VAIO HD partitioning

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by tonub, Jul 19, 2009.

  1. tonub

    tonub Private E-2

    We have a Sony VAIO with a single HD which came partitioned, approx. 15 GB for C: and the rest for D:. The OS is installed on C:, and most downloads are defaulted to C: also. Although I've tried to pay attention on installing new software, currently the C: drive is basically full and I cannot do much with the computer. E.g. I'm trying to install a new hp printer but the installation CD does not give me the option of which drive (partition) to use and the C: drive is full so I can't do the installation.
    Any suggestions? (I asked one repair guy how to "do away" with the partition and combine the "drives" - the answer was that his group didn't know how to do that on a Sony.
    Tonu
     
  2. dlb

    dlb MajorGeek

    :wave Welcome to Major Geeks! :major

    If there's no data on drive D:, you can delete the D partition and 'stretch' the C partition to take full advantage of the drive. If there's data on D, you'll want to back it up to CD/DVD first. Any data on drive D will be lost using the following procedure. Here's what to do (I'm assuming you have Windows XP): right click "My Computer" and select 'Manage'. In the Window that opens, in the left pane towards the bottom will be 'Disk Management', click it. The right pane will populate with info about the drives in your PC. In the lower part of the right pane, you'll scroll down to drive D. Right click it and select "Delete partition". You'll get a warning that "all data will be lost". Say OK and the partition will be deleted. Then download Boot-IT and create a boot disk. You can make a floppy or an ISO image file for CD. If you make the ISO, you'll need to burn it as an image and not as regular data. If you need help with burning the image, just ask. So you'd boot to the BootIT boot disc. The first thing you'll see is a message like "Do you want to install to your hard drive?" and you'll say "NO". This will then enter "Maintenance Mode". You'll then click the "Partition Work" button, select drive C (I think it will be selected by default), and click "Resize". Then enter the full allowable size for drive C. BootIT will do some error checking and will notify when the resize is complete. Then close everything out and restart the PC; be sure to remove the BootIT disc. That's it! I've used BootIT dozens of times for resizing partitions and NEVER had any data loss.
    :-D

    (BTW- this so called "repair guy" who said they can't resize Sony partitions is either clueless, grossly misinformed, or just had no idea how to resize a partition; it doesn't matter if it's a Sony, Compaq, Gateway, whatever; a partition is a partition; I'd avoid any "repair guy" that doesn't know how to do something like resize a hard drive safely)
     
  3. satrow

    satrow Major Geek Extraordinaire

    Please ensure you have created the system restore CD/DVD's before touching your current setup, the data to create them is probably on a (hidden?) partition somewhere.

    Before tampering with your current setup, make sure you have working copies of all your data backed up away from the PC.

    To free up some space on your C drive, you may be able to move the My Documents folder to the D drive, right-click My Documents > Properties > Move.
     
  4. tunered

    tunered MajorGeek

    You can also boot from your recovery disc's, there is some optitions that will allow you to resize or remove even your restore partition from the recovery. ed
     

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