Are you looking for free partition software for Vista?

Posted on October 20, 2007
Filed Under Vista Tips & Tricks

A good partition manager is always nice to have around. There are many good ones available but for most of them you need to pay to use them. Some of the good ones are Paragon Partition Manager, Norton Partition Magic and Partition Find & Mount Pro but like I said you have to pay for most of them. Well not any more

What do you use if you want to Create, Merge or Remove a Windows Partition?

If you are a home user or a small business owner like me than an easy (and simple) partition manager will do. Vista comes with his own build in partition software. This software lets you easily extend a partition volume, shrink a partition volume and lets you easily delete a partition volume.

Open your Windows Vista Partition Software.

Go To Start.
Click on all programs.
Click on accessories.
Open run.
Type in “compmgmt.msc” (without the “”) and click on OK or press enter.

Vista-Partition-Manager-Picture1

Click on Storage – Disk Management and you’ll see your hard disks.

Vista-Partition-Manager-Picture2

Right click on the hard disks that you want to manage and you’ll see several options that you can use.

Vista-Partition-Manager-Picture3

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Comments

32 Responses to “Are you looking for free partition software for Vista?”

Windows Vista on April 10th, 2008 2:21 pm

Thanks for the tip. I was using partition magic, this comes handy.
cedric on May 19th, 2008 5:35 am

I tried but you only can shrink and not at the extent you want. At the end i cannot partition it the way i want. i tried with partition suite it didnt worked either.
Vincent on May 20th, 2008 5:12 am

Say Cedric, what is it that you want to do exactly. Maybe I can help…
Randy on May 29th, 2008 6:08 am

Vista’s Partition program will only let me partition the drive in 1/2 no smaller. Is this really all it can do?
Vincent on June 3rd, 2008 2:04 am

No, I don’t think so. I’m not able to test it now but maybe someone else can who’s reading this article.
John P on June 12th, 2008 8:40 pm

Hi, I’m having the same problem, Vista won’t let you shrink beyond a certain limit due to its System Restore and Page File functions – it reserves imovable space on the disk. There are workarounds, turn off system restore and disable Page File on the disk and then delete the system pagefile.sys – bit risky. Then you need to defrag and reboot. Its complicated, especially as deleting a system file is not easy. I think proper software would be best or reinstall and partition the drive on during the new install.
I’m still looking for an alternative.
Rodel Mariano Reyes on June 15th, 2008 7:40 pm

Thank you so much for the above knowledgeable information that you have shared. It works for me. It’s very easy to use and most importantly it’s free. I tried to search many partition softwares but couldn’t find any, all of them with charge or free trial (that sucks). Again, thank you so much.
Sayyid on June 30th, 2008 7:15 am

Thanks a lot !,,,It really works,,i had used this tools to remove my ubuntu partition and reformat it.
Tom on July 8th, 2008 11:44 pm

How can it remove a non allicated partition or make it active. I have vista and want to add xp
terry on July 9th, 2008 4:24 am

I know some free partition management software:
paragon and easeus partition manager but neither of them could support vista.
John P on July 11th, 2008 1:34 pm

Tom, if you have an unallocated partition on your hard drive, when you install an operating system, you have the option to install it to the non allocated partition and it will automatically be activated. However, if you want to have a dual boot Vista and XP the advice would be to install XP on the first partition on the disk, then install Vista after to the second partition on the disk – if I understand you correctly that would mean installing XP over your current Vista installation and then reinstalling Vista on the unallocated partition at the end of you hard drive. This is because its better to have the earlier OS on the first partition and newer OS on after – one reason is the better boot manager installed with the newer OS.

If you just want to make the partition usable for data, just right click it and create partition, you do not want to mark it active because only partitions with operating systems are marked active, this tells the BIOS which disk or partition on the disk to look for the boot manager, the boot manager then tells BIOS how to boot the operating system or display a menu with options to dual boot.
Tom on July 11th, 2008 3:25 pm

thank you Johm,
I will try your suggestion, however I have never done this before and is greek to me. also I have a dell laptop and only have a reinstallation DVD will this work after I install XP over vista.
John P on July 11th, 2008 9:47 pm

It might work, I’ve never used a Dell installation DVD before, but probably it will reinstall Vista to default C: drive. Thats usually what happens. So in your case I would leave the Vista install as it is and install XP to the unallocated partition. When you do this, you will lose the Vista boot loader and ability to boot Vista. However, all you need to do is repair the boot loader. To do that, you will use your Dell DVD to boot from and when it starts on the Vista Installation menu (you should test this before starting) select Repair Installation instead of Install Vista. Then at the next screen there is an option for Startup repair. This should automatically fix the bootloader and allow you to boot Vista again – but not XP. Then you will need to add XP to the vista boot manager to be able to boot it. There is a how to article here -

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm

Check your DVD first by booting from it and see if you get the normal Vista installation screen with the option to Repair. If you get a Dell installation screen then I wouldn’t try it unless you get some more advice first.
Vic on September 12th, 2008 2:22 pm

The vista software only allows me to partition 20gig from 700gig, why is this. i want half the partition, is this possible?
Khosro on October 2nd, 2008 6:30 am

I feel so disappointed with Vista and especially with its Disk Management program which doesn’t allow you to have your desired partition sizes. I have 700 gigabyte hard disk but it doesn’t allow me to shrink less than 450 gigabytes ! This Vista is really A PIECE OF JUNK ! I’m fed up with it !
Khosro on October 2nd, 2008 6:42 am

Yeah it is a piece of junk mainly because it’s not compatible with any other software such as Partition Magic So, it leaves you in absolute suspense and despair !
Tara on February 3rd, 2009 7:32 am

Hi all & john,
Could u guys help me, how to create a new partition on vista. Coz my little bro has a new cpu and there’s only drive C and D (D is for DVD room, usual D:/ is for data). I want to add a new one for data. What should i do, should I use other s/w or just by cmpmgmt ? thanks ^_^
Vincent on February 4th, 2009 1:47 am

cmpmgmt has always done the trick for me.
oling on February 5th, 2009 1:44 pm

I really feel gratefull for your help!
Derek McLean on February 5th, 2009 9:09 pm

I’ve just had a successful first foray into dual-booting. I, too, was not entirely happy with Vista, and decided to try and add XP.
After a few problems, I seem to have got there fairly easily.
First, after defragging etc, I used EASEUS to shrink the Vista partition. It was free, and it worked.
Second, I installed XP in the space vacated at the end of the hard drive.
Third, I had to re-instate Vista. I used guidance from the other site referred to above. I had to install .NET Framework 2, followed by EasyBCD 1.7.2. The latter is self-explanatory when you open it.
Yes, I did go round in a few circles and had to try a few things several times, but it was easier than I thought.
The two OSs can even access each other’s file systems, so I don’t need to repeat everything in the XP system.
Overall, a great success. Thanks to all above for the information that pointed me in the right direction.
Jori Haar on March 7th, 2009 5:41 pm

hey,

I want to increase the C: volume, I have 8,5 GB left to add to any of my partition BUT… I can add this to every partition I have except for my C: volume ? why is that ?
afromoskvich on March 15th, 2009 6:43 am

can someone help mr out please..i have to laptops i use at home.recently i formated one and reinstalled xp s3..that is on my fujitu siemens laptop…now my internet connection which i did the same for the other comp refuses to work on my newly fromated comp.my internet service is through a vpn..my sony laptop which uses a vista is working ok with the net but the siemens is not.what it does is,,it connects then disconnects on its on or sometimes connects and after showing that ther is conflict of ip address it disconnects..but on the sony it doesnt create this problem..PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME OUT..THANK YOU IN ADVANCE
Imadov on May 30th, 2009 2:26 pm

hey help me plz
i want to merge the primary partion with the free partition (green) of the logical drive
i don’t have unallocated space , i have a free space oustside the partion of the logical drive …
how i can extend the primary system partition
i have vista ultimate
knowles19 on June 17th, 2009 11:26 pm

I have a Sony VAIO laptop Vista Home Premium with a 142GB capacity hard drive. I’d like to partition the drive to match my desktop XP which has a big harddrive parititoned into C, D, E, F, G, H. The program included in Vista only shrinks a drive. It doesn’t partition it, as I understand it. Anybody got any ideas? It’s a shame that Norton hasn’t developed partition software that handles Vista.
Derek McLean on June 29th, 2009 12:00 pm

I would repeat that I can thoroughly recommend EASEUS. I’ve used it in XP, Vista and Windows 7, and I’ve had no problems.
It can shrink and increase existing partitions, as well as create new ones. It’s easy to use too.
As for Norton/Symantec, I had a major problem with their full security package (360, I think) a year or so ago and I had to give up on it eventually. Even after re-installing it several times it still didn’t work properly. I now use Bullguard, and am very pleased with it.
nazeef on August 25th, 2009 2:05 am

i really tried it and got a better result, tanx u so much
ramesh on August 25th, 2009 12:03 pm

is there any third party software to shrink the preloaded os partition with win vista….??..plz..plz. help me out for this
Derek McLean on August 31st, 2009 10:24 am

Ramesh,

Check out my previous message om 29th June. EASEUS works very well. I added XP to an Acer laptop that came with Vista. I’ve used EASEUS again many times since, without problems.

I would also repeat that Bullguard is a very worthwhile security package. It even works with Windows 7.
Adam on September 9th, 2009 11:17 pm

When setting up my laptop i partitioned the hard drice to have a 30gb c drive and 117gb d drive however i have now ran out of space on my c drive however have loads of free space on my d drive. All the things i have tried will only let me shrink my d drive but will then not let me extend my c drive with this freed up space! Can you help me please!!!!!
Derek McLean on September 16th, 2009 9:28 am

What techniques have you tried?

What OSs are you using?

What partition software are you using? If it’s EASEUS, I’m surprised it isn’t working. Maybe you need to try a different one.

Have you considered moving some data out of C and relocating it in D? Why did you make C so small in the first place?

Good luck.
Robby on September 20th, 2009 4:40 pm

I also have a small c: drive and running out of room with Vista. I tried the program above with Windows and it wont let me enlarge the drive. I have a 500 gb HD and only 29g is for C:. I need to extend it also…Thanks for any device.
Tara on October 23rd, 2009 1:11 am

I just downloaded EASEUS, and it looks like a great program. Unfortunately, it took that to discover that my problem isn’t actually partitioning but that there are two actual physical drives. Guess I’m stuck! Ugh.