Help reallocating disk space in Vista x64

[1Wolf]

Just have some Vista x64 disk space allocation/partition questions and was hoping for a little help or advice.

I've got a Windows Vista x64 machine. One of the HD's is a 150 Gig drive with two partitions, C & D.

C is the OS partition and D is the "Programs" partition:

I'm starting to run pretty low on space on my OS partition (C). I've cleaned up most everything I could. I do have a decent amount of unused space yet on my (D) partition.

Is it possible, and safe, to take some drive space from my (D) partition and re-allocate that to my (C) partition so that the OS can have some more space?

Under "Disk Management" in windows, I see that I can right-click on the (D) partition and choose "Shrink volume"...however I'm afraid that it could cause data loss, or maybe reduced disk performance.

I've never 're-allocated' space on a partition before so I'm not sure if its possible, exactly how to perform this safely, and if its possible to do safely without data loss or performance problems.

Thanks in advance!

 

[OldMX]

Grab a .iso of Parted Magic and boot off it, load the partition manager and shrink the second partition, then extend the first one.

 

[bigdogchris]

That would work.

You can also disable hibernation and delete the file hibernation.sys file. Also, Vista is HORRIBLE about taking up gobs of space for system restore. Look up how to change that with vssadmin. (drop it to like 1 GB). Disable the page file on C: and enable it on D: for min/max 1.25x your memory. Finally, download and run CCleaner.

Those 4 steps should save you some room.

 

[1Wolf]

Thanks OldMX & bigdogchris,

I'll try that Parted Magic stuff and give it a shot. Hopefully it'll be easy and I won't have to worry about losing data or anything.

Just out of curiousity...what would have happened if I had right-clicked in Vista x64 and selected "Shrink Volume"? Would it have done something 'bad'? Would I have lost data? I'm glad I asked first!

You can also disable hibernation and delete the file hibernation.sys file. Also, Vista is HORRIBLE about taking up gobs of space for system restore. Look up how to change that with vssadmin. (drop it to like 1 GB). Disable the page file on C: and enable it on D: for min/max 1.25x your memory. Finally, download and run CCleaner.

Thanks. Yup....I had pretty much already exhausted those same steps. I'd disabled Hibernation from the get-go. I had completely disabled System Restore on all my drives. I've got the page file as a partitition at the beginning of a separate physical drive. I run CCleaner periodically just to keep things tidy.

Every time I did a windows update....that OS partition just kept growing a little bit each time like some kind of tumor. I knew eventually I'd have to try and see if I can juggle space between partitions and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to.

Needless to say, I was very happy when you guys informed me that I could with that Parted Magic thing. Hopefully it'll work!

Thanks again.

 

[bigdogchris]

Every time I did a windows update....that OS partition just kept growing a little bit each time like some kind of tumor. I knew eventually I'd have to try and see if I can juggle space between partitions and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to.

And that's the sad part about Windows Update.

I have a couple dozen XP boxes running on 8 GB hard drives. I had to reinstall with integrated XP SP3 and updates up through February 11. I disabled Auto Update with hopes of keeping disk space usage at around 2.5GB. Once it got close 4-6GB the drive was very slow.

I'm also doing something similar on my SSD at home with a clean install of 7 SP1 integrated, with no updates turned on.

Also, did you delete the hibernation.sys file or just turn it off? I think on Vista you have to turn it off then delete the file manually, but I'm not completely sure.