How to Partition a Drive

I want to partition my drive, but I'm not sure if it's possible to do it without formatting my drive. How would I go about it?

Also, I have a 60Gb drive (i know, it sucks). All I add to the drive are documents (essays, etc), music files, pictures, and occasionally programs. How much space should i allocate to C:\ and how much to ... (can i call it) X:\?

 

first is this a new drive or new install
or
is this a drive already w\ an install and data on a partition taking up the whole drive?

 

Paid:Terabyte: BootItNG http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/index.html
(Sorry, broken record,cant help myself )

Free:
Gparted: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/ good tool
Ranish: http://www.ranish.com/part/ complicated, DL links and guides at bottom of page. Ranish.com seems to have dissappeared.

links and tools: http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml

Google: http://www.google.com/search?&q=partition managers

 

1st scenario
new 2nd HDD being added to the computer
attach (ideally on its own IDE channel if its IDE)
Start > Run > (type) diskmgmt.msc > Rclick unallocated space > partition

if its really a new HDD you might get an initializing wizard before you can do that, just follow the instructions

2nd scenario
already partitioned HDD with an OS install and data
download Gparted as Longboard has kindly supplied you a link
install, for drill reboot, then start it and likely it will have a help section but youd want to resize the current partition to near the current data you have
apply and youll have to reboot since its the system partition and has to do that from outside the OS
when your done you can follow the first procedure above to create a new partition and format it.

as far as how big, your constrained by how much you can shrink the first partition by how much is on it currently, you could of course transfer over data then shrink it some more, reboot, then enlarge the other partition.

Do one thing at a time when using partition tools
resize reboot, move reboot ect
avoid merging partitions
make the recovery disks
backup critical data 1st
never restart the ap thinking its hung

 

NO it's not new, and it's not partitioned (only has C:\). So I guess i'll follow 1st scenario. Thanks.

Finally, how do I shrink/enlarge? Using the same program (diskmgmt.msc)?

 

2nd scenario it is partitioned
C:\ is the partition

Gparted is the opensource freeware Id recommend
I use Partition Magic (which Ive had forever) but they are basically the same
however since Ive yet to use it I cant give you step by step
its generally pretty simple though, something like RClick on the partition and resize, specify how much apply reboot