Hi all guys. I've been following these forums for a while now and since this is the first time I don't find an answer that makes me feel comfortable I decided to join so I could check if someone has a clue about this. I've finally installed Win7 Ultimate x64. So far so good (not to mention I installed it like 4 times after messing with the f****** 100mb partition). I've always used Partition Magic to manage my partitions, since I used WinXP Pro x86 from 2003 until last week, lol. I happen to know for a fact that since Parition Magic hasn't been updated I shouldn't use it now because Win7 manages the MBR in a different way than WinXP and previous versions (I used it once in a friend's pc running WinVista and I had to repair everything after doing a lot of guides-reading and googling). So I want to know: does anyone know any good and trusty partition manager that works fine after installing Win7? Has any1 tried Acronis? Thanks a lot in advance. Greeetings! PS: Just to be clear, I want a partition manager to shrink my D partition (with personal files) and extend the C partition. It is NOT for messing with the system reserved partition (I actually don't have it, just C and D). And I can't use the built-in disk manager because I have to move the unallocated space.
WOW you people sure are nice and fast, lol. At this moment I'm installing some programs in my sister's PC cause I can't in mine until I solve this, I was planning to wait a couple of days lol @dogfox: I can't use it because it doesn't allow to move partitions, only shrink and extend. Right now I have: [C drive (Win)] [D drive (personal files)] If I shrink my D I get: [C drive] [D drive] [unallocated] And I can't move the unallocated to extend the C drive. @sebus: I'll give it a try since I have the latest version of the Hiren's boot cd in my usb flash drive. It is not supposed to mess the hard disk right? (Anyway I have of course a backup of my files) I have to run it by booting with the hiren's cd (or usb) and choose partition managers right? @Shadows: Yeah I read some people said that in other threads. I'll keep it in mind if Acronis doesn't work. Thank u all!
"Has any1 tried Acronis?" Don't use Acronis DiskDirector 10 under Windows 7 - they're supposedly releasing version 11 to fix 10's inconsistencies - OK in Vista and before. BUT - you can make a bootable DVD and run all partitioning safely from that.
RonAshman, You can easily shrink D: from the Disk Management utility in Windows. But extending the system partition i.e. C: through that is a tough cookie. Same for the commercial partition managers. Best way is to do it through Diskpart.
Partition Wizard can extend system partition and it is free i use it myself rather than acronis diskdirector which is not compatible with windows 7 in fact latest version wouldn't even install.
@Whiznot: Thank you! @ffcloud2000: After reading some threads I decided to try this one and it worked just fine in my computer and my gf's pc so thanks a lot! @Rosco: Yeah that's what I did with Partition Wizard, used the bootable option. @venu: Luckily I was able to do it with Partition Wizard. Really good. @urie: Right. Thanks The only thing that bothers me is that in of the PCs I got a 7,8MB partition but after looking it up in the forums I know it's ok unless I format the drive from scratch. Thank you all! Topic closed I believe, lol Greetings.
sometime XP always left a small partition, also if you format hard drive first with say partiton wizard and make it active when windows 7 installs it will not make that 200mb partition.
I installed Windows 7 Ultimate on a single drive to be used in a multi-boot setup, and discovered that when the space I installed it on was Unallocated, the Win7 install created 2 partitions. One small one for system use (about 100 mb) and another large one with Win7 installed on it. This would not work when I put it in my system with the other OS drives. I attempted to make 1 partition out of the install and moved over the boot files to the Win7 partition, delete the small partition, and expand the second one into it's space. Bottom line: Win7 booted and ran, but I got blue screens here and there, so it was no good. The way I solved it was to use Acronis from a boot CD and create a single active partition. The problem I had with that was the partition formatting was not correct (even though I created the partition with NTFS selection) and when the reboot of the Win7 install took place the installation hung. I finally got Win7 to install on a single partition. I used the Acronis CD to make the partition again. Then I booted the system into Vista and opened Disk Management tool. There I did a format of the partition (it took long time!). When I got this done and installed Win7 on the partition, it did so just fine and created NO other little partitions! Worked fine with my multi-boot system then. The lesson I think I learned was that it's best to prepare the hard drive partition before a Win7 installation rather than trying to use the tools in the Win7 installation disk. Lesson number 2 was that not all 3rd party disk formatting is the same as the standard Windows NTFS formatting. Maybe my experience with this can help someone else do an easier install in the future.
This can also be done from widows 7 dvd when installing you goto advanced in the format part and format drive it will automatically make system partition and a larger partition all you do is delete the large partition and expand system one i,e the 100mb one. then install job done.
@urie: Yeah I know, thanks a lot. This 7,8MB partition was created when I did what I wanted to, the thing that started this thread. I don't mind, I will make a full backup of my files someday in the near future and format my drive from scratch. I did not end up with the 100mb/200mb partition because I installed Win7 in an empty partition (where WinXP was) but already formatted as NTFS. I had: [OS partition (C - 25GB] [Personal files partition (D - 124,04GB] (total of 152616.96 MB) Then: [OS partition (C - 25GB] [Unallocated space - 10,04GB] [Personal files partition (D - 114,01GB] (total of 152627.2 MB) Finally: [Unallocated space - 7,84MB] [OS partition (C - 35,03GB] [Personal files partition (D 114,01GB] (total of 152624.8 MB) Why the difference in the final sum? I dont know exactly. I do know it's all about math and how the drive has to distribute the space and partitions and that it cannot start wherever I want. All I wanna do know (actually in a couple of days) is 1) delete all partition 2) format whole drive into one partition 3) then partition again for OS and my files. I'm not sure either if I should use logical or primary for my personal files, and even though I keep on reading things about it, I never end up knowing what would be best, which makes me feel stupid lol. I have used partitions for 6 years now and I always had two partitions in the main disk (OS and my files) and both of them as primary, and never had a problem. That's what I did and what I have now (that's why my OS partition is called System reserved lol) @ray1222: What you wrote made me laugh, not because I enjoy other people having problems, it's because I went thru a very similar thing and I wanted to throw my PC out the window (duh) lol. I wish I had read that before I installed Win7 in the first place. I'm sure that will help other people