Extending boot partition (Vista)

danielf · 25-05-2010, 23:41

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.

25-05-2010, 23:45

thats correct

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

danielf · 25-05-2010, 23:55

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.

26-05-2010, 00:41

yeah its also the safest method imo

danielf · 26-05-2010, 00:45

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?

26-05-2010, 00:46

yes

danielf · 26-05-2010, 01:00

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

Aragorn · 26-05-2010, 09:11

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)

danielf · 26-05-2010, 09:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aragorn

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)

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?

Aragorn · 26-05-2010, 09:43

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

danielf · 26-05-2010, 09:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aragorn

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

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...

Aragorn · 26-05-2010, 10:36

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)

danielf · 26-05-2010, 11:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aragorn

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)

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.

Dai · 26-05-2010, 11:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by danielf

[/COLOR]Hmm. Will this work?

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

26-05-2010, 11:46

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 ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaiNasty

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

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