How to partition harddisk?

[Valkyrie77]

Hi ppl, need ur help on this.

Well, I have a 10Gig harddisk which I have been using for 2 years.
I decided to partition it into 2 parts, but how to go about doing this?
Do I have to format y harddisk 1st?
Pls advise in detail.

Ur help is very much approciated.
Thanks!

 

[smah]

Are you trying to keep everything already on that drive? Or do you want to start all over fresh - with a completely blank drive?

If you want to keep everything that's already there, you will need to use a third party tool like Partition Magic.

 

[Valkyrie77]

I wish to keep the contents, the reason being that I am not sure whether my CD-ROM can be detected while in DOS mode.
How do you make DOS recognise the drive while in a true DOS environment?

Going back to my original qn, how exactly do you go about partitioning the hdd?

Thanks man!

 

[TekTippy4U]

Take a look at these 2 previous threads....
thread615-610165 and thread615-613872 help ONLY if you want to wipe out your harddrive.....There are many ways to load CD ROM drivers.....Try visiting the manufacturer's web site for the right one and put it on a floppy ....PRIOR to using Fdisk...this "should" only necessary if you don't have win 9x on disc.....and you had better have an Operating System to Reinstall on some sort of disc....



More specifics on fdisk and formatting after more info from you concerning
A. What do you have available on CD......and Floppy...and what's on which...and
B. Is the CD driver issue the ONLY reason you want to save contents.....If you really need to save stuff...you'd better use Partition Magic.....

 

[smah]

Here's some info on Partition Magic

http://www.partitionmagic.com/partitionmagic/

 

[TekTippy4U]

Although....
In pursuant to my recent post.....you must already have a FAT 32 file system.........so therefore if you make a good backup somehow.....you can repartition and reformat "without" Partition Magic.....

In almost all cases you'll want to continue to use FAT 32.....even with 2 partitions......Unless
you need to Dual Boot with Win NT...OR Compress the drive......which I doubt....
Let me know.....

 

[TekTippy4U]

Hey smah......
Do you know if it's possible to set the cluster size "PER" Partition.....I know it can be done per disc through the format utility..? (I assume it's automatic, once the partition size is set)......My concern here is the 4kb clusters, that this user may end up with(if they do a backup)......usually associated with Fat32 on smaller older drives.....I believe the appropriate limit for 4kb clusters is 8 GB....which may cause a problem *without* a utility like partition magic......because the hard drive right now is probably using 8kb clusters.....which can be found out quite easily.....
Just curious...
TIA....Smah
TT4U

 

[vop]

If you have, download, or make a Win98 boot disk, one of your presented options is to boot with CD-Rom support. That will answer your question about CD-Rom support in DOS.

A tool like Partition Magic (PM) allows you to shrink your partition size. Then it allows you to create a new partition in the previously used space that was made available. Not a bad idea to Scandisk and/or Defrag before doing any of the above.

The above process is generally highly reliable. But, if your data is highly valued, I would highly recommend borrowing or buying another hard drive (or backup creation) with capacity at least as large as the current drive.

Generally, you can get a conversion utility on the manufacturer's website (runs from a boot disk). The process typically is to connect old drive on secondary primary and new drive on first primary. Both drives need to be jumped to master (cable select jumper setting may also work). The conversion will normally allow you to create multiple partitions, if desired. A successful conversion is self-apparent upon reboot.

Thereafter, you are free to tinker with your old drive with perhaps unfamiliar tools and processes.

The following is a freeware (Ranish) partition manager that you might wish to try:

http://www.webattack.com/get/ranish.shtml

 

[smah]

TekTippy4U, I don't know - I've never really looked into it. This may be a good question for the hard drive forum though, we could all learn something.

 

[TekTippy4U]

smah

I didn't know there was a Hard Drive forum.......
I can be such a Dodo sometimes......I think my blood sugar is low.....I Need a donut or something(sandwich sounds good)..

 

[Valkyrie77]

HI ppl,

thanks for all the advice!
Guess I gonna use the Partition Magic software.

Two thumbs up for u ppl!
Thanks man!