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Booksley wrote:

This is why you want one big C: partition

*Sigh*... there are argymints both ways. Some suggest as you do; others as savvy suggest otherwise (have the OS on its own partition, as the boot partition is usually the first to get munged in any mishap). In any case, bear in mind this box was built in '03 IIRC, and this install dates from June '04. Never envisaged this having to soldier on for 5+ years without relief, but life took some, ahem, unfortunate & unexpected turns. (Wanna trade lives?) ..eight GBs was thought to be plenty for XP back then, and for long it was (likely still is, if you start with XP SP3). Things change- SP2, then -3 came along; apps that won't install anywhere but C:.. I won't be surprised if XP SP3 (which I've slipstreamed into my XP discs) doesn't even need the floppy to load SATA drivers that the original needed (remember that happy anachronism?). For that matter it's been so long I've forgotten much of how to back up before reinstalling. I've been trying to get time to get the newer sys up and running, then network with the older box and transfer files that way.

Do you have another HDD to copy stuff to? If not, maybe you could try shrink your apps partition, then create a new apps partition in the shrunken space. Then you could copy everything from the old apps partition to the new one. Finally, delete the old apps partition, then expand your C: partition.

Said life events have been unkind in the 'buy new HDDs' dept., too. Last new drive was early '06, and that filled up with irreplaceable data going back to at least '01; then recently a storm hit after I'd fallen asleep eating dinner. I haven't given up, but it's refused to remount since. All I have at this point is the drive intended as the boot drive on the 'new' machine. It has a generous partition for XP and and rather more space still unformatted for whatever other OS will go there for the dual-boot. Age caught up with a couple other drives this last year, too. The only thing newer than '06 is the new videocard and a chip cooler.

As for applications, GParted is probably the best. However, it looks like Parted Magic already includes GParted, so maybe you should just make sure you have a recent version.

I believe it does, and I just got the latest version (4.4) last night, updated since July. This box also has Seagate and Maxtor disc tools on it, which are fine and incorporate Acronis software... but since the boot drive is WD, no luck there.   Btw, thanks for the Foxit Reader tip; I've used that now for months.

About Parted Magic

The Parted Magic OS employs core programs of GParted and Parted to handle partitioning tasks with ease, while featuring other useful programs (e.g. Partition Image, TestDisk, fdisk, sfdisk, dd, and ddrescue) and an excellent set of documentation to benefit the user. An extensive collection of fileystem tools are also included, as Parted Magic supports the following: ext2, ext3, ext4, fat16, fat32, hfs, hfs+, jfs, linux-swap, ntfs, reiserfs, reiser4, and xfs.

Parted Magic requires at least a i586 processor and 256MB of RAM to operate or 128MB in "Live" mode.

http://partedmagic.com/

Something's mucked up I haven't doped out, either. Things like 20MBs of patches causing a loss of ~200MBs disc space, as if somehow things are archiving ten times over, the Registry's shot in some way short of total failure... weird stuff. Overnight the system 'found' some free space it hadn't yesterday; that's been a pattern for some time- lose much space, slowly get it back, and nothing obvious like Internet temp files, which I clean often. So, maybe I limp by until 'new, then network transfer,' but options are good. A large part of the original 8 GBs is years of Winders backup files I'll never need. It's unholy. (Oh look; here's a 19k .tmp file from 7/04). Should've been nuked and repaved years ago, but stuff happens, still does.

(I hope nothing ever makes you lose your happy outlook, Books, but some people.. stuff happens).

Last day to download Win7 RC1. Keys will be available for awhile yet, but the spigot is being shut off. No breakthrus yet; this one might get away. Oh, for a 64-bit 7 to try out...

If all you need is the RTM iso, I can send that to you.

As for the tool... I've never heard of/used it. But it got good reviews, so I guess it's okay to use. Does the free version do everything that the other versions do?