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Thread ID: 45103 2004-05-10 07:55:00 Partitioning HDD csinclair83 (200) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
235506 2004-05-10 07:55:00 I'm about to rreformat laptop
but i wanna partition a section of it..probably 5-7gb
and laptop already has a hidden partition of stuff for computer (the cds on hdd instead of actual cds i think)

so how do i go about partitioning and what program do i use?

am running winxp home :)
csinclair83 (200)
235507 2004-05-10 09:19:00 Do you have an actual WinXPHome CD?

Do you have all drivers for all hardware on CD? This will include any hardware you have added to the laptop already. Before you even think about doing this I would suggest you download all drivers for all the hardware you have. This will include Motherboard drivers for the chipset you have etc.

Do you have "recovery disks"?

If you format and make new partitions then use recovery disks then the recovery disk will repartition the hard drive again back to what it was when you bought it possibly. That is what they are used for.

Software for changing partitions would include Partition Magic Version 8.

Anyway...... Back up any data you want to keep.
VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!
Elephant (599)
235508 2004-05-10 12:20:00 I would agree with Elephant on this using a recovery disk after partioning, it would most likely return the hard drive to factory spec's, so your best bet is going to be a nondestructive partioning tool such as Partion Magic (btw non destructive to me means backup anyway again as Elephant recommends).
Also if your file system is NTFS you'll need a partioning tool that supports NTFS, early versions of Partion Magic do not support NTFS.
(there is a freeware linux non destructive partioning tool that supports NTFS but you better be familiar with command line tools, it creates a boot disk which you boot from to run the partion tool. I can post the link if you wish, BUT BACKUP YOUR DATA (its still in beta but worked ok for me) if you are going to use it)
beama (111)
235509 2004-05-10 12:39:00 Some of those recovery disks are horrible, they force you to format the drive completely destroying data in other partitions. PC Company ones do that. KingWave (5517)
235510 2004-05-10 19:50:00 in my experience pc company 'recovery' cd's only consist of the OS. Xp for example and nothign else...... so you can always do a 'repair' install and you'll lose nothing but possibly fix your prob..... drcspy (146)
235511 2004-05-10 21:35:00 Remember to defrag your drive before attempting any partitioning. Susan B (19)
235512 2004-05-11 12:41:00 Maybe works ok for the 'repair' install, but when I tried to do a fresh install it wanted to wipe the disk clean. I'm not keen to try again. Better off downloading a proper version of the software. KingWave (5517)
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