Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Right, I'm constantly running out of space on my Vista boot partition (60 Gig), not helped by Vista helping itself to a generous 10 Gig for system restore. After a cleanup, and deleting restore points, I now have about 20 Gig free, but that will likely be reduced to about 5 in a few months time.

I have 35 Gig spare (out of 75) on my data partition, so I figured I'd try and allocate 20 Gig of that to the boot partition. I can shrink the data partition in Vista's Disk management, but I can't extend the boot partition by the freed up/unallocated space.

My understanding is that if I were to delete the data partition (after having copied all that's on it over to a usb drive, obviously), I would be able to extend the boot partition with whatever I've freed up from the data partition. Is this correct, or am I setting myself up for trouble and should use some alternate partition manager, (or not muck about at all) :)

TiA.

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

thats correct

you could use partition magic or similar which will move the data for you ( or it used to)

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Cheers. I think I've got a free version of Acronis kicking about somewhere, but copy, delete, resize, and copy back sound easier, so I don't think I'll bother with third party partition managers.

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

yeah its also the safest method imo

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Hmm. I deleted the data partition, but I'm still unable to extend the boot partition. There's a 2.5 Gig 'healthy primary partition' (100% free) to the right of the boot partition in the graphical lower panel of disk management. This is not the recovery partition (this is to the left of the boot partition and is 10 Gig). Presumably I need to delete this 2.5 Gig partition as well?

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

yes

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Ok, done that. Vista now allowed me to reallocate the 2.5 Gig on that last volume. The 75 Gig of unallocated space is on another line (disk1) in the graphical display. The boot partition is on disk0. How do I get it access the unallocated space on disk1 :confused:

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

The only way to merge physical disks is to make both 'dynamic' rather than 'basic'. Right click on each drive in Disk Management and 'Convert to Dynamic Disk'.
Doing that means you can no longer use the disk(s) with any OS other than Windows XP or later. (I don't think you can do this with Home versions of Windows)

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Cheers, just to be clear. Disk management reports the two volumes as if they are separate physical disks, but I doubt they are. It's a laptop. Surely it doesn't have two 80 Gig drives...

They also both have the same name (ST8008 etc.). It looks like one physical disk that is somehow reported as if it's two?

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Can do a screenie for us? And from device manager showing the HDD(s)?

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Doh. It's a Dell Vostro 1700 which accomodates two hard drives. I opened her up and sure enough, there's two drives in there. Device manager also shows two drives, which confusingly are both called ST980813asg. Not much I can do I suppose...

First time I've seen that on a laptop...

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Interesting. I guess it's down to more housekeeping :(
A useful tool for identifing large directories is treesize free.
Also, you could try the Vista SP2 cleanup tool (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...36(WS.10).aspx) - it freed up a fair amount of space on my laptop.
Finally, you could see whether Shadow Copy is enabled. VSSAdmin can show you how much is allocated (wasted) to it - not needed unless you are sharing your laptop disk on the network. (see here)

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

I've got Treesize, (very helpful, thanks). I've done disk cleanup (or is your version different?). I guess I could reduce the amount of space available for system restore (that's what shadowcopy is isn't it?), but I'd rather not.

I'm thinking I could really do with moving some stuff from the C to the D drive, e.g. system restore points, or the users directory, but I'm not sure if that's going to work. The other thing to bear in mind is that the laptop is shared with my wife, and I really don't want to lumber her sticking stuff in awkward locations. However, as it is, there's about 10 Gig in the users directory (I've already got the iTunes directory and other media) on D, and I'm already running out of space on the C drive. Right now, I've got 20 Gig free, but system restore is likely to eat away at that, which means I will soon have less than 10 Gig which will slow Vista down.

Basically, a 65 Gig drive isn't sufficient to run Vista comfortably. :(

---------- Post added at 11:18 ---------- Previous post was at 10:53 ----------

Hmm. Will this work?

Basically, I want to move all users data/profiles etc. to the second drive, thus clearing 10 Gig on the Vista drive, and making sure all user data gets stored on the second drive which has plenty of space for user data. Hopefully without any knock-on effects, so wifey can just keep saving her stuff on a desktop folder without noticing any difference.

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

I've not tried that myself but it looks logical and Ed Bott normally gives reliable advice in my experience.

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Move the Page file over also make it a static file on D

http://joshmouch.wordpress.com/2007/...tion-in-vista/ this looks like full info on how to change USER directory location

---------- Post added at 11:46 ---------- Previous post was at 11:42 ----------

Thats just moving the folders will it also make it default location so the machine just does it? remember there is a hidden folder in there that is always changing called AppData the system needs to know that it needs to use a different location for these files

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Like here?

That looks good, and should get me over 2 gig, plus some performance gain (hopefully).

That looks scary! :shocked:

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

yeah just make sure page on C: is set to off set it to user managed ( or similar) on D nd make bottom and top limits the same . I would make them 4000 each

As for the other looking scary lol I am looking for an easier way for ya

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

System Restore and Shadow Copy are different things. You are very unlikely to need Shadow Copy on a laptop. On my new laptop it was using 18Gb of wasted space. From a cmd prompt, "vssadmin list shadowstorage" will show what is allocated.

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

It says currently allocated 5 Gig with a maximum of 9and a bit, which is 15% of the HD space. I'm pretty sure that what I read on shadowstorage suggested that reducing the allocated size will limit system restore points though?

Like here for example.

Edit: page file is now on D. 2.5 Gig gained on C :tu:

---------- Post added at 12:39 ---------- Previous post was at 12:21 ----------

This looks easier, but still scary...

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

ive tried a couple of ways in a vm and they made a mess I will try that way and report back

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Yes, it shares the space now but you shouldn't need 9Gb. I've set mine down to 2Gb and with two restore points it's using 460Mb.

As for moving profiles - in most cases just moving the Documents, Music etc special folders should be sufficient, which is very easy (shown at top of your last link).

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Ah. ok. I'll do that.

Presumably, I can simply move the desktop folder for the two accounts? Seeing that's where most of the data live/get saved, that would probably give me sufficient space and make sure that most future data makes it to the D drive.

I don't think junction points are an option :D

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

couldnt get that to work either

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Thanks for trying. I think I've created sufficient space now. Last night I had 5 Gig left, which went up to about 18 after disk cleanup, deleting restore points etc. I have since:

- Moved the page file
- Reduced shadowstorage to 2GB.
- Moved my desktop folder to the D drive.
- Noticed that the Spotify storage directory on C takes up 1Gig, so moved that to D as well.

I currently have 28 Gig free and, with the changes I made, I think it'll take a while for that to be filled up. Thankfully, I was able to do this without touching any of the wife's folders/settings (she has about 5 Gig on C), so she can just carry on as she was rather than having to fit into my regime.

Thanks for all the help guys. It's much appreciated :tu: :)

Re: Extending boot partition (Vista)
 

Do you use the Hibernation feature on the laptop?

If not you can remove Hiberfile.sys by doing "powercfg.exe -h off" form an elevated Cmd prompt. Could save you up to 2 Gb