How to Resize Hard Drive Partitions?

[Westly32]

I bought a refurbished Dell pc this week, and checking it out, I've noticed that it's hard drive is divided up like this: about 9 gb for Drive C, and 16GB for Drive D. I'd like to allocate the larger amount to space to Drive C, but combing thru the Help and Support files, I can't find the answers on how to do that. I also entered it into the Search box here, but again, turned up no threads about it.
The Recovery folder is in Drive D, so I'd like it to have the smaller size. It's a Dell GX240, running XP.

Thank you.

[blutach]

Google Easeus.

Also, oftentimes, Paragon has freebies.

Regards

[Westly32]

Thank you. Easeus seems easy to work with, so I've downloaded it and will try it. Why couldn't they have included such a program on the pc..sheeesh, the hoops Microsoft makes you jump thru...

[paglamon]

Why couldn't they have included such a program on the pc

Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management.
But yes,many features available with Easeus/Paragon/Partition Magic etc. are not available with the inbuilt Disk Management utility.

[MilesAhead]

Also there are a few linux-based partition tools

http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/partitioneditors.shtml

[Westly32]

Oh crap..

I installed Easus, and it seemed simple enough. Just select the drive to be resized, slide mouse ove to desired amount, and go. After it done, the pc rebooted...into black screen. Meaning, Dell welcome screen comes up with that little status bar that fills up as pc is coming on, then,black screen with and odd foreign language line of text at top followed by a blinking _ sign. I left it alone hoping it was part of the process, but after 20 min, nothing happened.
To make matters even more nerve racking, I can't find System Recovery. On my HP, you'd press F9, but with this Dell, none of the F's are bring it up. F2 brings up the BIOS screen-I believe that's what it's called, but no System Recovery. And the Restore CD isn't doing anything...
Again, it's a Dell Optiplex GX240 Desktop with Win XP...

Before I take it in to a shop, any advice, suggestions?

Ok, Googling Dell Optiplex GX240, has turned up info on getting into Recovery. You have to press Ctrl while pressing F11, so I'll hook the thing back up-only one monitor, and try to perform a recovery.

4 hrs later...
Ugh, holding down both Ctrl and F11 didn't work...

[doctorhardware]

Get into the Bios setup and look at the boot order. Change the order of the boot devices and make sure that the optical drive is first. Then you will be able to boot from the CD.

[Westly32]

^^ Thanks, I'll try it later tonight...

[gonwk]

Hi Guys,

Why even mess with HD Partitioning after you have started working with the PC. Aren't you asking for problem!?!?

G!

[Westly32]

Hi Guys,

Why even mess with HD Partitioning after you have started working with the PC. Aren't you asking for problem!?!?

G!

Now ya tell me...

It's an older pc, with a small hard drive that was nearly equally divided, so I didn't see the logic in having the D drive-which held to Recovery files, have nearly 10gb of space that I didn't want disturbed by having stuff downloaded or saved to...So I thought enlarging Drive C would be best.

[src2206]

Use GParted...it is a great tool, if not the best. If you already have Linux Live CDs like Ubuntu, then this tool is included in it, otherwise download and burn the ISO image on a CD. You will be surprised by the number of available features in this tool.

BTW, windows inbuilt Disc Management tool will never let you resize it with all the data remaining on the HDD.

If a paid tool you are searching for then Acronis Disc Management tool is a good option. And if you have a Seagate HDD, then go to Sagate's home page, there is a Disc Management tool of about 175MB size available for free. t is same as Acronis, authored by them for Seagate HDD users.

[doctorhardware]

If you can fix your boot issues, what I would do is to make an image of the hard drive. Then get a bigger hard drive and place the image from the smaller hard drive onto the bigger drive.

[src2206]

If you can fix your boot issues, what I would do is to make an image of the hard drive. Then get a bigger hard drive and place the image from the smaller hard drive onto the bigger drive.

A one month fully functional trial of Acronis Migrate Easy will do it without any problem and no need to even make an image of the old. Check the Migrate Easy guide at the home page of Acronis.

[doctorhardware]

A one month fully functional trial of Acronis Migrate Easy will do it without any problem and no need to even make an image of the old. Check the Migrate Easy guide at the home page of Acronis.

You can also use the western digital software that is free to do that also. If needed I can post the links to the software.

[src2206]

You can also use the western digital software that is free to do that also. I needed I can post the links to the software.

Yup! I believe every HDD manufacturer has some sort of HDD Management tool to offer for free. Seagate has another tool set named Seatools which when used in DOS mode can even repair Bad Sectors after checking it! Really handy, if you ask me.