Discuss: How to Repartition Hard Drive without Reformatting

[Osc]

This is the discussion thread for the How to Repartition Hard Drive without Reformatting article.

[Paulio]

Hello,

I visited your site and read the tutorial on "repartitioning hard drive without reformatting" and downloaded Simply MEPIS as recommended.
I downloaded version 3.3.1-1 around 700MB.
I am running Windows XP with SP2 I have a 40G hard drive currently 4 partitions @ 10G each, I wish to repartition HD to 2 partitions @ 20G each.

After unzipping the file I made a CD image using Nero, this is where I am uncertain as the image is simply made up of 4 folders - boot, floppies, linux, pkgs and then 6 other various files.
The tutorial appears straight forward enough, I know to defrag HD first and to backup important files before launching into repartitioning.
What I want to know is if the CD image isnt done correctly will I stuff up my HD or operating system.
I may seem all rather simple but dont want to reinstall the OS again if it doesnt work.

Thanks in advance for any feed back.

[Osc]

If the CD image isn't done correctly, the Disc simply won't load when you try to boot from it. If it loads up OK into MEPIS, then you should have no problems.

Good luck!

[johntheI]

ok, when I try to repartition the drive, how does this linux program 'know' to use empty space on the drive to use to expand the drive, and not use existing files and use them for the new space?
Like if I have a 200 GB drive, 180 is on a C drive and 20 is D drive, and 100 GB of the C drive is already in use, how does the program know not to use some of the 100 GB that is in use already when I want to increase the D to 40 GB?

[rui.paz]

Hi,

Good tutorial. Only to say that System Rescue CD http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page
can be a alternative to MEPIS
its only 118MB and includes QtParted and other tools.

___
RP

[jaymann]

I followed all your instructions and when I commit changes it acts as if its working and then when it completes it just shows the one partition... any suggestions?

[Grim322]

ow much free space do you have on your drive and how big is the drive? Charlie

[eliriousd]

have a Western Digital USB Harddrive Model:WD1200B014 and i accidentally deleted the partition when i was reinstalling windows on my pc. I installed XP on the hdd in the computer and left the drive as unpartitoned space I had transfered all of my important data on to this drive and i was wondering if it was possible to repartition the drive without formatting it? I really want to save my files and wanted to know if i can fix it using this method?

[LinuxNewb]

I have a question, I have a 80 GB hard drive and I want to repartion it without reformating. Now I followed all the steps to do it with QtParted on linux and the distributer I'm using is Knoppix 4.0 everything is fine i know it will work once I hit file and then commit but I was just wondering when it tells me to pick my new size, do i put the size of the new disk drive that I want or the size that I want to shrink windows too. For eg......... 80GB hard drive with xp home already installed.............. now when I click on resize I believe its going to resize my xp so, what i'm asking is to I change it to 70GB new size or do I put the actual size of the new drive I want to create like 10GB because when I do 10GB and that whole procedure it makes my New drive 10GB active with NTFS and my disk drive with xp which shows it has 70GB left is not active no more and the file system if free?????????? That is my main concern , any suggestions would be most appreciated.! :lol:

[Grim322]

You will enter the new size of the drive you are working with. So if you are working with drive hda1 (usually the name for the main Windows drive), you would resize it to 70, it would then show 10gb of unallocated space. Then you create a new partition in that space. It will show you what you are doing before you hit commit, so if it isn't what you want, you can change it. Charlie