[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by makada

Wait a minute here.
Do I have to make a total backup of my hard drive first. You mean I have to buy this ACronis... also.
The Toshiba came with a 120Gb drive
I thought a decent 55-55 Gb partition will be ok
Currently there are a total of 35 GB of matter on C:

No, you don't need Acronis for this. Don't get lost in all the side-chatter .

Just right-click the Vista partition in Disk Management and shrink it.

Right-click Computer > Manage > Disk Management.

Then, right-click the new space and partition and format it. Assign any available drive letters. Make it NTFS.

[Noyb]

I don't think makada will have any problem resizing ...
But I have had Vista resize mess me up.
The subject of Acronis was to backup just in case.

Also ..
Can one of two Partitions be recovered using the Vista recovery DVDs without wiping out the Data partition ?
I never tried this.
If Not .. then He shouldn't partition for a Data partition unless he has a recovery plan/method

[Courtneyc]

He can't resize the partition. He has Vista. You can only resize a drive that is a (1) dynamic volume, (2) is not a system volume and (3) is not a boot volume. He may be able to create the dynamic volume (normally Vista will not allow it on a laptop), but he can't get away from the fact that the drive is both a system and a boot drive.

Note that you also can't make a dynamic disk on an external drive. This all applies to both Vista and XP.

Courtney

[makada]

I am getting confused.
Post #16 and #18 are exactly opposite
What should I believe?

Come on Guys, help me out here. If I need to get confused I will just visit one of the microsoft's technical forums.

[Courtneyc]

Makada:

Vista supports a feature called Dynamic Volumes. Unlike partitions, you can have virtually unlimited volumes on a drive (Microsoft recommends no more than 30). You can also resize these volumes and even extend volumes across multiple drives. It also supports mirroring (RAID 1), striping (RAID 0) and striping with parity (RAID 5).

To start, all you have to do is convert your disks from basic (the default) to dynamic. Your partitions become volumes, and you can do all the stuff above.

However, you can't reduce a volume without losing the volume entirely, but you can extend it. Also, you can't resize, stripe, or stripe with parity on a drive that is either a system or a boot disk (although you can mirror it).

Since your friend's drive is both a system drive (has Windows installed on it) and a boot drive (it's the only drive in the system), you can't change its size without losing data.

Your other problem is that he more than likely won't have a retail version of Vista; he has a restore disk. The restore disk brings your system back to the state it was when he purchased it. That means repartitioning the drive.

Elvandil would be correct on any other drive, but not on the system/boot drive.

Sorry.

Courtney

[Noyb]

If your Buddy doesn't intend to collect a huge amount of data ..
And you don't have a Recovery plan for the C: System drive ... and your Data separately ..
you probably should Not Partition it.

http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewstory.php?t=78111

[managed]

You can shrink a simple volume, I've just done it in Vista.

[Noyb]

Right click on "Computer " .. choose Manage > Disc Management ...
Right click on the C: partition ....

Do you see Shrink Volume ??? ... It won't be there if it won't work ...
Can I boot back to a good XP computer now ???

[prose072]

Someone , Please tell her if she is going to split that drive and partition into a D: not to make it more than 12-15GB for recovery...She stated that she was going much larger.

[Noyb]

Sure you're not confusing this with an OEM supplied recovery partition ???
I interpreted this for a separate Data partition .. It can be as large as you want,
as long as enough room is saved for the OS.

[prose072]

I agree, however its only a 120GB hard drive, whats the point of splitting it unless its recovery or backup?

[Noyb]

Quick recovery and simple maintenance of the OS partition without having to worry about the Data.

My 80 gig XP laptop is even partitioned ... and I can even recover the OS from the Data partition if my external is not handy.
The OS recovery file is just another Data file ... among many others

[prose072]

I still agree with you, but you have to look at what the intentions of the use of the partition drive is for. She state that 35GB is already used. that leaves roughly 85GB hard drive space. If she wanted to use a large program and many mor she could run them from the Partition as long as she doesn't interfere with the integrity of the OS drive. Then what happens when she has a large program and theres not enough space on either drive to accept the full application. More than 15GB sure, But she should consider how its going to be used in judgement of size. Therefore, the split should not be determined on what you have , but what she is going to use it for( file, applications, backups, personal files, or application installtion) All I am saying is you are right, but let her determine on the size by how its going to be used. I agree with you point, however my point is just as sustainable.
She has not stated what shes going to partition its use for and that alone should determine the partition size on the split

[Noyb]

Read post #4

[prose072]

Originally Posted by Noyb

Read post #4

Well that says it all...she wants it for backup and recovery, at least thats what I understand. Lets ask her.