Disk partitions - Win 7

[Armistice]

OK, so when I got my current recording PC, years ago, it had (and still does) a 125 SSD and a 1TB HDD.

At the time I partitioned the HDD into 2 partitions, according to what I thought I'd use - space wise. D & F. (E is the CD/DVD)

Now I can see that partition F, on which I keep all my Reaper song data, is filling up a bit quickly, whilst there's heaps of room on partition D.

No problems, I thought, I'll just split off some space from D and reallocate it to F.

So I split off 200MB from D via Win 7 Disk Management and it becomes unallocated space, and it "sits" (on the Disk Management screen display) in between D and F.

I can now extend either D or F to absorb this space. Now, if I extend D - just putting the new unallocated space back where it was before, no problemo.... but if I try to extend F, I get a warning that to do this I will need to convert the disk (ie. the entire HDD) from a basic disk to a dynamic disk, warning me that if I do this I can no longer boot from the disk (which I don't anyway, Windows is on the SSD, as you'd expect) - essentially your typical WIndows warning message that means very little to the average user who's not deep into the entrails of operating systems....

So I've read up on dynamic v. basic, and apparently there are all sorts of advantages to dynamic (which I may or may not actually really use...) but I'm really loathe to start buggerising around with the disk that has all my data on it without a really good understanding of what I'm doing.

Obviously, my objective here is that nothing changes, apart from the partition sizes, and that everything works as it did before.

Any comments/thoughts?

I guess my alternative action might be to create another additional partition and put some of the stuff that's taking up space on the F partition (say my video files) onto that, and keep F just for audio, which I could do without any great drama.

[rayc]

I'm typing on a W7 machine at present.
Did you really mean to split just 200meg?
Seems like a lot of risk & effort for such a small parcel.
If you are filling up quickly on W7 have a look at the size of your backup folder...(D:\WindowsImageBackup\) I was at risk of having no D drive space last week. I found that the auto back up was in the region of 150gig and most of that was last year's backups so I ditched the 2021 backups and have plenty of space and no risk unless I wanted to bring back something from seven months ago.
THOUGH I'd wait for confirmation from one of the real tech gurus around the place.

[CeeBee]

An easy way round that would be to transfer your Reaper stuff to D if it is the bigger partition. If I remember right you can change the type of disk without losing data. Google that, as it's been a long time since I fooled around with partition sizes in windows 7. You could download a free partition wizard which would do what you want, but windows should do it anyway.

[liv_rong]

I’m a newb, what partitions?

[vomitHatSteve]

I’m a newb, what partitions?

Dividing a single physical disk into multiple virtual sections. In your operating system, you'll see them as a series of drives (C:, G:, H: whatever), but they're just subsections of the single actual disk.

[Armistice]

I’m a newb, what partitions?

Dividing a single physical disk into multiple virtual sections. In your operating system, you'll see them as a series of drives (C:, G:, H: whatever), but they're just subsections of the single actual disk.

And that's the bit that's worrying - I'd have a single actual drive, some of which is configured as a "basic" disk, and some of which is configured as a "dynamic" disk... sounds like a recipe for trouble.

I've since read a bit further and Windows walked away from the idea and don't recommend it any more, so I guess that answers the question. I can shift stuff around perhaps to create more space in the future.

[liv_rong]

I meant to ask why. Not what. I know what it is. I just don’t understand why.

[vomitHatSteve]

Honestly, I don't even bother with partitions anymore. If there isn't room in your tower for multiple drives, I guess it makes sense; but these days I just buy a new HDD that's twice the size of the old one every couple of years and rotate everything over and organize into folders.

[Tadpui]

Honestly, I don't even bother with partitions anymore. If there isn't room in your tower for multiple drives, I guess it makes sense; but these days I just buy a new HDD that's twice the size of the old one every couple of years and rotate everything over and organize into folders.

My sentiments as well. With the relatively low cost of fast storage and the plethora of internal/external connectivity available on computers these days, it's easy to just toss another physical storage device in the machine instead of slicing up an existing drive.

[Armistice]

Yeah, if I was setting it up again I don't think I'd bother. But it is what it is and makes back up easier.