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can I change partition size after the fact

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I am running Win7 ultimate on a Intel SSD 80g hard drive. I partitioned the hard drive 20/60. I thought I was making C/ 60gigs and D/ 20gigs but the system made C/ 20g and D/60g. So far the OS on C has only 2.5gigs of free space left and I need to extend the space in C. Is there a way to make the C partition larger without having to start over with the system and program install?

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FordMan:

Yes, you can change the size of the partitions. Which version of Disk Director (DD) are you using? Since you're using an SSD you'll want a version that will preserve the 1 MiB partition alignment on the disk, so you should use DD version 11.

If this is the case, boot your PC from the DD 11 recovery CD (don't do this with the Windows version of the program) and do the following steps, in this order:

1. Resize the D: partition from the left, making it 20 GB and leaving 40 GB of free space between the two partitions.
2. Commit the changes and verify that the outcome is correct.
3. Resize the C: partition from the right, making it 60 GB.
4. Commit the changes and reboot into Windows to test.

If you don't have any data on the D: partition there is an easier way to do this entirely from Windows 7 using Disk Management console:
a. Right-click on the D: partition and choose "Delete Volume".
b. Right-click on the C: partition and choose "Extend Volume", making it 60 GB
c. Right-click on the free space following the C: volume and create a 20 GB partition, format as NTFS, choose drive letter D:

Thank you Mark, I will have to download the Disc Director 11 as I only have the programs that came with the SSD, Intel Data Migration and Intel SSD Toolbox. Would the Disc Director be on the Intel SSD disc? Thank you for your help as I was thinking I would have to start over. Dan

Dan:

No, Acronis Disk Director is commercial software and you would need to purchase a copy. It is available on the Acronis web site, above.

If you have just recently installed Windows 7 and do not have any programs or data on the D: partition (or if you can temporarily remove these to external storage) then consider the easier method outlined in my previous post.

Not a problem, I downloaded the DD 11 program and installed it. Starting the process first option is (bootable media type) and select way disks will be represented. Question: in your instruction you said not to do this in the window version, dose that mean to select the Linux options in both cases? Thank Again Mark.

Dan:

In the program, select the "Bootable Media Builder" application to create a recovery CD. Choose the Linux-based recovery media. Boot your PC with this CD and do the operations from the CD.

You want to avoid using the Windows version of the program whenever you are making changes to the Windows system partition. If you do try the operations with the Windows version of the program then it has to first shut down Windows and then reboot into the recovery environment anyway, but you will be "flying blind" without any feedback on what the program is doing. When you run the recovery environment from the CD, you will be able to see and verify each step of the process.

When running the program from the CD, on the first screen be sure to check the Disk Layout; this affects the offsets used in the partition table. You can choose either "Windows 7", if offered as a choice, or "Bootable Media Environment". Both give the desired 1 MiB offset between partitions, which is optimum for an SSD.

Otherwise, the user interface of the Linux-based recovery environment is almost identical to the Windows version user interface.

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