Shrinking a volume...

[fink]

On a hard drive with two partitions if I shrink the first does the space become unallocated or is it automatically added to the second partition?

If unallocated then is Windows 7 disk management sophisticated enough to add that space to the second partition if I want to expand it? (without data loss!)

I can find no documentation on this in the windows help file.

[Steve R Jones]

unallocated and Nope...It can't read your mind and figure out you want to expand another....It gives you the ability to create another partition

[SuperSparks]

You can add unallocated space to another partition to expand it, but there are a few caveats and gotchas, if memory serves, (it's been a while since I did it). I do remember that the unallocated space has to be contiguous to the volume that you want to expand. I'll see if I can dig up some more info.

[SuperSparks]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...windows-vista/

[fink]

thanks.. I just turned it into a new partition. Expansion wasn't an option given but having two ~50Gig storage partitions is just as useful to me as having one 100Gig. Plus at some point I can use one for a dual boot setup.

I'll wait for more sophisticated partitioning tools to become available for 7 before I do any more work on them. I tried using a couple that were allegedly 7 compatible when I first set up the PC (from the ubcd boot cd) but ended up hosing the procedure a couple of times. I gave up, reformatted, installed 7 again and let it create one partition and now two.

[DVOM]

fink, I just use a live linux CD, boot to that, open the supplied partition editor and have at it. Usually, the supplied editor is GPartEd which will easily expand a partition to include unallocated space with no data loss on the original partition.

Keep in mind that if you're expanding a partition to the left, it'll take quite a while because it'll move all the data over to the new partition beginning, if you're expanding the partition to the right it doesn't take near as long because it doesn't need to move data.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

[fink]

Good idea. I have Suse and Knoppix live CD's. I'll have a go at it... thanks.

[fink]

Hmm, neither of my linux live cd's work with the new system... not sure why exactly but the message was that the file system could not be found. They still work on the XP box I made them on.

Anyway no big deal, I'll probaby eventually make a new one(s) for this system, on this system but for the time being I'll leave the two partitions alone. They're functioning fine for now.

[SuperSparks]

Ubuntu can be used as a live CD, and that definitely has Gparted in it.

[DVOM]

Well, as long as we're talking about Ubuntu and live CD's this might be a good time to mention a tool that comes with Ubuntu 8.10 and later: Live USB Disk Creator

Pretty sweet:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ubuntu-...usb-installer/