Is there a way to re-partition my main Hard Drive so that the space is more evenly distributed, without losing my data? I've got a 40 Gig main Hard drive, partitioned into a 15 Gig C: Drive, and a 25 Gig D: Drive. I am very close to hitting the max on the C: partition, but there is plenty of space available on the D: Partition. Is there any way to re-partition the drives and have the split more even (20 and 20?) to give me more room on the C: part, where Windows and most of my other program files reside?

Partition Magic will do it. There are likely free alternatives that will handle the task as well, I don't know any off the top of my head.

If you are running win XP pro, it can partition your drives.

WARNING- anytime you shrink a partition, there is risk of data loss or corruption. It doesn't matter how minimally you are shrinking it.

I am running XP Pro. How do I repartition with XP Pro?

supertruck - PartitionMagic is the software of choice to repartition drives WITHOUT data loss.

I was not aware that XP Pro can repartition WITHOUT data loss.

Something else to consider -

Add a 2nd drive, make it your D drive. Copy all the D drive contents to the new drive.

Get rid of the 2nd partition on the 40 Gb drive. Let it stay your C drive.

40 Gb is not very much space these days.

Partition Magic is the best choice, but it costs money. If you know someone who has it, have them make you a disk to do it.

There is still a risk of data corruption whenever you shrink a partition. It doesn't matter how good a program is, data can be corrupted.

XP pro does partitions in the Disk Management portion of the MMC. It may not be what you're after. I'm not sure if you can shrink your system partition there

Agree with Spicewood. For the cost of Partition Magic you can get a good sized drive.

If you don't buy OEM, most drives come with utility software that will copy the contents of your old drive to the new one for you. Then you can repartition the old drive partitions without fear of data loss. Plus, you'll have a backup.

That said, avoid Maxtor at all costs. I haven't owned one for several years. They had a good setup utility but the drive sucked azz.

partition magic is what you need - but as mentioned above things can still get corrupted.

if you want an open source alternative, check out gparted. ive heard some good things, but never used it myself.

i echo the comments of buying a second hdd and copying over your other data, then blasting the original D partition. hard drives are dirt cheap these days.

windows xp's disk manager will not perform resizing of partitions. it only lets you create a partition in previously unallocated/unused space.

Well, how about getting rid of the partition all together. I have 2 drives currently. a 40 gig (Partitioned) and an 80 Gig where I store random data.

I have cleaned the second partition of the main drive completely, so I am not worried about data loss on that one. I cannot, however, lose the data on the 1st partition where my OS resides. Is there any way to combine these partitions so that I then have only 1 40 gig drive and 1 80 gig one?

I'd rather not have to buy a new hard drive for this, considering I have plenty of space on the existing drives, and the PC is probably 7 years old (Athlon 1Ghz).

I don't think XP can do this without formatting the drive - which will cause loss of data.

Either:

1. buy partitionmagic

or

2. buy a disk image product like Acronis True Image to backup the C drive to your 80gb. then reformat the 40 Gb to have one partition, then restore the image backup

Partitionmagic will be quicker and less fussy but will probably cost more.

A free option would be to download a Linux distro. Step one in installation is setting up your partitions. You could shrink your current one there, exit the install, then boot up windows to format the now unused space. They do a good job of shrinking nowadays, but there is always risk of data corruption when shrinking a partition. This way will be riskier than PM, and I would still recommend PM, but it's free. I've done this many times (not for another ntfs partition), and the only time I had corrupted data was when I was shrinking an existing FAT32 partition which housed windows ME.

supertruck97,

What about reformatting the drive you cleaned, partition it with a primary and whatever logical or extended partitions you want. Then you can remove both drives, install the clean as the primary (assuming IDE), size the partitions the way you want them, and install an OS on it. Once that is done, install the drive with the data you need as a secondary and copy it to the primary drive.

Of course, you'll have to reinstall your programs, etc., but it's a safe way to do what you want. If you have the utility disk that came with the 80Gb drive, you might get it to make a copy of the 40Gb. That's a slightly different procedure, but easier and even safer than the one I mentioned above.

If you're not too familiar with this stuff, and it is critical you keep your data, get a savvy friend to help you, or spend the cash for Partition Magic. PM is not foolproof, so read the instructions carefully and understand exactly what you need to do before doing anything.

Let us know what worked for you.