Make partition of Harddisk on Vista

[rpnew]

Hi All,

i recently got new Compaq laptop- CQ 45-106 AU (If i'm not wrong- will update it after reaching home.). Now i have two questions regarding this.

First one is i want to make partition of my hard disk. My laptop harddisk is around ~ 250GB. Now i would like to make partition of lets say 50GB each. Presently there are two partitions.One is of recovery and that is of 10 GB and rest is allocated to C drive. Now what i want is to make more partition out of this two. e.g. 50 GB each. Now i serched many things on the net but couldnt get proper method. Could you help me with this?

Second thing is i would like to install Linux with this Vista as a dual boot. But none of the distros of Linux i have can detect Hard disk of my laptop. It has something to do with SATA harddisk i suppose. Kindly give me some idea on that as well.

Thanks and Regards,
RP

[YarrOfDoom]

Hmm, SATA shouldn't be a problem for Linux I think, if you use the latest version of the distro of course. So in case you haven't done it already, see if you can get the latest version from the site of the distro of your choice.
Then you can set up your partitions during the installation of Linux.

If you do want to do the partitioning in Windows, Vista has a tool for that. Just go to your Control Panel and start typing 'partition' in the searchbox at the top-right of your window, and you'll get there in no time.

[rpnew]

Hi YarrOfDoom,

Well i used BootitNg to first trim my C drive now i have drives as below.
C - 50 GB
D - 10 GB (Recovery)
F - 50 GB (Empty)
and then 120+ GB unallocated.
When i try to make new volume from this unallocated space it would not allow me giving error " You can not create a new volume in this unallocated space because the disk already contains the maximum number of partitions" . Any help regarding this.
As i would like to make two 50 GB partition out of this and then if possible merge remaining 20 GB with 10 GB recovery partition for my linux OS.
Anything from your side is welcome.

Thanks and Regards,
RP

[YarrOfDoom]

When you tried to add the extra partitions, did you try it only with BootitNG? And if you tried it with others, do they give the same problem?

If you're not planning on storing files that are larger than 4GB on those extra partition, you can do the partitioning from the Linux-installer, and make the partitions FAT32. That way you'll be able to access them from both Linux and Windows (as far as I know, Linux cannot write on NTFS partitions).

[rpnew]

Hi,

Well through Windows partition manager i was not able to shrink C drive after some limit so i used BootItNg to make C drive according to what i wanted. Then i used windows partition manager to make another 50 GB partition. But then i cant do anything with remaining unallocated space of about 120+ GB neither with BootItNg nor with window partition manger. As per what i learn from Net i can not make further Primary partition and i need to make some extended partition but can not seem to getting any idea how to do that.

Regarding linux.. well right now i dont have the newest disto so need to download that. And regarding writing to NTFS through linux.. well its possible but you need to include some package. I have done this in past. But there used to be some risks involved with it which i dont remember now,, but it can be done... However my main problem is to allocate that 120+ GB into some partitions.

Thanks,
RP

[YarrOfDoom]

After some research, I've found out you can indeed only have 4 primary partitions. So as you said, you'll need an extended partition.

There are 2 ways of doing this: if you're not afraid of command line tools, you can do it with DiskPart, or if you'll have to do it with Vista's graphical one, which creates an extended partition as fourth one (as explained here).

Now you only appear to have 3 primary partitions, but lots of laptops nowadays have a hidden partition for backup purposes etc. So I'd delete F, so you have room for an extended partition.

[rpnew]

Hi,
I have already seen the page you have given but when i try to do it that way it wont allow me to create a new partition and it is not creating a new extended partition as well. Regarding Diskpart i tried hands on it but i seem not understanding it properly. As it is not working for me. Can you provide some good tutorial on Diskpart..

Thanks,
RP

[YarrOfDoom]

A quick search on google directed me to this article about using DiskPart.

http://www.vistarewired.com/2007/04/07/how-to-work-with-partitions-in-windows-vista-xp-when-disk-management-doesnt-work

And are you sure there's room for an extra partition? You can only have four of them, and your laptop manufacturer might have put a hidden one on your harddrive.

[rpnew]

Hi,

Well i have done the partition now. I was not able to make extended partition through Windows so i used one third party software- Paragon Hard Disk Manager -
and through that i was able to make extended partition.


Thanks,
RP

[jacksonam]

If there is an unallocated space on disk, you can easy make a partition, if no unallocated space, you need to shrink partition and then create new partition. Read the article about "[how to partition a hard drive with multi-ways".