Wizard cannot find adjacent hard drives

[Hutch819]

I installed Partition Magic in the hopes of resizing my C drive, which is at nearly 0%. My D drive has 86% free space. I am running Windows XP Media Center on a Sony Vaio Desktop. When I click on "resize partition" in the Express Resize Wizard of Partition Magic, it tells me it cannot do it because it cannot find any adjacent partitions on the hard drive.
I don't understand that because my C and D drives are adjacent. What the wizard seems to be finding first is the Disk 0 which says Basic 186.31 GB Online. I don't know what Disk 0 is or if it is possible to move it so that the wizard can see that C and D are adjacent, or what. Maybe it means Partition Magic just can't work on my machine? I don't have enough experience to figure out. In Disk Management Disk 0 defaults as the first partition. C and D follow. They all three say Basic, NTFS and Healthy.

Anyone have a clue as to how to help? I just want to add space from the D drive to the C drive if that is possible. I have an external hard drive and have backed up all the files on the computer before going further. I thought Partition Magic would find C and D and I could just follow the prompts. Apparently I was way too nieve in this belief. If anyone has a suggestion or knows a work around for this, I would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

[MudCrab]

Do you mean Partition Manager? (Partition Magic is a different program.)

Are the C: and D: partitions on the same physical drive? It's kind of hard to tell from your description. Can you post a screenshot of what Disk Management shows?

[Paragon_Tony]

Hi Hutch819,

The wizard requires that the two partitions be adjacent and of the same type (i.e. primary partition or logical drive). Please follow the steps below to complete your resize using a different method.

Before applying any resize you should do the following steps to prepare the system:
1. Run CHKDSK /f on all partitions on the disk(s) you are modifying.
2. Run Windows Defrag on all partitions that will need to be decreased
3. Create a full backup image using Partition Manager – Click Wizards drop-down, Backup Disk or Partition.

I am guessing that you have an Extended partition with your D drive inside. If this is true, you should have a light green boarder surrounding D on the Disk Map. If this is not the case, please reply with a screenshot of your disk layout and I will correct my instructions.

Shrink Logical Drive

1. Launch Partition Manager 10 (Click ‘Switch to Full Scale Launcher’ if you are booted to the WinPE Recovery CD or have changed the default screen to the quick launcher).
2. Right Click on D, Click Move/Resize Partition
3. Drag the LEFT border to the RIGHT until Free Space Before is equal to the amount you wish to add to C. Free Space After should remain 0.
4. Do not Apply changes yet. Continue to queue the shrink of the Extended Partition; you can apply these 2 steps together to eliminate a restart.

Shrink the Extended Partition

1. Launch Partition Manager 10.
2. Look to the middle Window at the partition list, and locate “Extended Partition”.
3. Right Click on the Extended Partition, Click Move/Resize Partition
4. Drag the LEFT border to the RIGHT until Free Space Before is equal to the amount you wish to add to C. It should force you to stop where the D drive beings. Free Space After should remain 0.
5. Apply the changes – Restart will be required with 20min to 1hr+ of downtime. Defragging before will save time here.

Increase C Partition

1. Launch Partition Manager 10
2. Right click on C, Click Move/Resize Partition
3. Stretch the RIGHT border to the far RIGHT until the desired volume size is reached. Ensure that both Free Space Before & Free Space After are 0.
4. Apply the changes – No restart will be required; changes will be instantaneous.

Let us know if that does the trick or if you need further assistance.