Suggest Program To Easily And Safely Redistribute Free Space

Am Running Vista Business 32bit Thinkpad and am thinking about increasing size of my C partion which is now about 43 GB with 11 GB free. Problem - freespace available is at the end of my extended partion containg four logical drives of E, F, G and H. Need to get free space of maybe 43 GB from that area to C.

I have BING, Paragon Hard Disk Manager 2009 and Partition Wizard 5.2 among other tools but can you recommend which tool can safely and easily allow me to resize C drive safely and with fewest steps. If it is a program I don't have, that would be fine also. Thanks for your help as always.

Gary

 

Gary,

If your Vista partition is 2048 sector aligned I'd suggest BING. I've seen alignment issues with the other apps.

 

Not used with Vista, but have slid, resized, created, formatted,deleted and recovered multiple partition layouts with BING.
Dont panic when you see the warning

( also gives option of making an image jic )

 

Yes, I love BING but get a little confused when having to slide free space so many times before being able to resize C. Here is the present partition layout. Maybe you could help me a little Bryan or some and let me know if I have to make any adjustments before partioning. May not do this operation now but need to know when I do and thanks.

My C primaery is after the Lenovo Boot partition that is active and listed first in table. Free space is within the extended partion at the end of that - happened because I put in larger drive and did not adjust partition sizes before. Thanks again. Not sure about whether I have proper alignment or not.

Gary

 

Gary,

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management. I need to see the full graphic of HD0.

If you have a floppy drive, run BING from a floppy, open Partition Work for HD0, press F12 to do a Capture Screen. In Windows you will find img1.pcx on the floppy. Open it (IrfanView, Photoshop) and save it as a gif. Post it here.

I forgot, while you are in BING from the floppy, in Partition Work for HD0, click View MBR. Press F12 to create a second Capture. In Windows you can convert img1.pcx and img2.pcx to gif files.

If you can't do a Capture of MBR, what is the LBA of the first two primary partitions?

Edit... please post the LBA's of all four MBR entries.

 

Brian,
Thanks and hope these are what can help.



Gary

 

Thanks, Gary,

In View MBR the first and last partitions are 2048 sector aligned at both ends. The second partition (Vista) is 2048 sector aligned only at the end and the Extended partition misses out at both ends. Obviously this hasn't created an issue but it is messy.

When you use BING, in the Settings menu remove the ticks from
Align on End and CHS Alternative

Put ticks in
Align MBR End HS and Align 2048

BING will use 2048 sector alignment.

You want an extra 43 GB to add to Vista. Start with the Install partition and Slide it down 43000 MB. Move up the partitions one by one (sliding) until the 43 GB of Free Space is at the top of the Extended Partition. Then resize the Extended Partition to put the Free Space above the Extended Partition. Then resize Vista.

I'd fix the Vista alignment. Slide it down 2 MB to fix the front. Then resize it 2 MB to fix the rear. Both ends should now be 2048 sector aligned.

 

Brian,
Thank you so much Brian. I will try my best to follow what you are speaking of. I want to clean things up and get things in order and expand C partiton in case I want to upgrade to Windows 7 or install new programs. Have to go now but hopefully will get back to this soon. Will print out your post and also save to txt file to review. Thanks again very much.

Gary

 

Brian,
Sorry for replying to my own post but forgot to ask, can I use BING CD for all these operations you mentioned in last post and thanks.

Gary

 

Kudos to the guru above..
Yes can use BING from boot CD (or Floppy.) > Partition work....

 

but is not dangerous?
i tried with other software i got 2 parition lost

 

Sure. Just make certain you check the Settings every time. The 2048 settings may be present, but if not, use the ones I suggested.

My answer was fairly cryptic as I know you are a BING user but if you want more details, just ask.

As you have BING, instead of upgrading Vista to Win7 you could install Win7 as a second OS. Not by the pseudo dual boot Microsoft method but by the completely separated OS method.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/videos/bing/win7.wmv

I saw your other thread. Sorry, but I have no idea how you lost your partitions.

 

Brian,
Thanks again. I tried following instructions and have managed to resize C partition but my allignment is still off. Can you help me clean this up and thanks. Here are the pics of what I have now. Again, your help is tremendously appreciated.

Gary

 

Gary,

You are a fast worker.

I see what has happened. My instructions were incomplete. Resize the Vista partition 5 MB smaller. Then slide Vista 2 MB down. Then resize Vista to remove the 2 or 3 MB of Free Space at the end. The 2 MB of Free Space before Vista will remain. That's OK. You have to get the front of the partition aligned first, then the end. Just moving by a few MB is enough.

Vista LBA/2048 should then be an integer

Vista Sectors/2048 should then be an integer

Edit.... You will note that the Extended partition is now 2048 sector aligned at both ends.

 

Brian,
The saga continues. I know for sure I did not exactly follow your last instruction or at first I thought I did. Then, when I started my machine, Windows would not bood and said a hardware or software change caused the machine not to start - no Windows CD with this machine so I went back into BING and slid partiton with free space in front and tried to restart and still no go. Got ShadowProtect and ran Auto Boot Configuration something like that and it did start but I am a little scared now.

Here are the pics of where I am now. If I am brave enough, what should I do? Also, even when I though I initially followed your instructions at first, I did not see 2048 in LBA for C partition. Thanks again.

Gary

 

Gary,

It's probably just a BCD issue related to the different partition offset of Vista.

Do this from BING. Choose the first partition and run BCD Edit.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=318

For Menu, Vista you want..
Device...... HD0, Programs-1
OS Device...... HD0, Programs-1

For Boot, Windows Boot Manager you want
Device...... HD0, SERVICEV003-0

For Boot, Windows Memory Diagnostic you want
Device...... HD0, SERVICEV003-0

 

Brian,
Thanks again. All is starting now so I don't know if I need to Go into BING at this time for BCD issues but will keep this in case needed. Also, if I should try to align C partition properly again, my free space should be before partition - right?

Gary

 

Gary,

That's good new. A big relief. You are OK. The Vista partition is 2048 sector aligned at both ends and there is only 2 MB of Free Space after the Vista partition. That's fine. It doesn't matter if it is at either end. You could get rid of the 2 MB of Free Space by resizing Vista, but for 2 MB why bother.

Excellent!

 

Brian,
Thanks again. Not to get off on new thread - but if I did install Windows 7 by splitting my C partition - I would also need to reinstall all apps I want to run under Windows 7 like Office and so on - is that right?

Gary

 

That is correct. It would be completely separate from Vista. Not an OS upgrade.

 

Brian,
How can you tell my C partition is now aligned properly and thanks.

Gary

 

3072000/2048= 1500

179181568/2048= 87491

Both answers are integers. The alignment runs in 2048 sector (1 MB) blocks.

Edit... if your partitions were legacy cylinder aligned, the "blocks" for a Lenovo computer would be 240*63= 15120 sectors.
For a Dell it would be 255*63= 16065 sectors.

 

i guess true image 2011 , restored w7 , maybe it changed the partition table

 

mantra,

Have you recovered the partitions?

 

yes i do

and i'm wondering which is the more safe and trusty partition tool