How do I partition a cleaned up drive on a T61?

First, let me say thanks to all those who have posted guides and tips to getting rid of bloatware, deleting the recovery partition, etc. Lots of cool stuff and a real education.

My problem is a simple one but I really have not seen it addressed here or maybe I missed it.

I am running XP Pro on a T61, 160Gb, 2Gb, 2.2ghz and using the instructions here was able to clean up the drive from the garbageware that came with the notebook. I kept the service partition.

I now have 133GB of free space on the C: that I would like to partition into 3 partitions, the usual data, program, media, etc.

When I go to the Disk management utility and right/left click on the disk 0or look at the menu options I don't see anything which would allow me to create a partition.

What am I missing? Thanks guys!

 

The diskpart application that allows for resizing the disk in your laptop is limited when used from Windows in an existing OS. So, the partition sizes you can create are limited. That said, if you go to your control panel and select administrative tools then select computer management there is a disk manager there. If you right click you HD you will see options. From your description you will need to use the shrink partition function first. After this you can create new partitions similarly in the resulting unpartitioned space.

I did mine during the fresh install when you get to point where you direct the location of the install. You can delete and create partitions of any size you choose before installation without limitations.

 

Andre, thanks for the reply but as I explained I am stuck right at the point of the disk management. When I right-click I have Open/Explore/Change Drive/Properties/Help as the only options. There is no shrink or resize or any other option. I am logged in as administrator.

I have another machine [Dell] with XP Pro and my choices there are totally different and I can partition all I want.

I am aware of the fresh install route & I prefer not to go the fresh install route at this time.

Can't believe something so basic can be that difficult.

 

There are several way to go about this.... for a new laptop, None of them are real easy. All of them deal with either and XP or a Vista CD or DVD. You're going to have to get on.

Basically they are bootable and they have partitioning software.
Chances are, were you to use an XP disk, they XP will not know the hardware so you will need to get the chipset drivers off the intel webpage and load them via as thumbdrive at the point the XP asks for additional drivers you depress F6 to let the installation know you have drivers to load.

The Vista DVD will not need that. You would tell it you want to do an instalation and it will give you an opportunity to partition your disk. It's rather flexible and easy to use.

There is a limit of four partitions in vista and there are slight differences in the partitions themselves. If possible if you are installing Vista, use a Vista DVD. XP will still work. As a matter of fact, Vista will only allow four partitions. I used an XP disk on my current machine because it will alow more.

 

What version of Vista are you using? I use Ultimate/Enterprise and in both OS's when I right click any partition on Disk 0 I get an item termed Shrink Volume. If you have Home that may be the difference.

What menu items are present when you right click the Disk 0 volume in disk management?

 

I am running XP Pro on a T61, 160Gb, 2Gb, 2.2ghz and using the instructions here was able to clean up the drive from the garbageware that came with the notebook. I kept the service partition.


When I right-click I have Open/Explore/Change Drive/Properties/Help as the only options. There is no shrink or resize or any other option. I am logged in as administrator.

See my original post for all the specs, I summarized them above. In short, I am running XP Pro and there is no shrink option when I right click.

So frustrated with this I am getting giddy. I won't tell how many hours I have researched this on Lenovo site or Google but it's embarassing. I used to use Partition Magic now but want to uses LESS software, especially for mundane tasks.

 

You cannot do what you want without a third party application like Partition Magic in XP. The command to shrink an existing partition is not in XP natively You should also be able to resize it with a recent bootable Linux CD. I would suggest Ubuntu 7.0x.

EDIT: You may be able to use the XP boot CD to redistribute the space but I am not sure.