2 partitions, want to make drive 1 partition

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Peter.Cort

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hey, so yeah the deal is i made a partition for 5gb for windows, and a 110 gb partition for all my other stuff. well i want to just make everything easier and make it one whole drive, so can i do that? i don't have anything on the 110gb drive and don't want to go through a fresh install of windows.
 
XP or Vista? not that it matters since GParted will easily do the work there since you can't resize the primary partition while running the OS that is installed on it. With nothing on the second 110gb partition that will make things even easier since you won't have to shrink that first to increase the size of the primary in order to move files over from it.

With nothing on the second one there you can simply delete it entirely. But before expanding the small primary where Windows is installed you will want to back anything importent up and then decide on the partitioning tool you will use.

The Linux drive tool namely the Gnome Partition Editor(GParted) has a few live for cd releases that are able to work with MS, Apple, Solaris types of partitions as well as Linux VFat. If you have a cd or dvd burner and a blank cd-r all it will take is to follow simple instructions.

First is the actual documentation with screen shots for the free Linux tool seen at GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - GENERALITIES

The last "platform independent" rlease the 0.3.3.0 exactly the way you see it here is the correct one to use on the bootable cd-r you will need to create for this. SourceForge.net: Files

The free version of BurnOn has proven itself repeatedly to be the reliable program for burning the 35mb iso disk inage onto a blank cd-r. Once burned to disk and you boot from it you can reach the main gui simply by pressing the enter at each of the initial prompts to see it fully load up.

The defaults work so ignore the 24/32bit choices since Linux is 24bit there. The default resolution of 1024x768 is where to leave that unless you have a 20-24" lcd you are working with to keep everything visible onscreen. Once you answer yes to the confirmation prompt you will see what looks a small box with a scrolling tab appear while the changes are being made.
 
Its definately not vista if the partition is only 5gb. But as far as i know i dont think you can do it without 3rd party software. On the same note, where in vista do i have it scan for my unformatted drives.
 
Vista only uses about 2gb for files and by default about 2gb for the paging file where it would fit on a 5gb primary. You just couldn't plan on putting anything else on there along with it. :p

Simply booting up with the XP or Vista disk allows for deletion or creation of partitions iwth the drive tools there. Now Vista sees the ability to format and resize partitions that required a 3rd party tool for XP. It's unfortunate that only a few of the live for cd versions of GParted are platform independent while you can see a full page of the non live versions that are at SourceForge.net: Files

 
I've found that PartitionMagic works pretty well for me, and works either within Windows or froma boot disk, although it's not free. You can do the same thing eyeCpc suggested and shrink your large partition, expand the windows partition, move the files, and then delete the extra partition.
 
Was that with GParted or did he wipe the drive completely to start fresh?
 
Though I am late I do have one suggestion for future. Partition magic, no, Other partition tools, no

---- > Norton Ghost 2003 or Norton Ghost 11 (DOS versions only).
 
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