Moving program files back to boot partition/merging existing partitions

Hi,

I need some advice before diving into this. I want to install windows 7 but I have already reached the 4 primary partition limit on my raid 0 array from dual booting vista x64 and xp x86. The way I have my partitions set up is OS on one partition and programs files on the other (bad idea i guess.. ) So i was wonder if there's a way I could move my xp program files from the program partition to the xp system partition or what would be better is if I could simply merge them into one drive but either way the drive letter change is going to cause a lot of trouble with registry/shortcuts..etc. I don't feel like reformatting the whole raid array and starting from scratch just for windows 7. Please advise. Thanks in advance!

 

I asked about moving a couple programs I installed on D to C and the best I could figure out was to uninstall and reinstall. However there is a program (not free that may do this) Application Mover

Or you may be able back up your XP programs partition and try to create an extended partition from it with two logical drives to install W7

 

excuse my noob question but how do i do that? do i just copy the contents of the partition over to an external or do I need to ghost it? if so how do i ghost it? then do I reformat the partition in disk management? or is there some program i should use to create extended partition with 2 logical drives?

 

You could probably use Karen's Replicator or SyncToy to an external HDD or even a folder on another partition. Then you'd have to create an extended partition of your program partition using GParted or another partition tool.. Thing is I'm not sure once you do this if you'd lose your programs, that's why I said back them up. Once you have an extended partition you can add other logical drives.

Hopefully, someone more knowledge will come along. I've only used Gparted once to make an extended partition of my D drive, but had help with it. I'm also not sure if any of this will work so you'll be able to boot W7.

 

Thanks for your help! hopfully someone else will chime in as well

 

How much unallocated/free space do you have on the drive, or could you squeeze out of the existing partitions?

 

4GBs free out of 30GBs on the vista system partition, 15GBs free out of 30GBs on the xp system partition, 70GBs free out of 90GBs on the vista programs partition and 370GBs free out of 450GBs on the xp program partition

 

Since you already have four primary partitions (and thus cannot create any more), you're going to need at least one large external USB hard drive to accomplish things.

The first thing to do is make sure you have a complete backup - I'd suggest making a clone or image of the entire drive on an external hdd to save as a backup in case anything catastrophic happens.

Next, what you'll need to do is clone one of your four primary partitions onto another partition on the external hdd (or, preferably, onto a second external hdd so you're not monkeying around with the first hdd that holds that all-too-valuable image of your current setup). I'd suggest doing this with your XP programs partition since that partition (a) has the most amount of space and (b) the smallest amount of currently used space.

Once that's done, and you've verified the image, delete the copied partition on your main hdd. Next, you're going to create what's called an extended partition - this is not a primary partition, but rather a different type of partition that can, itself, be chopped up into a series (up to 23) of so-called logical partitions. Once you've created the extended partition, I would suggest carving it up into 3 logical partitions - one for the programs partition for each of the three OSes you'll be booting.

Once you've done that, assign one of the new logical partitions the same drive letter as you had originally assigned to the XP programs partition, and then clone the original XP partition back into the new logical partition. The reason for doing this is that this should minimize the amount of "broken" programs you might get due to the shifting around of partitions as the drive letter will still be the same as it was originally, which should (I hope ) continue to jibe with what the installed programs wrote into the registry when you installed the programs. However, you need to be prepared to have to reinstall at least some of the programs - just in case.

One thing you must check, though, is whether cloning what was a primary partition into what is now a logical partition will cause any problems - I don't think it will, but I don't know for sure right now.

Once that's done, do the same thing with the existing _Vista programs partition; namely, clone it over to the external hdd, delete the original _Vista programs partition from the hdd in the computer (mainly just to tidy up and to free up the drive letter assignment), and then clone the _Vista programs partition back into one of the other newly created logical partitions. Finally, assign that partition the same drive letter that was originally assigned to the old _Vista programs primary partition.

Again, I cannot guarantee that this won't cause some hiccups, at least, or that you won't have to reinstall some programs, but it should help to minimize some of those issues. If anyone else knows better, hopefully they'll chime in sooner rather than later.

Lastly, create a new primary partition from out of the unallocated space that was freed up when you deleted the old _Vista programs primary partition, and that will be the new partition for the Win7 installation.

What I cannot stress too much, though, is that you must make a complete backup, preferably a cloned image, of your preexisting installation before you start doing anything. If you don't, you're just asking for a world of hurt if/when something goes wrong.

 

Not for nothing I always heard it's best to have double the space used in an OS partition. Since your HDD is huge perhaps you can also extend those. Take care to back up/clone your existing stuff.

If yours is a Seagate, or you're using an external Seagate HDD you can download (for free) Seagate DiscWizard. I used the clone feature twice. It works great.

 

Thx for your help, guys. Sorry, I know i shouldn't say this after you've given me a detailed guide on how to do this but it does sound incredibly complicated for a noob like me and can potentially cause a lot of trouble. Would you recommend that I start from scratch i.e. reformat my whole raid 0 partition after backing my stuff up? Also, how should I partition my drive this time if i were to format it? I didn't see an option to create extended partitions when I was installing the first OS (vista x64) last time. It only asked me to partition the drive so I did and all 4 turned out to be primary partitions... do I need to install the first OS on a primary partition and then use Disk Manager to create extended partitions?

If I go thru with ur guide do I need 3rd party software to create extended and logical partitions? Which backup/ cloning software do u reconmmend?

 

So you are saying that putting system files and program files in different partitions is a good thing? I was regretting doing that b/c look what that got me into... I can't create anymore paritions b/c i made 4 primary partitions...

 

Putting OS and programs into different partitions is more of a subjective taste thing than anything else; the average user is not going to see much of a difference one way or the other, and it won't save you a lot of work if you have to reinstall the OS since the registry will no longer jibe with your installed programs after a reinstallation and you'll have to reinstall a lot of your programs in any event.

Where it does make a difference is keeping your data - document files, music files, image files, etc, etc, as well as any free-standing executables that don't need to be installed - on a separate partition. Doing that could save you a lot of grief if the OS partition went belly up for some reason.

 

I see. Thanks for the info! I'll have to reformat sooner or later since I have both my OSes running their program files in different partitions. Rep'd!

 

No I agree with Shyster for the same reasons. I have XP and programs (save one) on C: and my data on D: in an extended partition. What I am saying is your Vista partition needs more room. From what I understand 40 GB is minimum. If you add your programs, you'll need more.

 

yea I think i need to reformat and start over sooner or later. Thanks for the help hiker! rep'd

 

And I would agree with Hiker's point. You definitely need to make sure you have enough growing room built into your partitions. Insufficient room now will mean that, eventually, you'll have to go through the same exercise of rejiggering your partitions, and can also limit the size of your paging file (and thus potentially slow your system down) and can also make it impossible to defragment your drive (generally speaking, defraggers won't operate if the remaining free space is less than 15% of the total size of the partition).