Help partitioning Hard Disk

Umbrella420 · 5 Apr 2010 at 21:50

Hello, I partitioned my hard drive before i installed XP splitting my hard drive into 2 separate partitions. I installed XP onto the 2nd partition (D

and i used the C: for all my movies and music. No i have just got another hard drive as mine is nearly full but i want to partition my original hard drive into 1 partition without losing my windows files & settings and then copy all my music and movies over to my new hard drive.

What would be the best way to do this?
Bearing in mind that my boot files are stored on the C: drive.

Here's a picture so you get the idea of whats what

master811 · 7 Apr 2010 at 11:29

You have 2 options to do this without losing your existing windows install.

You will either want software to create an image/backup of your existing windows partition (D

, and then delete both to create a single large one, and you can then just re-image the larger partition.

The second option is to use partition management software that can remove the first partition (C

and then expand the 2nd partition (D

to fill the space freed up.

In both cases, make sure you copy all the movies/music etc off the C: partition first to your new drive and copy the boot files to the D: partition. You will need to then make sure the D: partition is set to active/primary etc, and may need to adjust your MBR file as well.

see this thread for info: http://www.technologyquestions.com/...ving-master-boot-files-another-partition.html

Umbrella420 · 7 Apr 2010 at 12:42

Why thank you! With the image software is there any way of backing up just programs and then after installing XP again, bring them over?

master811 · 7 Apr 2010 at 13:24

That will depend on the image software being used. I think it can be done with Acronis True Image, but not sure. Normally though you wouldn't back up just programs, you'd do those along with the Windows install as well.