Windows XP Home Partitioning.
 

My SO is always filling her computers up with stuff.

She has a Sony, factory partitioned with a 'C' and 'D' drives (one physical drive), about 15 Gigs and 35 Gigs in size. Running XP Home.

Of course, between her and Bill Gates, the 'C' drive is full. The 'D' drive is basically empty.

How do I adjust the sizes of the partition? Please don't tell me to delete the unused stuff on her 'C' drive, I have done that twice in 2 months, and it fills right back up.

Please don't tell me to get a new SO, I have trained this one well, and except for her packrat online habits is very tolerant of my faults(Porsches).


While we are on it, the Backup program in XP Home was not loaded on the install by default. This is one of those Sony's that did not come with WinXP discs. I know about the install procedure if you have the discs, but that isn't the case here. Microsoft Backup for XP is not available anywhere on MS sites.

What does everyone do for that? Is there a freebie that works available? Or does someone have a site that has the MS version on it?


As always, thanks in advance. I cannot wait until the fing election is over and I can come back to Pelican OT and see nothing but OT.

You can get partition Magic to do it... it's not free

(vote for bush) :D

This is risky but can be done with a program called PartitionMagic. Make sure you back up first.

Also check out Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management (this is on XP Pro, not sure XP Home has this but I think it does)

As for backup, I just use a lot of DVDRs. Norton Ghost just saved my ass completly though, I made an image of what I thought was a dying hard disc and the next week lo and behold it died. Restored it all onto a new drive in 30 mins.

PowerQuest Partition Magic isn't particularly risky. I've used it literally hundreds of times with no problems. Runs about $50 at your FLCPS (Friendly Local Computer Parts Store) and works like a charm.

Backup is a PITA, tnx to the Democrats. I back up large piles of stuff using a Sony DVD burner, the software that came with it, entitled "Veritas" (I wouldn't have bought it if it hadn't come with the drive) and Memorex DVD+Rs. CDs are far more tolerant, and this is about the only successful combination I've been able to produce with the DVD drive. Good luck.

Dan

Thanks gang, I have a large external USB drive that I backup onto with my W98 machines.

I do have the disc manager in XP Home, and it looks like I CAN delete the 'D' drive (and lose all of it's contents doing so), making the entire HD avail to Bill Gates and the SO, so the cart goes in front of the horse again, and I need to go find a backup program.

As always, thanks for the tips. Even Brian's tip.

LAYZEE
"Norton Ghost just saved my ass completly though, I made an image of what I thought was a dying hard disc and the next week lo and behold it died. Restored it all onto a new drive in 30 mins"

Did you just copy the data or the XP and programs too? If the latter, how did you deal with Windows Product Activation?

I tried Norton Ghost to clone to a new disk drive and found it would only boot once ok and then it hung on the "WELCOME" screen after that. This is due to the config of the computer being changed so the product authorisation key for the machine becomes invalid.

Try Easybackup
http://www.download.com/EasyBackup/3000-2242_4-10327095.html

Why don't you just use the "D" partition for loading all the programs and file storage since it's already larger and just use the "C" for the OS?

As the others have said, Partition Magic is by far your best bet to reallocate disk space from "D" to "C". $49.95 at CompUSA.
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?product_code=313125&pfp=SEARCH

For the record, you might want to review this link: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/howtobuy/choosing2.mspx
It sure looks like it was Sony's decision to not include Backup on the laptop, not Microsoft's. Also, the disk partitioning scheme was clearly a Sony decision. As a matter of fact, MS will use the entire disk in a standard defaut install.

Well the machine is running XP Corporate so no activation. Anyway, I don't think it would trigger the activation crap because the machine hardware was unchanged, only the disk. I thought you had to make major changes (motherboard etc) to make that popup again?

I did the absolute whole drive by the way, I don't think it would work otherwise.

Simplest thing is to get an external USB h/d I bought 2 250gb Maxtors for ~$600 a few years ago, probably a lot cheaper now.

This is her laptop, so the external drive is out. I use one for my backup storage.

I set up my XP Home laptop to use only one drive on day one when a format / reinstall was easy.

I am now trying to deal with hers. You know the story.... she's unhappy about something she THINKS I can fix, I sleep with the dogs until it's fixed.

I will look at Stevo's backup, and then probably go to FCPS.

I agree with 928ram. Why not move her files to the D: logical drive and set the preferences in her applications to save new files there, thereby using that 35GB of space? Saves you $50, which you can put toward an external hard drisk drive and backup software.

Whatever you decide to do, I would definitely get a backup solution.

Story: A month ago, my wife's laptop wouldn't boot up. After hours of cursing, I got it to boot once, and immediately updated the backup. We use a 120GB external Firewire hard drive with Retrospect software. The laptop then died for good. Turned out the hard drive had failed and all the data was non-recoverable. Since this included all our music files and every digital photo we've taken for the last three years of the kid's childhood, my wife let me know that my fate hung in the balance. If my backup failed -> death (suddenly it was "my" backup). Fortunately, the backup worked perfectly, restored the entire state of the machine (apps, data, caches, preferences, passwords, O/S patches, everything - even which files I had open) as if nothing had happened. (Which success was now credited to "our" backup).

I recommend using an external hard drive (burning multiple CDs or DVDs is a tedious task that you're likely to skip or not do often enough, and you can only back up your data), leaving it connected to the machine (assuming her has a desktop), using backup software that does incremental backups (only copies what has changed, rather than copying the full 50GB each time) and allows you to schedule unattended backups (e.g. in the middle of the night), and using multiple backup sets (e.g. one week backup to set A, the next week to set B, the next week to set A - so if one set happens to be corrupt, you have another set just a week older).

Edit: sorry, I posted before I read your post above. Well, she can still use an external hard drive (her laptop surely has USB ports), she'd just have to get in the habit of plugging the drive in once a week and starting the backup app.

Oh by the way, this still leaves you (and me) vulnerable to a real catastrophe - house burns down, destroying the computer and the backup. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to deal with that? E.g. online backup sites?

Actually, I keep the external HD separate from the two laptops. Never in the same house. Is as separated as possible. I wrote all of our digital pics to CD's.

Thanks again for the we, ours and yours reminders.