changing space on partitioned drives....

[Sarge]

alright, so definitely in need of help. got a new laptop for school, and left my desktop at home. the laptop i got is a dell inspiron, and it's not too bad spec wise (aside from the intel graphics card, and the HD size). my issue is for some reason it was sent to me with partitioned drives. one drive has the windows 7 OS, and the other is data storage. wouldn't be a bad set up, but the OS drive only has about 10 or so gigs left until its full, and i dont want to install steam or other games on that drive and cause it to slow down due to lack of space.
i guess my question is, can i install steam on the 'storage' drive, or does it have to be on the main drive with the OS? (since program files is on that main drive). if not, how do i change the size of the partitioned drives? need help, cause otherwise, wont be able to join you guys on the server til i get back in december...

[Mongo]

you can install any software on the second partition. Just do advance install and select the other partition. I would make a folder in the partition root called applications, games, etc. then when you install games or any other applications then you can select those folders.
Thats how I have my computer set up.
C: OS
D: software and other games
E: backup and storage of video, pics, documents, etc.

[Mongo]

Oh yeah in wondows7 you can expand you drive to include the partition. I did it the ohter day on a computer and worked just fine
Right click mycomputer select manage> go to disk management> right click your C: (OS primary partition and then select extend volume. then blamo you have one partition now and all the room you need

[bmh]

Are you sure that the other partition isn't for Dell's system backup? If you ever fuck up your PC and have to restore it to factory then this partition may be used for that. Many manufacturers are using this method rather than shipping Restore disks now. Messing with this partition will destroy the image and make restoration from the hard drive impossible. While your computer is under warranty I wouldn't delete or re-size the partition either as Dell uses it when/if they have to repair your computer later. This partition was 10GB under Vista pre-service packs. Not sure how big it is on newer models or on Windows 7. If you got only an 80GB HD (common on cheaper Dell configurations) then I can imagine that you don't have a lot of free space left. I can't imagine any computer shipped with less than a 200GB drive these days. It's just dumb.

Unfortunately, this image is of a format that isn't readable by any known software. Dell used to use a modified version of Norton Ghost but not anymore. There are hundreds of pages on Dell's support forum about people wanting to copy the image when reformatting or getting a new/larger hard drive but there is no known way without cloning the whole drive and it uses weird boot settings to start the interface for using the image as well.

Dell commonly labels this partition SYSTEM BACKUP, BACKUP, or DATA. Modify at your own risk and I wouldn't attempt to write to it either unless you don't mind not having the Dell restore ability.

[Sarge]

yeah, it's labeled as a data drive. i think in total the HD is 220...or there abouts. the main drive is about 55 gigs, while the data backup is 160. i'm trying to do what mongo said, and its working....cept for itunes. they keep wanting to install in my c: (OS drive), which i dont have too much space, and i have about 40 gigs of music (at the moment, on a separate backup drive i own). trying to install DOD:s, however, my internet connection is pretty slow up here, and the only company i can upgrade my service with is Comcast (comcrap), so i'm debating about doing that as well.

well see what happens, hopefully i'll be back on the server, but i can imagine my ping will be horrid. and they gave my restore disks, and i created a restore point as soon as i received the laptop just in case, that way if i fuk it up too much, i have a point to go back to.

[Mongo]

You can not extend partition to a system reserved sector bmh.