Partitioning drive in vista home premium 64 bit

[techtonator]

Hi All,

Thanks to all the gurus here for making such a nice forum!

I need some help on vista partitioning. I bought a new HP dv6000 laptop with Vista home premium 64 bit. But there is only one partition provided sizing 220 GB. I want to have following partitions without having to uninstall Vista or format drive:

partition 1: 50 GB for Vista home premium 64 bit
partition 2: 55 GB for Win XP x32 (I want to have dual boot)
partition 3: 50 GB for Linux (not really planning this but just in case I happen to
go for it else will be using this for personal stuff)
partition 4: 65 GB for fun stuff

So my questions are:

1> Is it possible to have above kind and number of partitions with three OS
installs?
2> How do I make the space available to create the partitions?
3> How do I create the partitions?
4> Will the OS on one partition see/let see other partitions and files?

I researched it a bit and found that it is possible to shrink the disk using Vista disk management util or any third party software like Acronis Disk Director Suite. But here is also what I found during the research and with my own laptop:

The partition could be shrunk only to the end of the disk and not towards the start of the disk. As such if there are any immovable system files lying in between, there might be considerable amount of disk that may not be usable. How do I tackle this situation? (my fifth question)

I haven't started with creating the partitions on my laptop yet but during the data backup I found that there was 134 GB free disk space available and there was only about 56 GB of data present on the disk (which only includes the Vista stuff and the softwares I installed. I found this by selecting all the stuff on C: and checking the properties from the context menu).

I wonder where is the rest of 30 GB of space gone? (which is my sixth question) What could be the problem here? I even defragmented the disk but still the situation prevails.

Also, I downloaded the Disk Director Suite but during download or installation it didn't say anything about the evaluation. But one day I got a mail from Acronis site stating the subscription for the software has expired. But I am still able to START the software and it doesn't prompt me anything regarding registration or expiration. Now I am scared to use ACronis since if during the operations, it complains anything regarding this, I will be screwed.

Please help!!!

Huge thanks for reading such a big post! I am sorry for that but explaining the situation is a must to get the right thing out :).

Any help on this is a lot appreciated! Thanks alot!

[AmberJain]

Hello,

Welcome to bytes.com!!

I am trying to answer all the questions but I am not sure about all this.

Is it possible to have above kind and number of partitions with three OS installs?

Yes..that sort of partition structure is indeed possible. Dual booting XP and Vista might be difficult but not impossible. A tri-boot system (XP, Vista, Linux) is not difficult either (if you are ready to read good documentation). You will get most help from our dear friend google. Try other similar search terms to get more help google.

NOTE: There are chances that you may lose data when you are doing this. It is recommended that you backup all your data before trying this.

How do I make the space available to create the partitions?

Backup important data and then delete unnecessary files. Then defragment your partitions. Then use some bootable disk management/partitioning program to make new partitions.
Also, the partition scheme you want is good but you dont need

How do I create the partitions?

You can do this easily by any partitioning program. You can get much help from google and if you face some specific problem then feel free to post it here.

Will the OS on one partition see/let see other partitions and files?

Linux can access many almost all major fs types. From windows, however, you will need some third party program to access linux partition (e.g. Ext2 IFS For Windows as windows doesnot have support for accessing ext2/ext3 partitions.

The partition could be shrunk only to the end of the disk and not towards the start of the disk. As such if there are any immovable system files lying in between, there might be considerable amount of disk that may not be usable. How do I tackle this situation? (my fifth question)

If you are going to use some Windows based partitioning program then this problem can certainly cause headache for you. For this reason, I suggested using some bootable/live partitioning program. If you are familiar with linuxes then I will advise using some distro like Ubuntu Live CD which has Gparted partitioning program. Moreover it is free which is certainly preferred by most users.

I wonder where is the rest of 30 GB of space gone? (which is my sixth question)

I dont know what is causing this problem but if you can boot into Ubuntu live cd and start Gparted then it will show you where 30 GB is gone.

Also, I downloaded the Disk Director Suite but during download or installation it didn't say anything about the evaluation. But one day I got a mail from Acronis site stating the subscription for the software has expired. But I am still able to START the software and it doesn't prompt me anything regarding registration or expiration. Now I am scared to use ACronis since if during the operations, it complains anything regarding this, I will be screwed.

I dont know anything about licensing and that is why I prefer (and advise) using some free alternative (like gparted).

Also, if you don't want the complete Ubuntu then you can also download only Gparted live cd for your purpose.
Ubuntu also ships free CDs to your home. Click here for more details.

Hope this helps.....
AmbrNewlearner

[techtonator]

Hi All,

I have done it!!!

I got whatever partitions I wanted. I used the open source util "GParted". This has worked really well and is very easy to use.

Here are answers to my own questions:

1> Is it possible to have above kind and number of partitions with three OS
installs?

Not exactly!!! There can only be two primary partitions other than anoter third extended partition which itself is a primary partition. If you wish to have more than three partitions, you cna create logical partitions within the extended partitions.

So what I did was I created the firt two partitions and two logical partitions in the third extended partition!

2> How do I make the space available to create the partitions?

Use the "Resize/Move" option in "GParted". Very easy to use!

3> How do I create the partitions?

in Gparted, when you have any unallocated space available, right click on that and select "New". This will ask you to provide the size of the partition you want to create. Click ok and you are done.

4> Will the OS on one partition see/let see other partitions and files?

yes, if they support the filesystem! I formatted using the NTFS file system. I wish to install XP and both Vista and XP support this FS so yes!!!!

The partition could be shrunk only to the end of the disk and not towards the start of the disk. As such if there are any immovable system files lying in between, there might be considerable amount of disk that may not be usable. How do I tackle this situation? (my fifth question)

Didn't face this situation, luckily! But I think it can be handled with the "Resize/Move" option in GParted.

I wonder where is the rest of 30 GB of space gone? (which is my sixth question) What could be the problem here? I even defragmented the disk but still the situation prevails.

I still wonder!!!

When I try to see the size in windows, so much of space seems to be missing. But GParted shoed it all as being used. But I don't still know where exactly is the space is being consumed. Perhaps by some s/f installed I suspect. Because when I un-installed some of the softwares that I wasn't using, I freed up 10 gigs and now it only shows 20 gigs as missing!!!

[AmberJain]

Hello,

There can only be two primary partitions other than anoter third extended partition which itself is a primary partition. If you wish to have more than three partitions, you cna create logical partitions within the extended partitions.

This is not exactly true. As wikipedia says:

A PC hard disk can contain up to four partitions. Each of them can be a primary partition and at most one can be an extended one.

Other than that, I am glad that everything worked fine for you.

Hope this helps...
AmbrNewlearner