Here's my story:

i have an 80 GB Hard drive capacity laptop. however, my C drive is ony 15 and my D drive is 65 Gb.

My C drive on which all of my programs are INSTALLED is low on space now. i ve installed one CAD program which consumed about 8 GB plus and that was only one program.

i want to back-up everything such that i DONT lose any of my data or programs and format my computer and partition it so that both drives i have are divided equally. 40 by 40.

i have a 500 GB external hardrive to do so.

do you have any recommendations and articles to read in order to do so? i havent formatted a computer in my life. i dont even know what command i need to perform if from using DOS. Do i need to install windows all over again from the CD, or the windows backs itself up on my external hard drive during the back-up operations?

or should i just give it to someone who knows about all this STUFF and let him do it?

would really appreciate it if you can tell me about articles and tutorials about formattign and partitioning to read about.

thx.

Well, you may be able to avoid this formatting and resizing of partitions. Your current partition sizes would work fine for many computer users, allowing them to have Windows and other programs on C and all of their data/music/photos/etc. on D. But, many users don't need to install a program that consumes 8GB.

Keep in mind you can install programs on D. To move a program currently installed on C to D, you should uninstall it and then reinstall it on D. During the installation, be sure to change to path to D when the installation procedure stops and shows where it's going to install the program; that's where you can change the path and install the program in a different location.

So, you could move the CAD program over to D, or you could select other programs to move and leave the CAD program on C. Also, if you My Documents folder is on C, as it is by default, and you have a lot of files in it, you can move it to D.

If you feel you still want/need to format and re-partition, state so and someone will assist you. But, you're on the right track. You have the huge external hard drive for backup. You would need to install Windows from scratch, using your Windows CD.

I suggest you make a list of everything you can think of that you'd like to save and restore after a formatting and fresh installation of Windows. For example, if you want to save you Favorites/Bookmarks from your browser, export them to a file and include that file in your backup. Do you want to backup email messages? It's easy to overlook something if you don't make a comprehensive checklist.

Before you start a format and reinstall of Windows, you should also try to save all device drivers you'll need, to that external hard drive. However, you can often get the drivers after the hard drive formatting and reinstall of Windows.thx soybean.

there is some freeware programs that help partition your system without needing to delte anything. i am in the process of backing up my D: drive because of the valuable stuff i have on it.
However, i didnt do ALOT of reading on it, and i ll apply this program and experiment with it. if it works then its fine and if not then i ll see what i ll do.

i ll tell you what happens. hey soy.
i ve partitioned my hard drive. didnt have to format it. thanks.Quote from: K!ra on October 29, 2007, 10:04:55 AM

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there is some freeware programs ...