Make Room for a New Partition

[ReptiGuy]

How can I make room on my Hard Drive so that I can create a new Partition with 16 GB so I can Duel Boot Windows XP and Windows 7?

I have two accounts on my computer and I deleted all the programs and files on my account to get more Hard Drive space and when I used GParted to make a new partition I went to the blank partition and I looked at the top and it said I had to have a minimum of 8 MB and a maximum of 8 MB . I just deleted around 8 programs and all my files and I know that would create more than 8 MB or free space.

So why is it only saying that I have 8 MB and how can I make more room?

I couldn't make the other partition with XP any smaller.

I just bought a 620 GB external hard drive today so I may have to move all my computers files to it to see if that will create more free space.

 

[Luke]

Defrag and run disk clean up.

As to the min 8mb max 8mb, i do not know.

 

[GordyMac]

Have you tried maybe using a different program to create the partition?

 

[KSoD]

I think i know why. It is because when Windows XP installs it creates this 8MB partition. So what you are seeing is only this partition which is only 8MB which is why it is the min and max number.

You need to click on the XP Partition and Shrink it down with GParted by taking 16 GB off of it and putting that free space at the end. Then you can merge that with the current 8MB and format it to NTFS which will allow you to dual boot XP/ Win7.

 

[Hampton]

I think i know why. It is because when Windows XP installs it creates this 8MB partition. So what you are seeing is only this partition which is only 8MB which is why it is the min and max number.

You need to click on the XP Partition and Shrink it down with GParted by taking 16 GB off of it and putting that free space at the end. Then you can merge that with the current 8MB and format it to NTFS which will allow you to dual boot XP/ Win7.

I didn't know it could be merged, very cool, I always use XP to create my partitions and always have the left over partition that XP creates which is always to small for anything, so it does pay to use third party software for this.

 

[KSoD]

Yes you can eliminate the 8MB partition with things like GParted. If you take a look at my Disk Mangement screen you will see that it is very possible not to even waste that 8MB.

If you look at my OS drive the very first one i created those partitions with GParted myself and not a single MB is wasted.

Granted i have a empty partition waiting for me to install Vista SP2 Escrow build but i am having to much fun with Win7 to do that right now.

 

[ReptiGuy]

I was able to get 22GB of free space so I ran GParted again and it won't let me resize the XP partition (/dev/hda1) for some reason.

It says I have to use at least 57020MB of space and 57028 at the most.

I took some screenshots when I was on GParted to show you what it looks like when I'm trying to resize the partition and it said it saved it in /root. Where is that? I can't find /root.

I defraged my computer and it still won't let me resize the XP partition.

 

[KSoD]

Again you have to Shrink your XP Drive. When you click on the XP Drive you should see the space before and the space after it empty right?

Like in this screen shot. The top and bottom should be empty. The middle should only be the place where space is registered. No click the Up Arrow on the bottom frame. This will start to shrink your partition and create a unallocated partition at the end of your drive.

The just right click on that and format it to NTFS.

 

[ReptiGuy]

Again you have to Shrink your XP Drive. When you click on the XP Drive you should see the space before and the space after it empty right?

Like in this screen shot. The top and bottom should be empty. The middle should only be the place where space is registered. No click the Up Arrow on the bottom frame. This will start to shrink your partition and create a unallocated partition at the end of your drive.

The just right click on that and format it to NTFS.

No there isn't any space to the left or right on the XP drive. That's why I want to show you guys the screenshots.

I would think there should be though because I just deleted some stuff and created 19GB of free space.

 

[KSoD]

There doesnt have to be space. That is why you use the option for Free Space Following and create unallocated space there.

You are trying to create a partition without first shrinking the drive. It wont work that way. You have to do what i said previously.

Use teh Free Space Following, even if there is nothing there, and click the Up arrow to give yourself the amount of space you want. Either that or put the value in manually.

This will create the partition. Anything other than this is not going to work because you are not shrinking the XP drive. But trying to create a partition from a partition that is already in existence. Which is a logical partition which you can not use for a install of Win7.