I recommend using PQ Magic (Power Quest Partition Magic). With its help, you can partition your hard disk into as many logical disks as you like, or change the size of logical disks in any way without damaging the data on them.
PQ Magic
The last version of the program I used was version 7. During installation, you can create emergency boot floppy disks. From the first floppy you will be able to boot a DOS shell, and from the second floppy you will be able to run the PQMagic program.
Just in case, I recommend having them on hand.
However, the program also has a Windows interface. In fact, the program will still make most of the changes under DOS, but you can choose which operations you need in a colorful, convenient shell.
Program window
At the bottom of the screen are large Change Wizard buttons. But I recommend using the standard menus.
To resize a hard disk, first click on the disk you want to resize, then go to the "Operations" menu, select "Resuze/Move".
In the "Resize / Move partition" window you can see the structure of the disk. Gray indicates the space occupied by files - you cannot make the disk smaller than this size (if necessary, first transfer the files to another disk).
The arrows above and below show the levels of 2 GB and 8 GB. 2 GB is the maximum disk size that FAT supports, 8 GB is the maximum disk size that the Windows NT operating system supports (we don't need to pay attention to them).
You can change the size of the hard disk either by using the visual representation - to do this, simply move the right arrow on the disk image to the left.
Or you can enter exact values in the input fields:
Free Space Before - free space before the logical disk (leave "0").
New Size - new size (you must enter the size you want to make).
Free Space After - free space remaining after shrinking the logical disk (I recommend not changing this value - it will change itself after you set a new size).
Cluster Size - cluster size (do not change this value).
After you have resized the logical drive, you can create a new logical drive. To do this, click on the Unallocated area, and select the "Operation | Create" menu item.
In the "Create Partition" window, you must specify:
In the "Create As" list, choose what you are creating: "Logical Patrition" or "Primary Partition".
Select "Primary Partition" if you want to use all the remaining space for one logical drive.
Or "Logical Partition" if you want to make multiple logical drives.
In the "Partition Type" list, select the type of file system: "FAT" (has a limit of 2 GB), FAT 32 (recommended for Windows), NTFS (if you want to have an NTFS file system). We are not interested in other options.
Label is a label (you can put it later).
Size - the size of the logical disk in megabytes or Percent of unallocated space - the size of the logical disk as a percentage of the remaining one (I recommend that you do not change this value).
If you want to create several logical disks, then you have selected the "Logical Partition" type, and now you have 2 new lines in the list:
"* - Extended ... Primary" and "X: FAT 32 ... Logical".
Click on the line with the created logical disk (Logical) and select the menu item "Operation | Resize / Move".
In the "Resize / Move Partition" window, you must reduce the size of the logical disk (just like in the previous paragraph).
And then, after the change, click on the remaining area of the unallocated area, and create a new logical disk on it; using the "Operation | Create" menu.
You can create as many logical drives as you want on the Primary Partition.
How to undo an incorrectly specified action?
You can undo the last set action by clicking on the "Undo last" button, or using the "General | Undo Last Change" menu.
At what it is possible to make a cancellation on any number of steps. It's just that you can't get back what you canceled.
If you did something wrong, you don't need to try to change the parameters again, you need to use the cancel command. For example, if you first set the action to change the size of the logical disk from 20 to 10 GB, and then set the next step to make the change from 10 to 20 GB, then the program will do the two indicated actions (it will bring nothing but an extra risk of losing data).
After you have finished setting all the parameters, click the "Apply changes" button or select the "General | Apply Changes" menu item.
If you change the parameters of the boot disk, the system will have to reboot - the message "Warning! One or more changes ..." will be displayed.
Click "OK" and the system will reboot.
Precautionary measures
After rebooting, while making changes, do not turn off the computer and do not try to somehow interrupt the process - this will most likely cause data loss on the disk with which the program is working.
If the system has already begun to reboot, and you want to cancel the specified action, then when the message "Press any ley to abort ..." is displayed before starting PQ Magic, press any key to cancel.
After restarting, Windows may display a message that new devices have been found and require you to restart. This is not critical (i.e., you can reboot later).
Checking new logical drives
In order to see which logical drives have been created and which areas have remained unallocated, select "Administrative Tools" in the Control Panel (Start | Settings | Control Panel). And in it "Computer Management".
In the Computer Management window, select Storage | Disk Management.
You see a graphical representation of physical disks (Disk 0, Disk 1, etc.), and on them - logical ones.
If you had a CD-ROM, then it's more likely that your first logical drive is called "C:", the CD-ROM is called "D:", the other logical drives are "E:", "F:", etc.
It is more convenient to set the CD-ROM drive to the last letter.
To do this, right-click on the field "CD-ROM" and select the menu "Change drive letter ...". In the "Change Drive Letter..." window, click the "Change..." button. And select the last letter from the list (for example, "Z").
After this change, right-click on the logical drive "E:" and select the menu "Change drive letter ...", and select the letter "D:" for it (similar to the previous paragraph).
Do the same operation for the remaining logical drives (if you have them).
After redefining the letters for logical drives, you can also define a letter for the CD-ROM (similar to how we redefined the letter for the first time).
create and destroy partitions on the hard drive, resize them, merge two partitions into one - all this without data loss;
convert disks from the FAT 16 file system to FAT32 and vice versa (which, for example, the standard set of Windows utilities does not allow), and also to NTFS and vice versa;
resize the cluster to reduce wasted disk space;
fix paths to programs in shortcuts and the Windows registry after changing drive letters.
Versions 5.0-7.0 understand the following disk formats:
FAT 16 (for Windows 3.x 95)
FAT32 (for Windows 95 OSR-2,98,2000 and XP
NTFS (for NT 3.5,4.0, 2000 and XP),
as well as Linux file systems.
Work correctly with large partitions (over 8 GB in size) and large disks > 80
During installation, the program asks for permission to create two emergency floppy disks: the first will load the operating system and some drivers (for example, the mouse driver), and the second - the DOS version of Partition Magic.
Basic information about the file system
There are three types of partitions on a disk: primary, extended, and logical.
There can be up to four primary partitions on one disk. And each can have its own OS. But, working with the partition where you have, for example, Windows 98, you will not be able to see the partition with OS / 2, and vice versa.
You will create an additional disk partition only when you want to divide the hard disk. All logical disks are created on an additional partition, which can be only one on a disk.
There can be many logical partitions and each has its own OS.
All information about disk partitions, which we call the Partition Table, is contained on the very edge of the disk, in the main boot area (Master Boot Record, or MBR). The computer always boots up from the MBR first, and it can transfer the work to another partition, from where the operating system will be loaded.
A cluster is the smallest unit of information on a disk. A file may consist of a single cluster if it is a small file, or hundreds or thousands of clusters if it is a large file.
When the file is small and the cluster size specified on the disk is large, it causes wasted disk space. Imagine that each ten-byte file occupies all 64 KB on the disk.
The FAT file system has a limit on the total number of clusters on a single partition. (They can be no more than 65,525 pieces - 2 16 for FAR 16). Therefore, the larger the disk, the larger the cluster size. And the larger the cluster size, the greater the loss ... (In a 2 GB partition, the loss can be 40%). Splitting the disk into smaller partitions also does not make sense. Firstly, each has its own service areas that eat up space. And secondly, it is also not very easy to efficiently use the space on finely chopped disks.
In the NTFS file system, the size of the cluster has nothing to do with the size of the disk.
Partition Magic can run in one of two modes under Windows and Dos.
Deputy! The program works reliably, but very important information still needs to be saved on CDs, floppy disks.
The program window resembles an explorer window. On the left, all disks and partitions on them are shown. To the right, the disks themselves are presented in a visual form. A tooltip gives you an idea of the file system, total size and free disk space. At the bottom, in the form of stylized men, are the buttons for launching wizards. (fig1)
Consider basic operations.
Create new Partition- creation of new sections.
click on the master button.
2 step. Select the disk where the new partition will be created. In addition, you can read the tips again. (Fig. 2)
3 step. It is necessary to specify whether the OS will be installed on the disk. If not, then the space required for this will be given over to the data.
If the OS is installed, then they will ask which one.
The next important step is the choice of the file system for the created disk. (FAT 32 should be chosen by those who works in Windows95, 98, for 2000 and XP, you should choose NTFS. But if you also use 9x in parallel with NT, then you will need to select the FAT32 format, which is understandable to both systems (Fig. 3)
The next step asks you to specify whether the partition will be logical (Logical) or primary (Primary). It is clear that in some situations the Primary string will not be available.
Now you need to choose where exactly the partition will be created: before existing partition or in a free space after it. It is recommended (recommended) to place a new partition after the existing ones: this way the drive letters will change less. Accordingly, fewer shortcuts will stop working. However, this is not a very significant consideration, because the RM itself will restore the shortcuts to us. (Fig. 4)
If there was more than one partition on the disk before the operation began, the master will want to know from whom he should take free space for the new partition. He can take from any one or from two little by little.
Next, the program asks you to specify the size of the new partition. Of course, within the available free space. Here you are also asked to enter a label for the new disk: under this name it will appear in the My Computer window. (Fig. 5)
If you are preparing a partition for installing a new operating system, you must allocate appropriate space for it on the new disk.
operating room |
From what section is loaded |
file type |
Minimum free |
DOS 6.22 (and below) |
From the main |
||
From the main |
|||
Windows 95 OSR-2 |
From the main |
||
From the main |
|||
From the main |
|||
From the main |
|||
From main* |
|||
From main* |
NTFS, FAT, FAT32 |
||
From main* |
NTFS, FAT, FAT32 |
Over 1 GB |
|
From any |
Over 250 MB |
||
From any |
*Only a small part of the boot on NT systems is at the beginning of the main partition on the first disk. Everything else can be at the beginning of any logical partition.
Partition Magic then displays a summary table of the changes it intends to make to your disk structure. At this point, you can click the button Deputy! But the end is not the end. Only after pressing the button-steering wheel apply (apply) the program will start working on the actual changes. After asking for your permission, the RM reboots and starts the operation. First, it reduces the size of the old partition (or partitions, then creates a new one. Having finished everything, it restarts the computer again. And now the disk is divided into two (three, four, five ...) 1 After the reboot, the DriveMapper utility will start, which will view all
Windows shortcuts and registry entries and redirect where necessary. After all, as a result of our machinations, a new disk with a new name letter appears in the system. DriveMapper works for quite a long time, but on its own, it does not require intervention. You can perform similar actions when using commands. The Create Partition button and the same command in the Operation menu allow you to quickly create a new partition in a place free from other partitions. Set the type of partition, as well as the type of file system on it, enter the label and size of the partition, click OK - and instantly get a new partition. If you are creating a partition for some operating system that Partition_c does not know, you can leave the partition unformatted (do not select the Unformatted line in the Partition list). You will format it later using this OS of yours. The Split partition into two partitions button on the RM toolbar will allow you to divide the disk into two parts and immediately transfer some of the files and folders from the old one to the new partition (Fig. 6). On the Data tab, use the > button to transfer the selected files from the left window to the right one, and with the " button you can drag all files and folders at once. On the Size tab, the program immediately calculates how big the new partition needs to be in order for all your data to fit on it. Of course, you can step in and choose larger sizes. Unlike the wizard, this command always creates a partition in the same file system as the original one, the boot area is not reserved on it; and if you do not transfer any data to it, the program swears and does nothing. Let's proceed to the detailed partitioning of hard disk D. After installing and running the program, the following window will appear in front of us (FIG. 1). I have two hard drives installed, so your picture may differ from mine. Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 4
.You need to select the disk, which will be cut off part of the space and press the button next (Fig. 4) Figure 5 5
.In the size field, specify the amount of space for the new disk. As an example, I want to make a disk of 5000 megabytes or 5 gigabytes (Figure 5). You can make a new disk of any size minus the space already taken up, of course. The program itself will tell you the maximum size. It is not necessary to enter a volume label, this is just the name of the hard disk for your convenience. Create as a Logical disk, leave it unchanged, select Ntfs as the file system type, Drive letter as you like. After filling, click the Next button, and then the Finish button, having familiarized yourself with the selected settings. At this stage, the setting hard disk crash completed. If the setup was successful, you will see the New Disk with the letter G that we created, as well as its size of 5,000 megabytes. To apply the settings, click the appropriate button. Attention! During hard disk crash you can’t restart the computer, and it’s advisable to have a power supply unit (Uninterruptible Power Supply) on hand in case you have an electrical problem, otherwise other problems may arise, namely data recovery. I want to note that during the installation of the Vista or Windows 7 operating system, you can split the hard disk into two during this procedure, without using the appropriate programs. 1. It is advisable to have an uninterrupted power supply for at least 30-60 minutes 2. Do not restart the computer while partitioning the hard drive 3. Before partitioning the hard disk, check and fix errors on it using the CMD console or the program itself. Very often, hard disk partitioning does not occur precisely because of errors on the hard disk. I think that you will not have problems with partitioning your hard drive, especially after reading this article, but if they appear, write. Consider the option of resizing a disk partition using Symantec Norton PartitionMagic. Or select the menu item: Resize a partition. In the Resize Partitions window, click on the Next > button. In the next window, select the disk partition and click on the Next > button. Now in the Specify new partition size section, in the New size for partition field, enter the new size for the partition, and click on the Next > button. And confirm the resizing of the disk partition by clicking on the Finish button. We look at the result, changing the partitions of disks C: and D: To perform 3 tasks from the list, click on the button: Apply (apply). In the Apply Changes window, click the Yes button. In the window: Progress, you can observe the progress indicators of the tasks. At the end of the process of resizing partitions, click on the OK button in the Progress window. Exit the PartitionMagic program: General > Exit. And look at changing the size of the disk D partition: If the program stopped showing signs of life (does not respond to commands from the keyboard, the cursor does not move, the HDD light is on steadily) - this does not mean that it is frozen! Wait until the last and in no case press Reset. Maybe after two minutes, maybe after five or more, but you will see changes on the progress bar. The program is extremely slow, so please be patient.
Every day we type text, read mail, go to the Internet. And we rarely do dividing a hard drive into partitions. Apparently that's why utilities like fdisk do not differ in the advancement of the interface. Although there are exceptions... When using a computer, the question of the rational use of the hard disk as the main carrier and storage of information inevitably arises. And today, oh, how many! These are films, and music, and graphics. And the operating system itself, especially when it comes to Windows XP, requires a lot of space. So it turns out that for every hundred megabytes of free space, various applications are persistently claiming. When installing the system on a new hard drive, it is often customary to split a physical disk into several logical. It's a good thing. On one you can keep programs, on the other - personal files. And in the case of reinstalling the OS, you can, without fear (though with some reservations), format the partition with programs, clear it, or perform other critical operations. In this case, the data will be safe and sound on a specially designated section.Recommendations for creating a new hard disk partition
Dividing a hard drive into multiple partitions allows you to efficiently manage operating systems, programs, and data. Norton PartitionMagic, the world's leading desktop partitioning software, lets you easily create hard disk partitions, resize partitions, and divide and merge partitions without losing data. Norton PartitionMagic will allocate and protect your data, help you manage multiple operating systems, convert different types of file systems to each other, and fix partition table errors.
We launch the PartitionMagic program, select the partition whose size we want to change and click on it with the right mouse button and select an item from the list: Resize / Move... Create, change hard disk partitions
"That's it, that's exactly what I'll do now!" - some user will exclaim. And he will immediately face the problem: how much space should be allocated for program files, and how much for data? For example, we have a 30 GB hard drive (well, there are also such J, in laptops, let's say) - how to divide: fifteen by fifteen, ten by twenty, or five by twenty-five? It's good if the computer is yours personally and you have an idea what kind of work will be performed on this machine. If the OS is installed for someone else, it will be difficult to guess with a breakdown. One person plays toys more - and he needs a hard drive, mainly for programs. The other is an artist, and each picture is 100-200 MB.
In general, it often turns out that on one disk there is still fifty percent of free space, and on the other you can’t scrape even a kilobyte. It's a shame! It would be nice to take away free space from one disk and give it to another.
Partition Magic | Partition Magic free download | Hard disk partitions
And it's possible!
Actually, for such purposes, a truly excellent software tool has been created -
Power Quest PartitionMagic 8.0. This program will allow you not only to put things in order on your hard drive, but also to optimally distribute its space. Despite its belonging to the family of system utilities, this program has a very user-friendly interface, so learning how to work with it is not a problem.
Installing Partition Magic on Windows happens according to the usual scenario. However, along the way, the installer will require you to have two blank floppy disks in order to create a recovery tool. It will be possible to boot from it if Windows refuses to work and you have to bring this OS to life.
Well, everything, installed and launched.
Hard disk partitions at a glance
Because the Partition Magic is designed to work with disk partitions, information about the latter is displayed in the main window. The user can immediately see the status of these resources - and this will help to correctly determine the next steps.
Look at the picture - you can see that we have two sections. The first is reserved for a system that fits perfectly in less than three gigabytes, the other five are not used. The solution comes right away: shrink the System partition and increase the Data partition. The program can do this too. On the left side of the window, titled Pick a Task..., there is a list of all the tasks that the Partition
Magic:
* Creation of new hard disk partitions of different (even incompatible with Windows) types;
* distribution of free space and creating a partition there for data backup;
* creating a hard disk partition suitable for installing other operating systems (Windows or Linux);
* resizing hard disk partitions;
* redistribution of free space between hard disk partitions;
* merging hard disk partitions;
*Creating a copy of a hard disk partition.
Partition Magic | Partition Magic free download | Hard disk partitions
All these tasks can be performed both through a simplified dialog and with the help of the Wizard. It probably makes sense to start studying this program with the most requested feature - resizing partitions.
Reshaping Sections
If you decide that the hard disk is not optimally partitioned and one of the partitions is not large enough, while the other, on the contrary, would not hurt to reduce, call the Resize a partition function, while selecting the part of the disk that needs to be reduced (in our case, this is drive C with the label System). A dialog will appear (see figure). It remains only to "grab" the right edge of the pink rectangle denoting the section with the mouse and drag it to the left as far as necessary.
Next, you need to perform the reverse actions - already with another part of the disk intended for storing data, increasing its size by the amount of freed space.
Do not forget to confirm the changes later by clicking the Apply button on the left side of the window. True, such serious system operations will most likely take effect only after restarting the PC, which the program will warn you about. Also, keep in mind that the bulk of the disk conversion work will take place during the initial boot of the PC - so be patient!
Agree, it's not very difficult. We haven't even tried Assistant mode yet! You can call it from the menu on the left side of the window, under the Tasks menu. In this case, you will have to go through a series of auxiliary dialogues. The first one (see the figure below) will require you to specify the partition to be reduced. In the next window, indicate the final size of the partition and at the end mark the partitions (we have one) to which the freed megabytes should be assigned.
As for me, the first option for performing this task is even easier.
Partition Magic | Partition Magic free download | Hard disk partitions
Inclination towards unitarity
If the ideas of "federalism" of the hard disk do not find due approval from you, you can simply combine several logical disks into one, thus permanently getting rid of the problems of irrational distribution of workspace. Let's see how this happens in practice.
When you run the Merge partition task, you will see the following dialog prompting you to select the first of the partitions to be merged.
The next dialog box prompts you to select the next section to merge with the first. At the same time, its contents will be saved in a separate folder located on a single disk. The user can specify a name for this folder. In this example, the Data folder is selected (by section name).
Well, the final window, as you can see (figure), shows the result of the work. Just do not forget to confirm your intentions by pressing the Apply button and rebooting the system.
Now, having opened the C drive (the D drive will no longer be), you will also see a new Data folder on it. It will contain the file structure that previously belonged to partition D.
Still, many users prefer to have several logical drives, especially if the hard drive is large enough. On the other hand, sometimes circumstances arise in which it is simply necessary to break the hard drive into parts. For example, when reinstalling the OS or in the case of organizing a backup process.
Well, let's take a look at the task list again and run Create a new partition. At the first stage (it is shown in the figure), you should specify where - at the beginning or at the end of the disk space - you need to create a new partition. Recommended at the end.
The next window will require you to select the partition type (primary or extended) and file system. You cannot create more than four primary partitions. Such a limitation was incorporated many years ago into the architecture of the IBM PC. Actually, for Windows users, this is not a problem. I have not yet met people who would like to have five or more sections (we get C, D, E, F, G, etc.). But there is also a disk drive and a CD. Yes, it's a lot...
Another matter work in Linux. Here it is simply recommended to have five partitions (/, usr, var, home, swap). Although I personally only use /, home and swap). And if you need to have another OS in parallel, say Windows, then the main partitions are clearly not enough. For such cases, extended sections are provided. When the partition limit ends, you can create an extended partition instead of the main one - and there are four more logical disks in it.
The figure shows that Partition Magic immediately suggests creating a logical partition. But I would recommend doing this only if you really need more than four disks (if you have ever dealt with the recovery of accidentally erased partitions, you will surely agree with me). Also specify the size of the new size and the letter that the system should assign to the drive.
A few simple tricksAnother way to create a new partition is to organize a data backup scheme. In this case, the program will take away empty space from existing partitions - and create a new disk in it. The sequence of user actions in this case is as follows: specify the logical location of the backup partition (before or after which partition), specify the partitions from which free space will be taken, agree with the changes and click Apply. The figure is the result of the actions performed.
If, on the contrary, there is free space on the hard drive that is not included in any of the disks available in the system, then it is possible not only to create a new partition on it and thus provide the system with fresh disk resources, but also to evenly distribute free space between existing disks. Such a task in Partition Magic is listed as Redistribute free space. The figure shows not only this situation, but also a method for solving it. The free space between drives C and D will be distributed between the marked partitions (themselves).
As you know, Windows 2000 and XP prefer to use the NTFS file system and even have facilities to convert FAT32 drives to this format. But what about back? Well, suddenly there is a need to access files created by XP from Windows 98?
PartitionMagic also has a remedy for this situation. A simple dialog box demonstrating its operation is shown below:
Another utility called DriveMapper does a pretty specific job. You have probably noticed that in Windows sometimes drive letters "jump": we connect a new hard drive or delete / add a partition - and drive E: becomes drive F:. Everything would be fine if only some programs stored their shortcuts in values tied to a drive letter. With the described changes, such programs may lose their functionality.
You can fix the situation with Partition Magic and its DriveMapper module. The figure shows an example of her work:
Caution won't hurt
Partition Magic has long gained popularity among system administrators and advanced users. It is a flexible, powerful - and at the same time simple - hard disk partition maintenance tool. It allows you to solve problems that every user faces sooner or later. If you practice a little in using Partition Magic, you can easily optimize your system, convert data, or simply get detailed information about the state of the hard drive and its logical drives.
But don't let the easy and understandable interface of this program make you forget that manipulations with system partitions are always unsafe. In the end, at the most critical moment of the operation, a power outage may occur. So try to reduce the use of Partition
Magic - as well as other system utilities - to a minimum.