Partitioning hard drive in Windows 7

[rfdjr1]

I'm looking at a Dell system, which comes with a 1Tb 7200rpm hard drive. O/S
will be Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently, the drive will come to me
un-partitioned with the O/S obviously installed. I'd like to have the drive in
four equal partitions. Can this be done after Windows 7 has been installed?
Unless I misunderstood the online sales rep, they won't partition it before they
send it to me. Thanks.

 

[Gordon]

I'm looking at a Dell system, which comes with a 1Tb 7200rpm hard drive. O/S
will be Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently, the drive will come to me
un-partitioned with the O/S obviously installed. I'd like to have the drive in
four equal partitions. Can this be done after Windows 7 has been installed?
Unless I misunderstood the online sales rep, they won't partition it before they
send it to me. Thanks.

You can certainly use the built-in Windows tool to shrink the one primary partition and create three others in the space that is made.

HOWEVER - the Windows tool will only shrink the partition as far as the first immovable file that it encounters - so if the tool doesn't shrink the partition far enough then you will need to consider a third-party utility.
One of the best (IMHO and free!) is GParted.
Get it here

 

[Dave \Crash\ Dummy]

You can certainly use the built-in Windows tool to shrink the one primary partition and create three others in the space that is made.

HOWEVER - the Windows tool will only shrink the partition as far as the first immovable file that it encounters - so if the tool doesn't shrink the partition far enough then you will need to consider a third-party utility.
One of the best (IMHO and free!) is GParted.
Get it here

I used Partition Wizard (free) to perform that very task.
http://partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

 

[John B. slocomb]

I'm looking at a Dell system, which comes with a 1Tb 7200rpm hard drive. O/S
will be Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently, the drive will come to me
un-partitioned with the O/S obviously installed. I'd like to have the drive in
four equal partitions. Can this be done after Windows 7 has been installed?
Unless I misunderstood the online sales rep, they won't partition it before they
send it to me. Thanks.

My suggestion would be to determine the size of your Windows
installation and shrink the present one big partition to something
like 100 G, or whatever you feel is your maximum possible use will be
with at least 10 percent to spare. Then you have the rest of the disk
to play with.

If you want to store massive amounts of data and access it from
Windows then you will need to make one or more additional partitions
that are formatted HPFS as Windows accesses HPFS partitions while
Linux can access both HPFS and Linux partitions.

What I would do, and this can be argued, would be to partition a
primary partition, if it is not already done, for the Windows system.
Then make the rest of the disk an extended partition and then within
that extended partition you can later make other partitions for your
other systems - assuming that the other systems are Linux as Linux
will run from any sort of partition while Windows must run from a
primary partition.

The reason for worrying about primary versus extended partitions is
that you can make a maximum of four primary partitions but as many
extended as you want (effectively), and as far as I can tell there is
no difference, to the user, between an extended and primary partition,
other then Windows idiosyncrasies..

Finally, Windows must be installed on the first partition while Linux
doesn't care so I would arrange the disk with windows, then data
space, and then unallocated space. If you want to install an
additional system start from the "bottom" and work up. If you want
additional data space start at the "top" and work down.This will allow
you a large unrestricted space to add or enlarge you data stores. If
you put all your systems at the "top" then Data and then decide to
install another system you may find that you will need to move a lot
of data to make room.


Cheers,

John B.
(johnbslocombatgmaildotcom)

 

[Char Jackson]

I'm looking at a Dell system, which comes with a 1Tb 7200rpm hard drive. O/S
will be Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently, the drive will come to me
un-partitioned with the O/S obviously installed.

If the OS is installed, the disk is partitioned. A single partition,
no doubt, but still a partition.

I'd like to have the drive in four equal partitions.

Multiple partitions on a single physical drive were discussed
recently, with some very cogent arguments advising that it's generally
not a great idea, so presumably you've thought it through and decided
you still want to do it.

Can this be done after Windows 7 has been installed?

Absolutely, and it only takes a few seconds.

Unless I misunderstood the online sales rep, they won't partition it before they
send it to me. Thanks.

Good! I wouldn't expect them to mess around with something like this
which is much better left to the end user.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, rfdjr1.

Dell MUST partition the HDD (hard disk drive)! The HDD cannot be used for
anything until at least one partition has been created on it. Even if that
one "partition" covers the entire surface of the disk. And even if that
partition has no "drive" letter, and even if it is Hidden, like the System
Partition into which the essential startup files must have been written.
Without those files, the computer cannot boot at all.

So the question is: What OTHER partition(s) have been created or will need
to be created before you begin using your new system?

Every copy of Windows since Windows 2000, ten years ago, has included Disk
Management, which is THE utility to use to manage HDDs and partitions on
them, including to create, format, delete, shrink, and otherwise deal with
partitions. There are several ways to start DM; my favorite is to simply
press Start, type "diskmgmt.msc", and press Enter. You'll need to furnish
Administrator credentials, because it is a very powerful tool and can do
harm as well as good if used carelessly.

Once Disk Management is started, Maximize the window and widen the Status
column, so that you won't feel like you are working through a keyhole. Then
study the screen for a minute or two. The Volume Listing is at the top and
the Graphical View at the bottom (by default - you can change these, but
this arrangement works will for most of us). Note that the hidden partition
has the "System" status, while Drive C: is "Boot". (This is backward from
the way most of us think, but it is rooted in computer history and not
likely to change, so we all need to use the correct terminology.)

The graph at the bottom should show you every partition on your disk,
including those that may be hidden or have no letter assigned. It will also
show you how much space is left unallocated, available for you to use to
create new partitions.

I can't predict how Dell will partition the 1 TB of space, but my guess is
that it will have a small (150 MB?) hidden partition with no letter; this is
the System Partition. This MAY be followed by a Recovery Partition, also
with no drive letter; this will hold a copy of the Dell files that you will
need to restore your system in an emergency. These partitions will be
followed by a single partition, assigned the drive letter C:, covering the
rest of the 1 TB. Right-click in this partition and choose "Shrink volume".
Reduce this volume to a size large enough to hold Win7 and its many related
files, with some expansion room. (My "boot volume" is 60 GB and I still
have 17 GB free there after nearly a year of use.) So if you shrink your 1
TB Drive C: by 900,000 MB (note that this is entered in MB, not GB), you
should see it with 100 GB left - and about 900 GB of "Unallocated" space
following Drive C:.

This 900 GB Unallocated space can be divided into just about as many
"drives" as you choose - until you run out of letters in the English
alphabet. The first 4 partitions on any HDD can be "primary" partitions,
because there is room in each disk's Partition Table to store location data
for just 4 partitions. If you choose to create a 5th partition, Win 7 will
convert the 4th existing partition to an "extended partition", then it will
create a "logical drive" within that extended partition. You can create
additional logical drives within this partition until you run out of free
space or drive letters. (Be sure to assign each "drive" a Name (a label);
drive letters may be changed later, but the names will be written to the
disk so you will always know each volume, even if it gets assigned a
different letter.)

Enjoy your new system! ;<)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64)

 

[Ken Blake]

I'm looking at a Dell system, which comes with a 1Tb 7200rpm hard drive. O/S
will be Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently, the drive will come to me
un-partitioned

A word on the terminology. It will not be unpartitioned; it will be
partitioned as a single partition.

with the O/S obviously installed. I'd like to have the drive in
four equal partitions.

May I ask why? Except for those running multiple operating systems,
four sounds like way too many for almost everyone. How are you going
to use each of those four partitions?

Can this be done after Windows 7 has been installed?

Yes.


Unless I misunderstood the online sales rep, they won't partition it before they
send it to me. Thanks.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP (Windows Desktop Experience) since 2003

 

[Gordon]

Every copy of Windows since Windows 2000, ten years ago, has included Disk
Management, which is THE utility to use to manage HDDs and partitions on
them, including to create, format, delete, shrink, and otherwise deal with
partitions.

I think you'll find that prior to Vista the Windows Disk Utility was NOT
able to shrink partitions, and even if it was, it will NOT shrink a
partition beyond the first immovable file it encounters....

 

[Windows7Guy]

Hello there,

It depends on the version of Windows 7 that you have. As a good rule of thumb a minimum of 30GB is recommended for Windows 7 *(possibly more for Windows Ultimate).
http://tinyurl.com/obma6q
??
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Some Additioinal information with regard to the "system reserved" Partition in Windows 7 setup:
If you do not want the 'System Reserved' partition to be created and existed, the best way is to stop Windows 7 installation process to create the partition when installing Windows 7.
In Windows 7, the feature (100 MB partition to store WinRE files) is installed on all computers if the OS is installed on hard disk with single partition scheme, or unallocated space (space which not yet been partitioned) on the hard disk drive.
Thus in order to skip or avoid the 100M partition to be automatically created during installation, here’s a few rules to follow when choosing where to install Windows 7 to:
1. Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
2. If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
3. If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.
When prompted with dialog box saying "To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files", click on Cancel button. Optionally, to be double confirm, Format the partition before selecting it to install Windows 7
Finally, if you want to do some research; there are also some great articles, instructional videos and such to help with your Windows 7, installation, migration and upgrade decisions located at our Springboard site:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/default.aspx
Thanks again and good luck!
John M.
Microsoft Windows Client Support

 

[Vic RR Garcia]

I'm looking at a Dell system, which comes with a 1Tb 7200rpm hard drive. O/S
will be Windows 7 Professional 64 bit. Apparently, the drive will come to me
un-partitioned with the O/S obviously installed. I'd like to have the drive in
four equal partitions. Can this be done after Windows 7 has been installed?
Unless I misunderstood the online sales rep, they won't partition it before they
send it to me. Thanks.

Actually, the disk will come from Dell with two (2) partitions.

One hidden partition, that will contains Dell software and and image of
Win7 (for recovery purposes).
One partition with Win7, what you normally see.

The procedure is easy, but it can mess-up everything, do it at your own
risk:

Defrag your Win7 partition (C:\)
Run Disk Manager
Shrink your Win7 partition
Create new partitions on the empty space.

DO NOT touch the hidden partition !!!!!

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Gordon.

I think you'll find that prior to Vista the Windows Disk Utility was NOT
able to shrink partitions, and even if it was, it will NOT shrink a
partition beyond the first immovable file it encounters....

That's true, and other features also have been added with each version since
Win2K. But my post was already much too long, so I skimmed over a couple of
details (And you had already mentioned the immovable-file limitation.). I
usually don't do that because, so often, the one fine point I leave out is
exactly the one that will trip up the reader. :>(

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64)

 

[Gordon]

(And you had already mentioned the immovable-file limitation.). I
usually don't do that because, so often, the one fine point I leave out is
exactly the one that will trip up the reader. :>(

 

[Windows7Guy]

Hello there,

It depends on the version of Windows 7 that you have. As a good rule of thumb a minimum of 30GB is recommended for Windows 7 *(possibly more for Windows Ultimate).
http://tinyurl.com/obma6q
??
If you want to run Windows 7 on your PC, here's what it requires:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)
DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver
Some Additioinal information with regard to the "system reserved" Partition in Windows 7 setup:
If you do not want the 'System Reserved' partition to be created and existed, the best way is to stop Windows 7 installation process to create the partition when installing Windows 7.
In Windows 7, the feature (100 MB partition to store WinRE files) is installed on all computers if the OS is installed on hard disk with single partition scheme, or unallocated space (space which not yet been partitioned) on the hard disk drive.
Thus in order to skip or avoid the 100M partition to be automatically created during installation, here’s a few rules to follow when choosing where to install Windows 7 to:
1. Do not install Windows 7 to a hard disk that not yet been partitioned or to unallocated space (When install Windows 7 to unallocated space, no warning pop-up or confirmation is asked, and setup will straight away and directly create partition 200 MB of disk space as special partition without notification).
2. If possible, try to create all the necessary partition(s) and format the partition(s) before attempting to install Windows 7.
3. If you’re installing Windows 7 into a new hard disk, or a blank hard disk with no partition defined yet, or if you must delete all existing partitions to start afresh, chose Drive options (advanced). Delete (if applicable) unwanted partitions. Then, click New to create the single partition or multiple partitions according to your own preference.
When prompted with dialog box saying "To ensure that all Windows features work correctly, Windows might create additional partitions for system files", click on Cancel button. Optionally, to be double confirm, Format the partition before selecting it to install Windows 7
Finally, if you want to do some research; there are also some great articles, instructional videos and such to help with your Windows 7, installation, migration and upgrade decisions located at our Springboard site:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/default.aspx
Thanks again and good luck!
John M.
Microsoft Windows Client Support

 

[w7pro]

Here is a resource for you about installing partitions in Windows 7 Professional: bit.ly/cvRab4 . Hope it helps!