Dell Partition : I am screwed!

I seem to find a lot on this in the forum, but being a newbie to disk partitions, can sm1 please direct me to any link with a step by step guide, or explain t step by step. I will tell my situation:
1. I use windows disk manager to break C.
2. I have 45 GB unallocated , I try with the 'new simple volume' on the unallocated space, but Vista returns a message ''There is not enough space to complete this operation".

Now how do I correct this

i found sm1 suggesting gparted, but I have never used gparted before. Also, will I lose every other partition/data ? Please help ! Will calling the dell technician help me any way?

Also I just downloaded gparted-livecd-0.3-4-8.iso from http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=115843&package_id=173828.
Will I need any other file?

 

Yeah, partition is a complicated operation if you have data on your harddrive. It seems like if you can't access your data, you're going to lose them unless, you can figure out a way to access them through a live cd or something.

I would suggest if you really want to keep your data, use live cd like mepis or some linux distribution that can configure internet so that you can access the internet, then mount the partition that contains your data, and use e-mail program to store transfer your data. Or if you can mount a usb drive, you can save your data on the usb drive.

As for g-parted you need to burn the image on a cd and boot your machine with the cd.

I have no idea how Windows manager handle partitioning since i've never use them. I've tried g-parted and certain operation it couldn't do for what reason I don't know. But that same operation can be done with partition magic. So maybe sm1 else can help you there.

 

I think you can't be booted to the same partition you're doing operations on. So you can't make the Vista partition smaller if you're booted to Vista. You have to boot off a Vista DVD or a gparted CD or DVD and use the partitioning tools.

I haven't used gparted, but I watched someone use Adios to reduce the size of an existing Windows XP partition using an ntfsresize command. Before doing this it was necessary to defrag XP.

 

It's caused by Winodws only ecognized 4 partitions as default.
In default setting, you got a C:, D:, a 2.5G partition and a 75Mb small partiton on your XPS 1330. You need to delete one of them.

 

I would never use anything inside Windows to alter partitions. At very least, I would use PartitionMagic which has some credibility - something I would trust, but then, it is expensive (not free!).

GPartEd will do the job. Just make sure you backup (at least to give a sense of security, I highly doubt anything bad will happen), and the other thing is to defragment your drive several times even if dumb Windows tells you that you don't need to. At least enough times that most of the bars are pushed towards the left.

Then in GPartEd, you can freely resize, create new partitions etc.

 

i just used vista to erase a second partition, and extend the MAIN OS partition for the entire drive. Simple, fast, and effective, all from inside vista, no problems at all.

that said, i always make sure i have the OS cd's when messing with partitions, always.

 

thnx guys, bu I am still unsure. as i have said, i have never used any partition before. so i have no clue as to what to do. i just used the vista think as the vista help said it is pretty simple

does partition magic work in vista? which version. also i found there is smthing called acronis, but it has many products/versions. which one is for vista?

also can I restore my PC back to original condition?

kgeiger82, I would like to try your option, but I got no delete option on the unallocated space. At the worst case, I wont mind adding the new unallocated space back to the vista.

Attached is the screenshot. Please help. Sm1 n the forum said even gparted did not work

 

You have to give up one primary partition.
Either you kiss goodbye to MediaDirect, as I did, or you kiss goodbye to the Recovery partition, as someone else did (in that case you will be faced with a further problem: shifting the OS partition)
If you delete Mediadirect, you can merge its space with the unallocated space and then you can create an extended partition where you will place your logical partitions.

But at this point you're stuck with foru primary partitions and no way to move on.

 

This is easily done: select the OS partition and choose to enlarge it.
You will be offered ot the option to use up all the unallocated space beyond it.

 

thanx sredni vashtar. now i have the entire unallocated in vista. now i can happily read through all the partition threads on this forum before i give it a second try. thanx

P.S: Saki is one of my fav authors .