Resizing partitions after installing operating system

[JohnB]

I heard that computers boot quicker when the operating system is on its own partition and also it's good for security purposes.

The thing is, are there any programs that let you do this on windows 7 without losing data? I know of partition magic which lets you do it on XP and below but win 7 is not supported. A work around is installing win xp in a VM and doing it that way but it's a tad laborious.

[lilrofl]

Win 7 comes with a Disk Management tool integrated, much like Win NT did. It can be found in control panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management.

[Raz0r]

What about using Gparted on a usb stick,wouldn't that work too ?

[trickb0x]

I don't really think this would make your OS any more secure and wouldn't make it any faster unless you have drive fragmentation problems (don't defrag often enough) but to each their own. Gparted would also work but make sure you backup ALL of your data before attempting this. Re-partitioning and changing partition sizes is an easy way to lose everything.

[lilrofl]

Well, you could use GParted, however if you resize your boot partition, you will be unable to boot your primary partition without repairing windows. The issue is not insurmountable, but why bother with it when you could use a tool designed specifically for resizing Windows 7 partitions. I'll detail the process though, to better illustrate my point.

1. Have windows 7 CD on hand, and a bootable copy of GParted.
2. Boot into GParted, and select your drive to be resized from the drop-down-menu.
3. Right click on the partition and select resize/move.
4. Select a new size wither by entering a size in the txt box, or dragging the partition to the correct size.
5. Make any other changes you wish to and then click apply and wait for the process to complete... this can take a while.
6. After the process is complete, reboot into Windows.

You'll see an error, 'Windows Failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.'

File: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Status: 0xc0000225
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

7. Insert your Windows 7 installation disk and reboot.
8. On the second screen click the link to 'Repair your computer'
9. A dialog box will ask you if you want to Repair and restart, click continue.
10. Your computer will reboot, and you’ll see Windows 7 in the boot list with a different name, select it to be the boot device.
11. System will reboot, and run chkdisk... for gods sake, let it complete the scan

After chkdisk is finished, the computer will reboot again... and this time it will all be back to normal.