Don’t know if you can help me. I dual boot Windows Vista and XP. (Vista on main partition)
I used Easy BCD creator to create the partitions as per tutorials and everything has worked fine until now.
When I created the XP partition I only allocated 12 GB which was recommended for operating system drivers and folders. The reality is I only use XP for downloading files and burning etc but the files are extracted to another drive which has plenty of space. I now find that I’m unable to extract (WinRar) files in XP as I keep getting the disk warning, not sufficient space etc etc. The warning relates to the XP Partition which only has about 2 GB available.
I researched this and found that it could be due to the XP partition being FAT 32 rather than NTFS etc but I don’t think that’s the issue here. (PC cam with Vista preinstalled and I partitioned that drive).
Why would I get this message all of a sudden when?
1. The files are being extracted to another drive which has plenty of space.
2. I haven’t added anything to the XP partition for ages so it has always been about 10Gb used and 2Gb spare
Apologies I meant to say I used GParted to create the XP partition. I think I just need to increase the size of the XP partition and I can do this using the Vista disk management tool. I'm confused as I obviously need to shrink another partition before I can extend the XP one. Disk management shows:
Disk 0 Basic 232.83(4 partitions)
63Mb Healthy EISA config
Recovery E 15Gb Healthy Primary Partition
OS C 207.75Gb Healthy Primary Partition, System Boot etc
K 10Gb Healthy Logical Drive (this shows up as an extended partition and is the one with the XP OS)
Disk 1 Basic 232.83 Healthy Primary active partition
I tried to reduce C to then extend K but it only gave me about 40Mb when there is about 80Gb free. I know there's a simple fix for this but I just can't see it.
Before doing anything I would get 7-zip Portable. I has drag and drop UnRar built in. Esp. if the exe was not on the XP partition it shouldn't have any need to expand to temp files in the system partition.
I've done the super small system partition bit before. The need for more space always sneaks up on you. But I have a feeling that UnRar just has the temp folder location hard wired or maybe it uses the %temp% environment variable. You might just need to set Temp in your environment variables to use another drive.
In Advanced System Settings there should be a button Environment Variables.
I'm on Windows Seven right now. But in Vista if you type Advanced System Settings in the search and click the result you should get the dialog. Either that or right click on Computer then select Properties, then Advanced System Settings.
Picture is attached as requested. Hope you can see it OK.
Had problems with advanced system settings in XP as the two options were greyed out. No problem accessing in Vista but I thought you wanted me to tweak in XP to divert the temp folder elsewhere.
Within WinRar select options>settings. Click on the paths tab and you'll see the setting Folder for temporary files. Browse to change that to what you want.
Likewise you can set 7-zip working directory to Current using Menu Tools=>Options=>Folders. The temp files will be written in the same folder as the output.
Sorry still a bit confused. The XP partition is NTFS as shown on the screenshot.
I've also redirected the WinRar temp to another drive but can I just zap those in the temp folder? (currently 1.2Gb)
As per my original question I would dearly love to increase the size of the XP partition but need guidance on which partition to reduce first. This was the main reason for posting the Disk Management screenshot.
I think the only way you are going to increase "K" is by moving disk drives about!
Shrink the space from the end of "C" (Next to "K") & then add the space to "K". Unfortunately you may need to mess about a bit to achieve your end game: -
Actually Easus will do all that without wiping off anything. You can easily resize the paritions. But to increase K you'll have to decrease C. Of course there are risks so backup.
If you want to try to non-destructively resize K: then don't use Disk Management. Use a 3rd party partition program such as Partition Wizard. Windows disk management cannot move the start of a system partition without hosing it. In other words, if you have free space to the right(in their diagrams) of a partition, you can expand it. But if you have free space to the left, it won't move a system partition.
If you don't have that much invested in the XP partition and are willing to reinstall, then just delete it. If you want to try to avoid reinstall, try Partition Wizard. Any time you play with partitions it's a good idea to back up the entire drive to an external.
There are files in the way that windows won't move. It isn't all that useful compared to programs like Easus that will move the files before resizing the partition.
Used Easeus to reduce C by 10Gb and increase XP partition by 10Gb. All worked well except I now can't get into XP. (keeps freezing on the blue Windows XP screen.
Is this something to do with the drive letter? The XP partition was K but now it shos up as F in Windows Vista. Do I just need to reassign K to get it working again?
Vista works fine but that's no consolation as it took me ages to get XP up and running on my DELL XPS 420.
Think there may be a problem here. The boot menu only gives me an F8 menu option if I choose Vista not XP. Is there another way of getting to the safe mode in XP in these circumstances.
I bloody annoyed now, only at myself. I hate Vista and used XP for 99% of my needs and now I can't access it. I just don't see how the hell increasing the size of an existing partition could cause this glitch.
