im not sure wut risks and all that crap

[Chantelle]

No dont make it dynamic.. thats for other reasons which there is no need to explain.. Can I just get clarification on what you currently have setup..

Windows XP on your 40GB? nothing on your 300GB?

Right you want vista on the 300 GB disc but partitioned?

okay first of all your best bet to do that would be to start by unplugging your 40GB for now...

Enter Vista setup.. I cannot remember much of the vista setup on the fly but it shoudl ask you to make a partition.. make a new NTFS partition but it will ask you for the size..

it should say something like 314572800 Kbytes available (it wont be exactly that maybe something like that).. so type 150000000. and it will setup and install windows on 150GB (approx) of the drive... when your in windows vista.. now this is liekley to be in a different place, if you get stuck ill boot up in vista and look but in control panel and administrative tools look for computer manager.. (this by the way I am going of XP I know vista may arrange it or name thinsg differently but it will be the same roughly)...

look for the disk maangement and then you will see "unallocated space" right click and setup primary partition on that and fomrat it again as NTFS..


Suggestion.. what I do is have windows on a partition, music and programs on another and games on another.. so should the rare occasion be I have to wipe and start my windows again I dont have to reinstall or replenish my files the partitions remain untouched... So you could do say a 40 -60 GB (for Vista) for the OS and then two 130 paritions... just an idea..

[Nintendo]

Also dont forget your paging which you could do in the OS if im not mistaken.

[Chantelle]

windows does set a page file / virtual memory anyway which is determined by your RAM size.. normally its set to 1.5 - 3 times

there is an advantage to set it to a seperate physicl drive so that the omputer can read from teh two disks simultaneously therefore not having to read all from teh same disk which is in iteself a bottleneck..

However partitioning wont change that it is a physical

[Darko]

WoW chan you owned that problem

[Wanderer]

im reading this at 8 in the morning b4 finals so im like "ugh....comp talk hurts my brain" but i skiped to ravens post and saw she sent grimm a BEGINERS GUIDE....rofl

and darko, why r u talking about world of warcraft(im sorry, bad joke.im just REALY bored...)

[Chantelle]

Dunno even If anything I have said has helped yet :s

If it is what he wants, its a peice of piss to set up.. he could do it with his eyes closed.

[Grimm]

unfortunately it wont be a piece of piss ur stated config was off.=, which is causing the whole problem.

(and that beginners guide wand is very useful and in depth......for something else lol)

No dont make it dynamic.. thats for other reasons which there is no need to explain..

RAID....ya no need for that atm.

no, if i had the setup u sed id be alright, the problem is i have xp on both drives, but the 300 drive is completely partitioned to the first windows, so it cant partition itself in windows. the second drive which has windows xp also, cant access the first drive at all (i have to open the comp and unplug the 300 everytime i need to access the 40, which is everyday ) so that cant be used to partition it either. i could try cmd prompt, but i dont know how much control i have over partitioning and id need to practicve b4 hand...

i could try a program, but how would i run it and from which hard drve, unless it was a boot disk....

EDIT: the 300 is for my family, but i held down most of the disk space, thats why i moved to the seperate hard drive. going back to that hard drive i say i would have a clean 200GB if needed, maybe a little more

[Chantelle]

you do realise that partitioning will wipe the contents?

you might aswell proceed to setup on the 300 with a full installation which will inevitably wipe the first one if u intend to install vista on it. i wasnt suggetsing you setup the initial partition in windows , during the setup.

is the 40GB FAT32 or NTFS?, fat32 systems cannot read ntfs partitions..

dynamic discs incidentally are basically discs which can span data of several physical discs into one logical volume.. one example is raid but you have stripe sets, spanned volumes etc.

[Grimm]

i didnt realize partitioning would wipe data, i thought u could cut partitioned space that isnt used....o well. that makes it even worse. the 40gb is NTFS, the reason it doesnt read the 300 is that the 300 is unplugged everytime i use the 40. even if i plug it back in when im in the 40, it wont read it. i dont have a boot manager/the comp wont dual boot automatically for some reason, so i have to unplug the primary 300 to get to the secondary 40.....

[FlapJack23]

I tried this, but my Pc crashed, and died when it made the changes. I would nuke the entire partition on the 40gb drive and install there. Write all your data to a DVD or something and install away. Also, did you get the upgrade, or just the entire version of vista home premium?

[Grimm]

entire vista home prem, it has been having problems upgrading, it must doa fresh install. i would put it on this drive, but its too small for 4gb of music, who knows how much crap for movies, sigs, photoshop....etc. right now just with xp i only have 13gb left

[Chantelle]

Vista on 40GB drive?

Forget it. vista itself will take up 50% of that.

ps you shouldnt plug in the drives while teh machine is on... they are not hot swappable.

[Darko]

Ok

World of warcraft? no im not talking about that....just because i Happen to make the two W's caps doesn't mean im talking about a game when it has absolutely no relevance to the topic.


How can you survive on a 40gig memory? thats insane! my games would take up that!

[Grimm]

ps you shouldnt plug in the drives while teh machine is on... they are not hot swappable.

i dont usually, i tried it once to no avail. i always power it down, unplug my 300 to make the system boot to the other...

40g is exactly why i dont have games on here. i have KOTOR on and nothing else, but i wanna get JA back on with all my mods so i can use that new mod coming out. so that, and combined with wanting to use vista, im trying to get it back on my 300. looks like ill have to move data and repartition.

[Chantelle]

Well have you tried parition magic?

That has ways of trying to paritioning existing partitions without the need to format..

I will warn you though I do think these things carry a risk.. backup before you dive in.

I have used parition magic before, alot of times its worked great but I have seen times where it hasnt gone so well and one time it refused to work altogether..

by the way you need to setup primary partitions for Operating systems to be installed on.

Do you intend to dual boot? if you have partitions for like music games etc.. you can wipe and install OS/s on without touching these partitions. you may need to restore game installs to replenish resgitry settings though..