I need a good Partition Wizard

[Sombeech]

I need a good, FREE Windows Partition Wizard, and relatively quick. I'm working on a PC that has the C and D drive, but for some reason the D has all of the free space, and the C is filling up because it has all of the Windows files on it.

I'd like to put all of the OS files on the D drive, make it small, and open up the C drive.

.... or do I even need a Partition Wizard to do this?

[BruteForce]

I could "loan" a CD, but you'd need to come get it or meet me.

Which OS are you running?

[Sombeech]

Windows XP. I actually think I'm figuring it out. They've got some open space on their D drive, but everything by default installs to the C drive because that's where the Windows and Program Files are.

I could manually drag their programs over to the D drive, but that's only a temporary fix. I'd like to either get rid of the D drive altogether, or just switch the OS files over there and keep the C drive wide open.

I just haven't done any kind of partitions before, so I'm not sure what I'm doing.

I'm in the Control Panel, Disk Management section, just looking around. :haha:

[BruteForce]

There are alternatives. There's a registry tweak you can set so D: is the default for installs, then another hack that redirects copied (C:\Program Files to D:\Program Files| directories to their new location. I believe both tools are by SysInternals, now a part of Microsoft.

[Sombeech]

There are alternatives. There's a registry tweak you can set so D: is the default for installs, then another hack that redirects copied (C:\Program Files to D:\Program Files| directories to their new location. I believe both tools are by SysInternals, now a part of Microsoft.

Hmm... that sounds like the right idea.

[theking648]

you should be able to delete the D: partition in start -> control panel -> Administarative Tools -> Computer Management.

then go to Disk Management on the left

in that you should be able to make or delete partions and change drive letters.

[Sombeech]

you should be able to delete the D: partition in start -> control panel -> Administarative Tools -> Computer Management.

then go to Disk Management on the left

in that you should be able to make or delete partions and change drive letters.

And all of the files stay, right? Would everything just move to the C drive then? That would be fine.

[theking648]

to be honest, i've never done it before.. it's been about 2 years since i've done partitions and i don't really remember what i did.

but it should always ask you... ""all files in this partition will be deleted, do you want to continue?""

in that case you would say no.



i'll do some research on it.

[theking648]

it looks like it would delete the info

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738489.aspx

i don't know if there is a way to delete and move the info at the same time.


i would transfer the info off of that partition to a external hard drive or slave drive then delete it and move the information back onto the hard drive.

[Deathcricket]

If i was in this situation I would load up this little goodie. http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/

It will do a complete scan of the hard drive and tell you where all the huge files are and what folders they are in. Then you should be able to detect where all the files are that are filling up the hard drive. You didn't say how big the drive was, but "windows files" shouldn't be that big. I think the biggest I ever see is 3 gigs for all system related files? They probably have a bunch of pictures or movies on there in a hidden folder, or maybe they have some huge temp file from a torrent that never downloaded.

Anyways, this makes my life easier when I run into this. I think the first step is to find out what's taking up so much space and why and where. If it's all legit, they need a new hard drive in my opinion.

Edit: the program isnt even 1mb (at least it wasnt when I downloaded it a year ago) so you can even load it by floppy if you need too.

[Thomas]

I don't know how good he is with partitions, but he is the best wizard I know! :ne_nau:

[Sombeech]

it looks like it would delete the info

Yeah, I think I'm going to just temporarily backup the files to another PC right now. It's only 6 GB of data on the D drive, so I'll move that, then delete the D partition so there's only the C drive left.

Thanks for the feedback guys. I'll have to mess around with this more in the future, but for now I've gotta get this PC back to them.

[Sombeech]

OK, so I deleted the D partition, but I expected that to just "merge" with the C drive.

Right now it's just Unallocated hard drive space, 40GB worth. How can I just merge it with the C drive?

and yes, I backed up the files before I deleted them.

[theking648]

can't you go back into the Disk management and delete the space?

[Sombeech]

can't you go back into the Disk management and delete the space?

I'm not seeing that option. I'm in Computer Management, Disk Management. So in the top window it only shows the C drive with it's 15 GB or whatever, and below that it breaks it down to the C drive, and then 40GB of unallocated space. I can only view the properties or make a new partition.

Maybe the extended partition is the answer, hold on, let me take a look.

[theking648]

idk google it.