second partition without formatting drive c

[kaptlid]

Hi! Is it possible to shrink drive c:/ on windows 98se and use the space for a second partition without having to format the whole disk and lose all my data?

Can the commandline diskpart utility from xp be used in win98se to do this? Or do I need some type of third party software. Thanks.

I am interested in installing winxp pro on the second partition.

 

[vacunita]

It is possible, though it is not without risk, so you you should always backup the system prior to doing operations of this kind.

However I don't believe disk part is capable of shrinking a partition, it is capable of extending one into unallocated space, but not shrinking one as far as I know.

You would need a third party app like Partition Magic with which I have had good success, to shrink down the partition, and create a new one in the freed up space.

How big is the current drive? How much of it is used by the Win98 installation?

Would it be possible to simply add a new drive to the system and use that to install XP onto? It would be the easiest way.







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Phil AKA Vacunita
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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[kaptlid]

The current drive is 13 gigs in total, which 6.5 of is free. Mainly lots and lots of applications installed. The second physical drive is my data drive 40 gigs almost completely full.
Data is all backed up. Mostly concerned about reinstalling all the applications.

Is there a free version of partition magic or something else that will do in its place?

I would keep using fat32 on winxp too.

Thanks,

 

[vacunita]

Its going to be a really tight fit.

You can try this one

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Partition-Resizer.shtml

Or google for more.
I have no personal experience with it so can;t say anything about it just one I found.

And again backup important data before doing this.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[kaptlid]

Tight fit for an installation of winxp? I was going to install a really stripped down version of it. Winxp pro only took about 1.5 gigs last time I installed it.

 

[vacunita]

In my experience, while the initial installation may be small when you start downloading updates and patches it tends to grow rather quickly.



----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[kaptlid]

Well I am very happy to say that I used a copy of gparted live and my hard drives are still intact! WooHoo!

Initially wanted to use presizer but it only works on hard disks with a certain cluster size? 512 bytes, my relic of a dell [10 years old] has a 13 gig maxtor that apparently has a different cluster size. Yes that's the original hard drive that came with the computer. Took it all day to defrag with the windows 98 utility.

Now to install a stripped down version of winxp

 

[vacunita]

Congratulations, glad it worked for you.

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.