Need to resize HD in dual boot system

Didn't plan ahead
Dual boot Windows 7 and 8.
I only initially allowed 100 GB for my primary Windows 8 on a 2 TB drive.
I'm hardly using the W-7 and now find myself out of space on the W-8 (C)
I'd like to repartition to give (C) 1 TB and 1 TB for (D)

Pete

Gparted on a Linux LiveCD would be the best way to do it. You can also do it from Windows through Disk Management. There are many ways to approach this. Both with Linux and Windows third party software.

Thanks for quick reply.
I have gparted and have used it before but not for this.
My concern is won't I screw up the boot sector when I shrink the larger partition?

Just pick your poison. I would make a full image of that drive before doing anything. Todo workstation will work. Or Clonezilla. If you have a NAS or USB portable drive. Back the image on there. I use Clonezilla with Windows 8.x.x all of the time. You just have to remember to turn off Secure boot & UEFI, before running.

Todo is a little easier to do, but takes longer. Personally I would just blow the Windows partition out and use 8 exclusively. If your system can handle a Virtual Machine with Windows 7 as a VM, that is one choice.

Otherwise just before you commit with Gparted or Todo. Do it without being too tired, or stressed out. Otherwise you may end up shrinking the wrong volume.

Hi there
While method above (GPARTED) is fine - I'm surprised at why you'd need a partition of even 100GB for the Windows OS -- I've loads of large applications (Office 2010, VMware workstation,the full adobe CS6 suite including photoshop, Visual studio etc) and my Windows partition still doesn't use more than 60 GB.

Just have the OS on a partition -- keep all your user data (movies, email, documents, downloads, music etc) on separate disks / partitions. Another advantage of separating data from the OS is that if you have to re-install / upgrade the OS again you don't lose your data. Also makes for smaller OS backups too.

Cheers
jimbo

You can use WirDirStat (free) to MORE EASILY see where your disk space is being used.
WinDirStat - Windows Directory Statistics

Take a few minutes to use it / learn it ... I've been using it for years and no problems, it's a great free tool.
If you have questions/issues, post a screen print of your WinDirStat, and someone here can help.

Jimbo is spot on with recommending USER data be stored on a "Non OS" partition.
I've got a recent install of Win 8 updated to 8.1, ~25 programs installed, and the [C] partition uses ~20 GB.
User data is stored on a [D] partition, and is accessible by other OSs on this multi-boot PC.

Okay, while in the Windows 8 (could be done in windows 7 but prefer 8) open the search (Move mouse to any corner of the right side of the screen and click search) type disk management. Click the option that says "Create an format hard disk partitions."
From disk management you will be able to manage ANY disk in your pc. Even the one that had windows 8 installed. Note* you cant make it smaller than what's on the drive, that would cause a lot of errors. Adjust to what's needed and go from there.

cfourkays said:

Didn't plan ahead
Dual boot Windows 7 and 8.
I only initially allowed 100 GB for my primary Windows 8 on a 2 TB drive.
I'm hardly using the W-7 and now find myself out of space on the W-8 (C)
I'd like to repartition to give (C) 1 TB and 1 TB for (D)

Pete

Click to expand...

In Disk Manager, right click on your D: drive and select Shrink Volume. It will tell you how much is available for shrinkage. There's a note about how it cannot shrink past unmovable files. Choose the amount of space you want to recover. Depending on how much data is on the drive, it may take a while. Once you have your unallocated space, right-click on the other drive and choose Extend Volume. It should attach that space almost instantaneously.

OldGuyGeek said:

In Disk Manager, right click on your D: drive and select Shrink Volume. It will tell you how much is available for shrinkage. There's a note about how it cannot shrink past unmovable files. Choose the amount of space you want to recover. Depending on how much data is on the drive, it may take a while. Once you have your unallocated space, right-click on the other drive and choose Extend Volume. It should attach that space almost instantaneously.

Click to expand...

Unfortunately you can't do that. You can only extend a volume if the unallocated space is next to it (immediately on the right in disk management). You'll need to use GParted or something other tool like the free Partition Wizard (which I used to do the same thing).

There are others like EASEUS Partition Manager, Paragon Partition Manager Free Edition

The reason is if you are moving partitions it needs to actually cut and past all of the data from one disk sector to another. Note this happens before windows starts and is very slow.

adamf said:

Unfortunately you can't do that. You can only extend a volume if the unallocated space is next to it (immediately on the right in disk management).

Click to expand...

You're right. I should have paid more attention to his screenshot. Since he was extending his second boot volume, it won't work.