Resizing partition question (relating to data backup did search, didnt find answer)

[itguru]

My grandfather has a sony desktop (not sure of the model, but I know it is a p4, 1 gb ram, xp mce, 160 gb hd). There is 3 partitions on the drive ( C:\ (system) D:\ (data) E:\ (System Restore Image) ). Sony only made the C:\ Partition 13 GB. Needless to say, he is out of space on this partition.

He has around 100 GB free on the D:\ drive, so I am going to shrink the D:\ partition, and increase the size of the C:\ partition using PartedMagic. I am a little nervous about using it, as I have never used it, but reading the tutorials, it seems easy enough to use.

My question is relating to the data backup. Is there any free drive imaging/cloning utilities out there that I can use to back up his data before I resize the partitions?

I am increasingly nervous about this because of the restore image on the E:\ partition. If something goes wrong during this process, I do not want to loose the data on this partition, as he would be out of luck (short of buying a new os cd and re-installing from scratch).

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[DeaconFrost]

You can use one of several programs to make a system backup to an external USB drive...my personal fav being Ghost and BartPE used together. Then, PartedMagic should let you resize the partitions you want.

 

[Arceon]

As much as i hate everything Symantec, i would ghost the entire drive and move it to a usb HDD as Deacon said. That way if the worst happens (you remove a partition boundary for the recovery partition for example, meaning you cant restore your operating system and your HDD becomes a door weight) you can still bounce back.

Alternativley, could he not just reinstall all his programs onto the data drive, and move all his media onto it? Would be far simpler and safer, especially if your not confident around partitioning.

 

[itguru]

Thank you for the replies!

Arceon, I thought about transferring all programs over to the data partition, however that would involve editing all of the registry entries for all of the programs to reflect the new installation directories.

He has no separate application installation cd's. The only way to install the applications is to restore them from the recovery partition. And when you do this, it does not give you the option to choose the installation directory.