Extending a partition forward

[Yousuf Khan]

I've recently upgraded to an SSD as my boot drive, so my old 1TB boot
drive's system partition is no longer needed. I had that old drive
separated into an NTFS system partition of about 200GB and an NTFS data
partition of about 700GB, as well as less than 100GB of Linux
partitions. I was thinking of adding that 200GB space back to the 700GB
data partition. When I went into Disk Management, it said that it wanted
to convert the partitions into dynamic partitions from basic partitions.
I'm just a little concerned that if it converts it to dynamic, I'll lose
the existing data on the 700GB partition, or the sub-100GB Linux
partitions.

The 200GB physically comes before the 700GB partition on that disk. So I
assume the reason it's going convert to dynamic is because it wants to
logically add the earlier partition to the end of the later partition.
Also the 200GB is on a primary partition, while the 700GB is on an
extended partition. Do I have to worry about losing any of the existing
data?

Yousuf Khan

 

[Paul]

I've recently upgraded to an SSD as my boot drive, so my old 1TB boot
drive's system partition is no longer needed. I had that old drive
separated into an NTFS system partition of about 200GB and an NTFS data
partition of about 700GB, as well as less than 100GB of Linux
partitions. I was thinking of adding that 200GB space back to the 700GB
data partition. When I went into Disk Management, it said that it wanted
to convert the partitions into dynamic partitions from basic partitions.
I'm just a little concerned that if it converts it to dynamic, I'll lose
the existing data on the 700GB partition, or the sub-100GB Linux
partitions.

The 200GB physically comes before the 700GB partition on that disk. So I
assume the reason it's going convert to dynamic is because it wants to
logically add the earlier partition to the end of the later partition.
Also the 200GB is on a primary partition, while the 700GB is on an
extended partition. Do I have to worry about losing any of the existing
data?

Yousuf Khan

I expect you'll have fixed this, before the answer comes back

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Disk_Manager

"Dynamic disks support multipartition volumes"

That suggests to me, that two physical chunks of space can be
"spanned" to form a volume.

*******
Physical (the end of the volume is now "ahead" of the beginning)

<- 200GB -> <-- 700GB -->

Volume (right after spanning stage)

<-------- 700 + 200 -------->

Structure right before expansion

<----------- 900 -----------> (total space)
<----- 700 -----> unalloc (what the file system thinks just after span, but before expand)
<----------- 900 -----------> (what the file system thinks, after "expanding to fill space")

Making the change consists of two stages. The first stage, is adding
sectors to the volume. At this point, the file system has not taken
advantage of the additional space. The second stage, is expanding
file system structures and moving the defined end of the file system,
as close as possible to the physical end. If the number of clusters
doesn't round off nicely, there could be a fraction of something left
unoccupied at the very end.

I expect the thing is tolerant of the end being ahead of the
beginning. But my approach to disk layouts, is to make them
as easy to understand as possible, both for me later, and for
any repair/recovery tools I may choose to use in the future.
Even if it means the manipulation takes a bit more time.

The way I'd probably do it, is use a second disk, move the 700GB
to the beginning of the second disk, expand it by 200GB more, then
copy over the Linux partition. Then, "dd" the thing back. That's assuming
the tool you use for it, doesn't screw up the GUID on the Linux, or the
VolumeID on the Windows partitions, in which case I might have some repair
work to do. (I hate the Linux GUID concept. Just a PITA.)

Paul

 

[GlowingBlueMist]

I've recently upgraded to an SSD as my boot drive, so my old 1TB boot
drive's system partition is no longer needed. I had that old drive
separated into an NTFS system partition of about 200GB and an NTFS data
partition of about 700GB, as well as less than 100GB of Linux
partitions. I was thinking of adding that 200GB space back to the 700GB
data partition. When I went into Disk Management, it said that it wanted
to convert the partitions into dynamic partitions from basic partitions.
I'm just a little concerned that if it converts it to dynamic, I'll lose
the existing data on the 700GB partition, or the sub-100GB Linux
partitions.

The 200GB physically comes before the 700GB partition on that disk. So I
assume the reason it's going convert to dynamic is because it wants to
logically add the earlier partition to the end of the later partition.
Also the 200GB is on a primary partition, while the 700GB is on an
extended partition. Do I have to worry about losing any of the existing
data?

Yousuf Khan

I believe Partition Master is able to do this.

The link to the free "Home Edition" can be found at this link:

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/comparison.html

You should be able to delete the boot partition and then increase the
size of the remaining partition to take up the space.

With any change to drive partitions and such it is possible for things
to go wrong. If possible make a clone to another drive and then do the
changes so you have a way to recover if things go drastically wrong.

 

[Sir_George]

I've recently upgraded to an SSD as my boot drive, so my old 1TB boot
drive's system partition is no longer needed. I had that old drive
separated into an NTFS system partition of about 200GB and an NTFS
data partition of about 700GB, as well as less than 100GB of Linux
partitions. I was thinking of adding that 200GB space back to the
700GB data partition. When I went into Disk Management, it said that
it wanted to convert the partitions into dynamic partitions from
basic partitions. I'm just a little concerned that if it converts it
to dynamic, I'll lose the existing data on the 700GB partition, or
the sub-100GB Linux partitions.

The 200GB physically comes before the 700GB partition on that disk.
So I assume the reason it's going convert to dynamic is because it
wants to logically add the earlier partition to the end of the later
partition. Also the 200GB is on a primary partition, while the 700GB
is on an extended partition. Do I have to worry about losing any of
the existing data?

Yousuf Khan

You may want to consider using MiniTool's "Partition Wizard", home
edition, which is free. It will allow you to move the 200 Gigs from the
current location, beginning of the drive, to the end of the drive and
then you can combine the space as a basic partition, to my
understanding. I have done this on a couple of systems without issue,
but you never know when it comes to a computer how things will go. The
web site for "Partition Wizard" has very good information on usage and
procedure.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

I've recently upgraded to an SSD as my boot drive, so my old 1TB boot drive's
system partition is no longer needed. I had that old drive separated into an
NTFS system partition of about 200GB and an NTFS data partition of about
700GB, as well as less than 100GB of Linux partitions. I was thinking of
adding that 200GB space back to the 700GB data partition. When I went into
Disk Management, it said that it wanted to convert the partitions into
dynamic partitions from basic partitions. I'm just a little concerned that if
it converts it to dynamic, I'll lose the existing data on the 700GB
partition, or the sub-100GB Linux partitions.

The 200GB physically comes before the 700GB partition on that disk. So I
assume the reason it's going convert to dynamic is because it wants to
logically add the earlier partition to the end of the later partition. Also
the 200GB is on a primary partition, while the 700GB is on an extended
partition. Do I have to worry about losing any of the existing data?

Yousuf Khan

I agree with Glowing Blue Mist, including th ee caveats, and to some
extent with Sir George.

It might be necessary to do it in three steps:
1. Delete the old system partition
2. Move the 700 GB partition to the start
3. Extend the latter to the end

Or maybe this way, if you're lucky:
1. Delete the old system partition
2. Extend the 700 GB partition to the beginning

The possibilities will become obvious.

You can set up your sequence and then start the process so the steps
are run as a single job or you can do it one step at a time.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

I agree with Glowing Blue Mist, including th ee caveats, and to some
extent with Sir George.

It might be necessary to do it in three steps:
1. Delete the old system partition
2. Move the 700 GB partition to the start
3. Extend the latter to the end

Or maybe this way, if you're lucky:
1. Delete the old system partition
2. Extend the 700 GB partition to the beginning

The possibilities will become obvious.

You can set up your sequence and then start the process so the steps are
run as a single job or you can do it one step at a time.

Yeah, I ended up copying everything to another disk, blowing away the
partition and recreating it as one big contiguous partition on the old
disk, and copying everything back. I think the method of converting it
into dynamic partitions and concatenating several different regions of
the disk in random order would've worked, but I think it was more
complication than it was worth, especially for my own future
understanding of why this system was chosen in the first place; I'd come
back in a few years and wonder what I was thinking doing this in the
first place. I had another disk with enough space to hold it
temporarily, and I won't always have that luxury, so I took the
opportunity to use it now.

In the meantime, I was able to learn quite a lot about alternative
cluster sizes in NTFS, dynamic volumes, and the wide disk performance
differences between HDD's of different generations vs. themselves vs.
SSD's, etc. I also had a disk with some uncorrectable sectors on it, and
I found out that Hard Disk Sentinel can be used to force the removal of
those bad sectors through SMART with a surface write test.

Yousuf Khan

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Yeah, I ended up copying everything to another disk, blowing away the
partition and recreating it as one big contiguous partition on the old disk,
and copying everything back. I think the method of converting it into dynamic
partitions and concatenating several different regions of the disk in random
order would've worked, but I think it was more complication than it was
worth, especially for my own future understanding of why this system was
chosen in the first place; I'd come back in a few years and wonder what I was
thinking doing this in the first place. I had another disk with enough space
to hold it temporarily, and I won't always have that luxury, so I took the
opportunity to use it now.

In the meantime, I was able to learn quite a lot about alternative cluster
sizes in NTFS, dynamic volumes, and the wide disk performance differences
between HDD's of different generations vs. themselves vs. SSD's, etc. I also
had a disk with some uncorrectable sectors on it, and I found out that Hard
Disk Sentinel can be used to force the removal of those bad sectors through
SMART with a surface write test.

Yousuf Khan

Looks like when getting a lemon you made lemonade

I'm always a bit worried when I make partition changes (justified
paranoia, I'd say), so your method sounds good to me. And you also have
the benefit of a backup lurking on the extra disk until you're
convinced that the process was successful.

 

[Yousuf Khan]

Looks like when getting a lemon you made lemonade

I'm always a bit worried when I make partition changes (justified
paranoia, I'd say), so your method sounds good to me. And you also have
the benefit of a backup lurking on the extra disk until you're convinced
that the process was successful.

Oh, I always seem to have to make lemonade. Nothing ever goes simply for
me.

Yousuf Khan