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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Hi,
I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Mort Linder |
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#2
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Mort wrote:
Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. Mort Linder If the partitions are adjacent to one another, you can: 1) Shrink one partition and expand the other. A good third-party partition manager tool, can do resizing and movement of partitions. You may need to shrink the right-most partition, and move it to the right, to free up a "chunk" in the middle. Then expand the left-most partition, to fill the space. 2) The more evil option, is called "Merge", where the two partitions are poured together. I wouldn't touch that with a barge pole :-) That is high risk. There are some free third-party partition management programs. This list isn't completely accurate, as some of the commercial ones, have free versions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...oning_software Check to see if there is a direct download link. Some sites like this, if you take the "easy" looking download button, they'll start you off with a "downloader application". And it will want to install tool bars you don't want. If you look around, there may be a direct download button there somewhere. Or, go to the software manufacturer's site, and see if they have an alternate download link. http://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Part...-10863346.html ******* It takes careful planning, to reduce the runtime of this kind of work. So don't be in a rush to press any buttons, until you're sure you've got the shortest route to the objective. No tool, can really combine the steps you want to do, into one "giant step". Partition management takes "baby steps", and you need to see how the tool does them, to plan the best order of execution. Many times, I see things being done, where I say to myself "why couldn't they have just combined these two steps, how hard is that to do?". So baby steps are common to all of them. I recommend a backup, before doing this. Mainly because, it takes time to build trust in a new software you've downloaded. For example, I've heard of one of the freebie partition managers, corrupting a FAT32 while resizing it. Using Macrium Reflect Free, can take minimal time to store the partitions to an external disk - that program only stores the sectors that have data in them (like many others do). It can even back up C: "hot", without rebooting like Ghost used to. The partition tool you use, will probably run CHKDSK before beginning. And that's for safety. It doesn't pay to move around stuff that is damaged. Similarly, I occasionally use the free version of HDTune (2.55), to check the SMART statistics on the hard drive. If there are a lot of Reallocated Sectors, then don't start moving stuff. I had a disk, where as soon as you did "big" data operations, the reallocated sectors would just grow and grow. So be aware of how healthy the disk is. No partition manager I know of, is clever enough to look at SMART and say "you really should not do this on a flaky disk". The Merge type operation, is really hard to get right. Whereas, if a software developer can't do a Move/Resize task, they shouldn't really be in the business of developing partition managers. You can do this from Linux, but most people don't care about such a statement... :-) Paul |
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:43:59 -0400, Mort wrote:
Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. |
#4
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Ken Blake, MVP wrote:
On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:43:59 -0400, Mort wrote: Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. The Merge would screw things up. References to "D:\Program Files" would be invalid. I didn't discuss the other specifics of Merge, but stopped at pointing out, in my opinion, it isn't very safe. I've never attempted Merge, ever. Just a bad idea. The shrink/expand should be OK, as most things don't use absolute sector addresses. In a world filled with defragmentation programs, an absolute sector address wouldn't be too useful. With shrink/expand, you still have C: and D:, and all the files are still in their respective partitions. Paul |
#5
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Paul wrote:
Ken Blake, MVP wrote: On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:43:59 -0400, Mort wrote: Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. The Merge would screw things up. References to "D:\Program Files" would be invalid. I didn't discuss the other specifics of Merge, but stopped at pointing out, in my opinion, it isn't very safe. I've never attempted Merge, ever. Just a bad idea. The shrink/expand should be OK, as most things don't use absolute sector addresses. In a world filled with defragmentation programs, an absolute sector address wouldn't be too useful. With shrink/expand, you still have C: and D:, and all the files are still in their respective partitions. Paul Is there *anything* that uses absolute sector addresses? (except for the boot sector, I presume)? Like you, I wouldn't attempt combining partitions. :-) And even if it succeeded, as Ken said, some program references could be off, due to the partition merge. He simply needs to resize the partitions. |
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Bill in Co wrote:
Hi, Thanks to all for the helpful information. I will try to resize the partitions without merging or combining them. Mort Paul wrote: Ken Blake, MVP wrote: On Sat, 10 Aug 2013 15:43:59 -0400, Mort wrote: Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. The Merge would screw things up. References to "D:\Program Files" would be invalid. I didn't discuss the other specifics of Merge, but stopped at pointing out, in my opinion, it isn't very safe. I've never attempted Merge, ever. Just a bad idea. The shrink/expand should be OK, as most things don't use absolute sector addresses. In a world filled with defragmentation programs, an absolute sector address wouldn't be too useful. With shrink/expand, you still have C: and D:, and all the files are still in their respective partitions. Paul Is there *anything* that uses absolute sector addresses? (except for the boot sector, I presume)? Like you, I wouldn't attempt combining partitions. :-) And even if it succeeded, as Ken said, some program references could be off, due to the partition merge. He simply needs to resize the partitions. |
#7
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
In message , Bill in Co
writes: Paul wrote: Ken Blake, MVP wrote: [] See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. You beat me to that (-:. The Merge would screw things up. References to "D:\Program Files" would be invalid. I didn't discuss the other specifics of Merge, but stopped at pointing out, in my opinion, it isn't very safe. I've never attempted Merge, ever. Just a bad idea. The shrink/expand should be OK, as most things don't use absolute sector addresses. In a world filled with defragmentation programs, an absolute sector address wouldn't be too useful. With shrink/expand, you still have C: and D:, and all the files are still in their respective partitions. Paul Is there *anything* that uses absolute sector addresses? (except for the boot sector, I presume)? I have seen - though not recently, but I think it _was_ in the XP era - softwares which _I think_ used absolute addresses as an antipiracy measure, i. e. they set themselves up at install to expect to find certain things at certain absolute sector addresses. At least I _think_ that's what they did: since it was part of their protection method, they weren't forthcoming about how it worked! It was easy to unintentionally break them (I don't mean to break - "crack" - the antipiracy method, I mean break as in prevent from working) by things like defragmenting. (I _think_ they had a way of preventing the built-in defragmenter from breaking them.) IIRR this was the same piece of software that came with a number (3 I think, to allow for disasters) of "licences" on a floppy, and you could "transfer" the "licence" back and forth to/from the floppy: once you'd taken it off, the installed software reverted to the evaluation version (which only gave you half an hour at a time). That _might_ not have been the same software as used the absolute sector address though. Like you, I wouldn't attempt combining partitions. :-) And even if it succeeded, as Ken said, some program references could be off, due to the partition merge. He simply needs to resize the partitions. And then, in time, reinstall those few prog.s that are installed on D:. (Personally I keep a small - 30G, though I've only used 18.8 of it after several years) - C:, for the OS and software, with the rest - D: - for data, but that suits how I work; YMM (and probably does) V. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." - Harlan Ellison |
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
On Sunday, August 11, 2013 4:42:23 AM UTC-5, J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co writes: Paul wrote: Ken Blake, MVP wrote: [] See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. You beat me to that (-:. The Merge would screw things up. References to "D:\Program Files" would be invalid. I didn't discuss the other specifics of Merge, but stopped at pointing out, in my opinion, it isn't very safe. I've never attempted Merge, ever. Just a bad idea. The shrink/expand should be OK, as most things don't use absolute sector addresses. In a world filled with defragmentation programs, an absolute sector address wouldn't be too useful. With shrink/expand, you still have C: and D:, and all the files are still in their respective partitions. Paul Is there *anything* that uses absolute sector addresses? (except for the boot sector, I presume)? I have seen - though not recently, but I think it _was_ in the XP era - softwares which _I think_ used absolute addresses as an antipiracy measure, i. e. they set themselves up at install to expect to find certain things at certain absolute sector addresses. At least I _think_ that's what they did: since it was part of their protection method, they weren't forthcoming about how it worked! It was easy to unintentionally break them (I don't mean to break - "crack" - the antipiracy method, I mean break as in prevent from working) by things like defragmenting. (I _think_ they had a way of preventing the built-in defragmenter from breaking them.) IIRR this was the same piece of software that came with a number (3 I think, to allow for disasters) of "licences" on a floppy, and you could "transfer" the "licence" back and forth to/from the floppy: once you'd taken it off, the installed software reverted to the evaluation version (which only gave you half an hour at a time). That _might_ not have been the same software as used the absolute sector address though. Like you, I wouldn't attempt combining partitions. :-) And even if it succeeded, as Ken said, some program references could be off, due to the partition merge. He simply needs to resize the partitions. And then, in time, reinstall those few prog.s that are installed on D:. (Personally I keep a small - 30G, though I've only used 18.8 of it after several years) - C:, for the OS and software, with the rest - D: - for data, but that suits how I work; YMM (and probably does) V. -- J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." - Harlan Ellison I highly recommend Easus Partition Manager. I have used merge without problems, but prefer to change the partition sizes. Everyone should be backing at least every few days. Andy |
#9
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Bill in Co writes: Paul wrote: Ken Blake, MVP wrote: [] See Paul's reply, but note that if you do that, some programs will end up in a different location from where they were installed, and will stop working as a result. That's because most programs have many entries pointing to their location within \Windows, in the registry and elsewhere. Those entries will be wrong of you move the program. You beat me to that (-:. The Merge would screw things up. References to "D:\Program Files" would be invalid. I didn't discuss the other specifics of Merge, but stopped at pointing out, in my opinion, it isn't very safe. I've never attempted Merge, ever. Just a bad idea. The shrink/expand should be OK, as most things don't use absolute sector addresses. In a world filled with defragmentation programs, an absolute sector address wouldn't be too useful. With shrink/expand, you still have C: and D:, and all the files are still in their respective partitions. Paul Is there *anything* that uses absolute sector addresses? (except for the boot sector, I presume)? I have seen - though not recently, but I think it _was_ in the XP era - softwares which _I think_ used absolute addresses as an antipiracy measure, i. e. they set themselves up at install to expect to find certain things at certain absolute sector addresses. At least I _think_ that's what they did: since it was part of their protection method, they weren't forthcoming about how it worked! It was easy to unintentionally break them (I don't mean to break - "crack" - the antipiracy method, I mean break as in prevent from working) by things like defragmenting. (I _think_ they had a way of preventing the built-in defragmenter from breaking them.) IIRR this was the same piece of software that came with a number (3 I think, to allow for disasters) of "licences" on a floppy, and you could "transfer" the "licence" back and forth to/from the floppy: once you'd taken it off, the installed software reverted to the evaluation version (which only gave you half an hour at a time). That _might_ not have been the same software as used the absolute sector address though. I guess I still wonder which specific programs actually use absolute sector addresses. Maybe Paul has some ideas. Some programs may use the Disk ID (disk signature), however. Like you, I wouldn't attempt combining partitions. :-) And even if it succeeded, as Ken said, some program references could be off, due to the partition merge. He simply needs to resize the partitions. And then, in time, reinstall those few prog.s that are installed on D:. (Personally I keep a small - 30G, though I've only used 18.8 of it after several years) - C:, for the OS and software, with the rest - D: - for data, but that suits how I work; YMM (and probably does) V. -- My mileage is as follows: C: has all programs and their associated data, keeping everything together, except for my music and video file archives, which are each installed in their own separate partitions. So when I reimage the drive (which is pretty often), everything is saved together, and ditto on the restore operation. But I don't have a huge amount of personal data in terms of their actual filesize (most documents are pretty small). I also have an additional partition where I store old program versions, or some additional programs not yet installed in case I ever want them at some other time). In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea to split the personal data off into its own separate partition, but this is working out for me. For me there would be some potential confusion of whether or not to store the entire "Documents and Settings" (which also includes program application data!) directory on another partition (doesn't sound like a good idea to me, since the closely related "Program Files" directory is on C and you would be splitting them up, or just the personal documents (usually stored in My Documents) on the other partition, or whatever. J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf "Everyone is entitled to an *informed* opinion." - Harlan Ellison |
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Bill in Co wrote:
I guess I still wonder which specific programs actually use absolute sector addresses. Maybe Paul has some ideas. Some programs may use the Disk ID (disk signature), however. I haven't seen any. The only cases I know of, have to do with file system layouts and boot-ability. Like maybe Win98. I don't really have enough expensive software, to have seen any fancy protection schemes. My mileage is as follows: C: has all programs and their associated data, keeping everything together, except for my music and video file archives, which are each installed in their own separate partitions. So when I reimage the drive (which is pretty often), everything is saved together, and ditto on the restore operation. But I don't have a huge amount of personal data in terms of their actual filesize (most documents are pretty small). I also have an additional partition where I store old program versions, or some additional programs not yet installed in case I ever want them at some other time). In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea to split the personal data off into its own separate partition, but this is working out for me. For me there would be some potential confusion of whether or not to store the entire "Documents and Settings" (which also includes program application data!) directory on another partition (doesn't sound like a good idea to me, since the closely related "Program Files" directory is on C and you would be splitting them up, or just the personal documents (usually stored in My Documents) on the other partition, or whatever. What I did with mine, is split off a 25GB "Downloads" folder only, to a second partition. The structure of WinXP is unchanged. It means, when I do a search of the "OS-proper", I can do that against C:, while if I'm looking for something previously downloaded, I can search against D: for that. The My Documents stays on C: for the moment. I didn't bother "tearing C: in half", like putting My Documents and Program Files on D:, as that would be too disruptive. The downloads folder was beginning to slow down searches, which is why I moved it. It makes backup management a bit easier. Paul |
#11
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Paul wrote:
Bill in Co wrote: I guess I still wonder which specific programs actually use absolute sector addresses. Maybe Paul has some ideas. Some programs may use the Disk ID (disk signature), however. I haven't seen any. The only cases I know of, have to do with file system layouts and boot-ability. Like maybe Win98. I don't really have enough expensive software, to have seen any fancy protection schemes. My mileage is as follows: C: has all programs and their associated data, keeping everything together, except for my music and video file archives, which are each installed in their own separate partitions. So when I reimage the drive (which is pretty often), everything is saved together, and ditto on the restore operation. But I don't have a huge amount of personal data in terms of their actual filesize (most documents are pretty small). I also have an additional partition where I store old program versions, or some additional programs not yet installed in case I ever want them at some other time). In retrospect, it probably wouldn't have been a bad idea to split the personal data off into its own separate partition, but this is working out for me. For me there would be some potential confusion of whether or not to store the entire "Documents and Settings" (which also includes program application data!) directory on another partition (doesn't sound like a good idea to me, since the closely related "Program Files" directory is on C and you would be splitting them up, or just the personal documents (usually stored in My Documents) on the other partition, or whatever. What I did with mine, is split off a 25GB "Downloads" folder only, to a second partition. The structure of WinXP is unchanged. It means, when I do a search of the "OS-proper", I can do that against C:, while if I'm looking for something previously downloaded, I can search against D: for that. The My Documents stays on C: for the moment. I didn't bother "tearing C: in half", like putting My Documents and Program Files on D:, as that would be too disruptive. The downloads folder was beginning to slow down searches, which is why I moved it. It makes backup management a bit easier. Paul Well, even beyond disruptive, I see another problem (the aforementioned problem), unless one only stores "My Documents" (and only that) on the other partition. And I think the idea of putting either "Documents and Settings" or "Program Files" (or both) on a different partition than C: is a bad idea. :-) Because when I backup or restore C:, I want it all backed up or restored together, (since it is all interrelated). |
#12
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
"Mort" wrote in message
... Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Uninstall and reinstall if you do not have the Software to reinstall run your program go to the help clack the website and re-download the Software |
#13
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
Hot-Text wrote:
"Mort" wrote in message ... Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Uninstall and reinstall if you do not have the Software to reinstall run your program go to the help clack the website and re-download the Software Thanks to all for the helpful and friendly posts. I really do appreciate it, and now have a basis for trying to solve the problem. Mort Linder |
#14
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How To Combine Two Hard Drive Partitions With No Deleting?
"Mort" wrote in message
... Hot-Text wrote: "Mort" wrote in message ... Hi, I'm running an older PC with Windows XP and SP3, and SeaMonkey browser. My main hard drive partition is almost full, while my secondary partition has a moderate amount of free space. The problem is that the secondary also has some programs on it. Any method that I know of combining the 2 partitions into my main partition = C, will delete the contents of the lesser partition. Is there any way that I can combine the two, with no deletions taking place? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Uninstall and reinstall if you do not have the Software to reinstall run your program go to the help clack the website and re-download the Software Thanks to all for the helpful and friendly posts. I really do appreciate it, and now have a basis for trying to solve the problem. Your welcome If you need more help you can always come back |
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