Formatting 3 out of 4 windows partitions, how?

[wyrmwraith]

Yeah as above, want to remove obsolete versions while keeping existing XP home installation. Includes XP and Server2k3 trial, no vista. Was thinking of having a play with gparted on the livecd, any input appreciated. I would like to resize the XP home partition once i reinstall other OS. Cheers.

 

[raybay]

How about a bit more explanation and detail about what you want to do, and why?

 

[wyrmwraith]

I installed four /edit seperate operating systems each to their own partitions. Originally i had two hdd with one OS on each. I then thought it would be a good idea to give 3 (an extra OS included)of them 20gb allocations and the rest to "Home edition" partition. Basically i want to free up all the rest of the space and reallocate more to the primary partition (home edition), at the same time install 2k3 and Ubunutu to other smaller partitions. Theres probably an easier way to put it but yeah.

Home edition
Professional
Server 2k3
Ubuntu

Want to keep Home edition and reinstall 2k3 and Ubuntu on smaller partitions.

 

[kimsland]

Should be Ok with Gparted, but best to back up first (if any data present)

 

[DelJo63]

Partition Magic is good at this kind of thing;
shrinking an existing partition w/o loosing data,
merging adjacent partitions

 

[kimsland]

I find Partition Magic to be the best myself (but you must pay for this)

 

[gbhall]

do a bit of research on partition limits. There can only be 4 primary partitions per drive for instance...much higher limit on extended partitions, but extended partitions have limitations on whether or not they will support a bootable OS. Depending on your motherboard bios there can be upper size limits on partition sizes (earlier than about 2 years ago anyhow)

 

[kimsland]

I thought is was 3 Primary, but that's just off the top of my head, I haven't searched.