Extending C: drive

[appywivit]

Hello

I have Toshiba A300D 15B notebook which has 250gig spread over 2 partitions C: and E:.

What I want to do is extend C partition (contains Vista 32bit op system) using free space on E partition (which contains my Recovery files).
Both drives are "Basic" "simple" and "NTFS" format.

I have managed to shrink partition E and released 96gig which appeared as "unallocated" and "RAW"....I formatted this to NTFS which created a new "logical" DRIVE as opposed to PARTITION (D).......both C & E are "Primary".

I need help please on how to extend my C partition using space created on D, as the option to extend is "greyed out", and from what I have read, I can see that drives must be "dynamic".
I am also unsure how to do this and am concerned about "warning windows" which appear before you decide to do it.....is it a safe operation?

Failing this, I would appreciate help on what/how I could use this new D drive.

Thankyou in advance guys and gals
appywivit

[Funkstar]

What you need is something like Symantec Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director.

These will allow you to resize partitions without formatting them. There may be open source equivelants of these tools, but I'm not sure.

I haven't used Partition Magic since Symantec bought them, but Disk Director is pretty good.

[0iD]

If you're not on Vista x64, try http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

[appywivit]

Thankyou both guys for your input - here's another puzzle, so I think I am almost there.....

I deleted D partition that I created to reveal unallocated free space of full 96gig. Attempted to extend C partition with this but it was still "greyed out".......attempted to put my E partition back to size that it was before I shrunk it , and guess what.....??....it flippin accepted it!!

So now I am back to square one.....two partitions........obviously I was only a couple of clicks away....so what were they?

Any further help would be greatly appreciated please.

Thanks

[Funkstar]

Where was the space you created? It needs to be adjacent to C: to expand into.

There might be a problem working on C: because that is your boot drive, usually this just means that the progrem will shutdown windows and do the work while booting.

[appywivit]

Where was the space you created? It needs to be adjacent to C: to expand into.

There might be a problem working on C: because that is your boot drive, usually this just means that the progrem will shutdown windows and do the work while booting.

Hi Funkstar...thanks for reply,

created 96gig from E on initial shrink and placed it between C & E (hence D).....all I have ended up doing is putting same 96gig back where I got it from.


It;s got to be something staring me in the face that I have missed

[appywivit]

Hi Funkstar...thanks for reply,

created 96gig from E on initial shrink and placed it between C & E (hence D).....all I have ended up doing is putting same 96gig back where I got it from.


It;s got to be something staring me in the face that I have missed

Just realised....it was at end of drive....how would I pull it to be adjacent to C?

[appywivit]

Just realised....it was at end of drive....how would I pull it to be adjacent to C?

think you might have pointed me in right direction Funkstar.......I need to move the partition created don't I?......Is this possible with Vistas own disk management tool or do I (like you advised) need to be looking at something like Acronis or partition-tool that OiD kindly suggested?

[Funkstar]

Get the tool OiD suggested, it's free after all, then do the following.

1) Reduce the size of E:
2) Move it to the end of the drive
3) Re-size C: to suit

And a little tip for you: There is an edit post button there for a reason

[appywivit]

oops! ha ha

Thankyou

[appywivit]

If you're not on Vista x64, try http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

Thankyou very much for this link OiD, AND Funkstar for your following up..it worked.....to a degree.....

It shrunk my E partition to 30gig as I wanted, and allowed me to move it to the end of the drive, I marked up to extend my C partition and clicked "apply"....so far so good...but...

Greeted with BSOD (or grey, which ever way you look at it) and Windows could not boot due to failure of batch conversion.

However, Windows started up in Recovery mode via system restore suggestion. I checked in "Computer" and E partition was shrunk to 30gig, but 90gig free space created was "missing" (C partition was untouched)....went through Vista disk management and it was where I hoped it would be AND it allowed me to extend C partition with it in full

I am ever grateful to you both

[GoNz0]

a lucky escape !

[appywivit]

a lucky escape !

you're not wrong there mate....the old adrenalin was running a bit high

[peterb]

Came upon this post a bit late - bu when you are messing withj partition tables, its always a good idea to back up the disk first - 'just in case'.

[appywivit]

Thanks for info mate......learned a good lesson with this.......

"Don't touch owt you know nowt about"

[Splash]

Also I hope you have your recovery partition backed up, messing with it is likely to prevent you from running the recovery correctly in future...