(on a laptop running win XP)


ok, so my roommate reformatted his HD a while ago and set the primary drive as E: with only a 5 gig partition and his secondary drive C: with a 55 gig partition. the secondary (C:) has about 25 gigs of shit he wants to save, so wiping everything out with another format isn't an option (unless i'm wrong).

questions:

-is there a way of just switching C: back to the primary drive in windows?

-will a program like partition magic be able to switch or combine them without formatting?

-is there another option?


thanks.

Partition magic should do the trick, theres also free software that will work.

Free Partition Editors, Managers and Recovery (Partitioning Software) (thefreecountry.com)

Yeah, you should be able to do it with Partition Magic. Another option (if you have the equipment) would be to back everything onto a hi-volume DVD or another external drive, then reformat.

or gparted will work as well. that and it is open source.

The biggest problem you are going to run into by switching which drive is primary is well what drive is windows installed on? If it is installed on E:/ then you are going to have an issue booting it up when you switch the master to C:/

If you were looking at just expanding E:/ to fit more onto it, expand it using partition magic or gparted...I would increase E:/ to about 15gbs. That should leave you with more then enough room for windows and an extra drive for storage.

I use Paragon. Much better than partition magic.

It'll do what you want to easily.

ok cool. thanks for the options, i'll bring his laptop in my room and fuck with it tonight. it sounds like just increasing his primary partition to 15 gigs or so should get him going.

i'll let you know what works.