Re-order partitons?

[rendez2k]

I've split my external HDD into 2 partitions - one NTFS and one FAT32 for my PS3. However, it appears the FAT32 is the second partition and the PS3 cannot detect it. Is there away of swapping the partitions around? Many thanks!

[Paragon_Tommy]

Hello Rendez2k,

There's no one step operation to swap the two partitions. Depending on how much free space you have on the partitions, you can do it a different way without external assistance. But if you do have an external hard drive or storage area, you can backup one partition, delete it, shift the other one over, recreate the partition on the other side, and restore.

If you don't have any external devices to be a temporary storage and for instance, you have a 120GB hard drive, split 60GB and 60GB with 30GB of data on each partition you can do something like this.

Shrink the first 60GB partition to 30GB, shift the second 60GB partition over 30GB, and create the 30GB at the end. Copy the first 30GB partition to the last 30GB partition, delete, and one more shift.

[60GB][60GB]
[30GB][Free][60GB] //shrink the first partition
[30GB][60GB][Free] //shift the end partition down
[30GB][60GB][30GB] //create an end partition

Copy first [30GB] to last [30GB]

[Free][60GB][30GB] //Delete the first partition
[60GB][Free][30GB] //Shift over the middle partition
[60GB][60GB] //extend the last partition

This method can be done the opposite way, and I recommend doing that if the partition has less than 50% data. So whichever partition has less than 50% data, you want do it around that partition.

[rendez2k]

I'm going to have to go for the complete backup and format option I think as the drive is almost full. But thanks for your help. Its good to know you can't simply swap partitions around!

[Paragon_Tommy]

Just want to point out that in Partition Manager 10, you can quickly backup the partition and do a restore. No need for other utilities.