[SOLVED] How to extend a partition

[pctutor]

I have a client with a 128 gb drive, and the C drive partition is getting tight on space. There are a couple of other partitions that have more space (the Hibernation Partition and the Recovery Partition). Screenshot is below.

How do I extend the C drive to make use of the space on those other two areas?

 

[katz]

Others may chime in on this, but I don't believe you would want to extend into that recovery partition. In this case I would either add an additional drive (desktop) or sell them a larger drive, reinstall windows. (laptop).

 

[pctutor]

Well, it's kind of an odd situation. It's a laptop with a SSD and the drive is one of those super-small ones (like slightly larger than an SD card). So there's not even any room to put in a replacement drive with more storage.

I was able to free up some space by getting rid of some files so she'll be able to get by for a little while.

 

[unclemarv]

With a drive that small, you may not want to try tinkering too much. The recovery partition is that size for a reason. You should be able to gain space by turning off hibernation.

Have you used something like Treesize (there is a free version) to look for large files/directories you can clean up? I'm assuming you've already done a disk cleanup and remove all the temp files you can (including the uneeded windows installation files). After that, you can try this free partition manager.

http://www.disk-partition.com/free-partition-manager.html

Just be sure to clone/backup your drive first.

 

[pctutor]

Yes, I freed up some space by getting rid of the hibernation option. Did the standard disk cleanup things as well.

I used a visual tool called WinDirStat (free) to see where the space is being taken up.

 

[katz]

Well, it's kind of an odd situation. It's a laptop with a SSD and the drive is one of those super-small ones (like slightly larger than an SD card). So there's not even any room to put in a replacement drive with more storage.

I was able to free up some space by getting rid of some files so she'll be able to get by for a little while.

I figured it may be something like that. I suppose you could completely blow away everything and reinstall Win from scratch, do away with the recovery/other partition...still, that's only freeing up a marginal amount of space.

Only other option would be to slim the system down by removing any unused programs, transfer personal data to an external drive, etc.

 

[pctutor]

We might end up reinstalling but I think she is going to try to eke by the way it is.

Even now, she keeps no personal files on the hard drive. All of her documents, pictures, etc. are kept on a portable drive which she brings with the laptop wherever she goes. It's a real pain in the butt situation but she at least has Carbonite backing up the external drive constantly, in case that external drive with all her stuff fails.

 

[ohio_grad_06]

Is the drive an mSata drive? Toy can buy replacement drives for those.

 

[freedomit]

Can you not burn some recovery disks and then wipe the recovery partition?

 

[pctutor]

Yes, she can get a 1tb mSATA for about $500. That may be an option.

I wouldn't care about wiping the recovery partition since I have Win7 reinstall discs anyway. But it appears that this will require some third party software since Windows is not giving me that option. And it would probably need to involve a bootable disc since I don't have an mSATA drive dock.

 

[SAG]

I had to do this on a Toshiba Protoge not too long ago. Came with a 128GB mSATA.
Picked up a 256GB mSATA from Crucial, used Acronis to image the computer onto a USB disk, swapped drives, dumped image, expanded partition..... in and out in a little under 2hrs and the customer bought me lunch while we were just sitting there waiting on stuff to happen.
mmmmmmm..... shawarma!

 

[ohio_grad_06]

If it's windows 7 this is easy. Attach an external drive to the machine, control panel, windows backup and recovery, create a system image of it. Exchange the drive for a 500gb or so, microcenter here carries a 500 for about 275ish. 256 sets you back about 130 if price is a concern. Create the image, swap the drives, boot up from a windows disc, restore the image.

The pics you showed earlier, you should be able to extend the partition then from there. I would suggest also that you have her purchase an external drive, create an image onto that, and create the windows repair disc from that panel also. That way if her drive dies, she's got a way to go to a working image. I did this recently for a user who was in a similar situation. Worked fine, user was also very happy.

 

[pctutor]

You're right - system image would be the way to go if she does go ahead and replace the drive with a larger one.

Thanks for all the input.

 

[AndyM]

I'd personally recomend that you try and free some more space up before you start the imaging, as you'll need some free space to work in.

I would:

1. Change the amount of data that System Restore uses from 12% down to say 5%
2. Run D7 to get rid of all of those Temp files from all over the place.

(I reckon you've just got yourself 15GB with those 2 steps)

3. If you don't have a copy of Acronis etc, you could use AOMEI Partition Assistant (PA) Standard Edition which allows commercial use and is free to copy the disk to a new disk, or to extend the partitions.

Although you have Windows 7 re-install discs, are they the install discs for this machine? If not, I'd create those discs using the built in utility, which should then give you the option of recovering the Recovery partition. Another 22GB recovered.

Andy

 

[ohio_grad_06]

I second the thing for AOMEI.

http://www.aomeitech.com/

Their backupper program, basically like acronis, is free for commercial use per their site, and the other person mentioned the partition software.

I've used backupper and I like it almost better than the older copy of acronis I have. Only thing I've run into is that I could not get the rescue media I created recently to boot a uefi windows 8.1 system. Other than that it's fine. If I decide not to replace it with different software, I've got a few parts around, maybe I'll just put together a budget box and leave sata cables hanging out just for doing drive to drive copies from a running pc essentially.

 

[Deetech]

Played around with AOMEI Partition Assistant (PA) Standard Edition and the backupper program. Both seem really useful. Thanks.

 

[@ncient geek]

I should think that the simple solution is

- clone the drive for backup, just in case
- get rid of the the two unneeded partitions, thus freeing up 30 Gigs
- expanding the 89 Gig C drive to the whole disk

Other the cloning part to an external drive the whole procedure will take you 15 minutes