[OT?] How to create partitions when W8/64 is installed?

Hallo NG!
Is is posiible to create an additional partition on a system with W8PRO/64
installed?
HD is a SSD in a laptop. How to proceed? Or alternatives?
Vy 73! Helge
--
Helge, DJ1WM

Helge Haensel wrote:
Hallo NG!
Is is posiible to create an additional partition on a system with
W8PRO/64 installed?
HD is a SSD in a laptop. How to proceed? Or alternatives?
Vy 73! Helge

In the past (before Windows 8), Disk Management had very limited
functionality. You could create partitions within unallocated
space. Or delete partitions.

But for other functions, such as shrink, expand, merge, move_left
or move_right, a third-party Partition Manager was the best choice
for that. And there are some free third-party partition managers
out there. It's not like in the old days, where everyone
was using Partition Magic and forking out good money for it.

(There is at least one commercial entry on this list, that
offers a free one... So this list isn't as accurate as I would
like.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...oning_software

Now, a new function that was added to Disk Management, is
they did add a "shrink" function. If you allocated the entire
SSD as C:, right now you probably have no remaining space
to create another partition. So the first step would be to
"shrink" the partition. This would be especially useful
if there was no partition to the right of C:. As Disk
Management doesn't have enough arbitrary movement capabilities
to deal with just any arrangement of partitions. The
shrink function can shrink to about half the original
size. If you had a 250GB SSD with C: covering all of it,
the Disk Management shrink function can reduce that to
125GB. It's not as good as a real partition manager, which
can shrink until it's just big enough to hold all the
files. The Disk Management function, cannot move some
metadata files that are roughly half-way on the partition.

But you also have to count partitions, as you may have run
out of primary partitions already. The MBR has a table with
room for four primary partitions. Some OEM computers will
have used up all those partitions, with things like a
recovery partition (for re-installing the OS from a
factory disk image).

So the very first thing you need to do, is fire up Disk
Management, and figure out whether you have a "left over"
slot in the MBR partition table, for this new partition
you want to create. Otherwise, you will need a lot
more complicated maneuver to get this job done.

*******

On my Windows 7 laptop from Acer, they provided two
partitions. There was a SYSTEM RESERVED, about 100MB in
size. That's the part that "boots" the OS. And there is
C:, which contains the rest of the system files.

That split is used, to support BitLocker full disk
encryption. It really isn't full disk encryption, in
that the boot files cannot be encrypted. So what Microsoft
does in that case, is use two partitions. If you used BitLocker,
it can encrypt all of C:. And the tiny SYSTEM RESERVED
partition, is unencrypted (and none of your personal files
are on there anyway).

Well, lots of people don't use BitLocker. As well, BitLocker
is only available on certain versions of the OS. In my case,
on Windows 7, it means I'm very unlikely to ever be in
a position to use BitLocker. And thus SYSTEM RESERVED
is surplus to my needs. I was able to blow away
SYSTEM RESERVED partition (which doesn't have a drive
letter), and use the partition table slot that freed up,
to create another partition for myself. The recipe is here.
It's pretty complicated, but I did plenty of preparing
in advance for it, and it went off without a hitch.
I count myself lucky - do a backup first :-)

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=409

If I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have had a means to
(easily) make another partition entry.

I could have removed a primary partition, created an
extended partition, and used logical partition(s) to
do the job. But I'm not a big fan of Extended, as when
you need to change partition sizes later, it can
add to your workload. Spatially, it's best to put an
Extended at the end of the disk. Then create Logicals
as you need them. So you can do it that way, but
being a stubborn individual, I decided that the
SYSTEM RESERVED I didn't need, was on the chopping block.

So your first step, is looking at Disk Management,
to develop a "plan of attack". If you want to post
a picture of Disk Management, take a screen snapshot,
then visit www.tinypic.com and upload the picture
to their server. Then, take the resulting URL
from the wwb page, and place the URL in your next
posting. Then, anyone who uses their browser to
look at that link, can easily see your disk setup.

A tinypic page is pretty "busy", and your image
upload will be in the center somewhere. Click on it
to view it with a little less noise. And select
"view raw image", to view it alone. The URL you post,
would be similar to this. An uploaded image receives
a random file name. And they *must* serve you advertising
of course, so they couldn't just let you link to the
picture alone or anything :-) The only reason I use
this server, is because there is no need to register.

http://i57.tinypic.com/faoocy.gif

HTH,
Paul

Thanks Paul for your detailed Information. In the meantime I solved the
problem
by using a live CD with Ubuntu. With parted was the task simple and I
now have 2 partitions.
Helge

Am 31.01.2014, 14:07 Uhr, schrieb Paul :

Helge Haensel wrote:
Hallo NG!
Is is posiible to create an additional partition on a system with
W8PRO/64 installed?
HD is a SSD in a laptop. How to proceed? Or alternatives?
Vy 73! Helge

... snipped


A tinypic page is pretty "busy", and your image
upload will be in the center somewhere. Click on it
to view it with a little less noise. And select
"view raw image", to view it alone. The URL you post,
would be similar to this. An uploaded image receives
a random file name. And they *must* serve you advertising
of course, so they couldn't just let you link to the
picture alone or anything :-) The only reason I use
this server, is because there is no need to register.

http://i57.tinypic.com/faoocy.gif

HTH,
Paul