Disk Partitioning

[haiku]

I would like to create partitions but "powerquest partition magic 8.0" says < error! partitions drive letter can not be find >

how can i create a partition?

[Thalamus.]

Hi haiku,

welcome to Club VAIO..

Could you give us some more information please..

What model Vaio do you have.?

What partition are you trying to resize.?

Are you using Vista or XP.?

[haiku]

Hi Thalamus, thanks for the welcome

This is a Sony Vaio vgn-fz31e notebook.

The OS is Vista and the partition is C.

There must be one more partition, a hidden recovery partion probably, because disc is not 200GB but 174GB.

My intention is to make an image of disk by using "Acronis True Image" so i can have my all personalized software and system later. I decided to make two partitions, one including system and programs and other for media and image.

Thanks in advance

[Thalamus.]

Hi haiku,

have you tried using Vista's inbuilt disk management tool.?

Click Start, then right click on Computer and select manage.

Click continue on the User Account Control window.

In the Computer management widow, under storage, click on disk management

Use the following link for a guide on: How to use Vista's Disk Management tool

[haiku]

Hi again Thalamus,

Yes, your suggestion worked. But the disk amount i was able to shrink is only 42GB, i dont know why. The total amount of disk is 174GB and 50GB of it is being used. I tried to repeat the action so i thought i could make two 42BG but it didnt work.

I am planning to format all of the disk.

System looks nice but i can not tell it has flexibility. I would prefer recovery DVDs instead of allocating my harddrive.

Thanks again.

[Thalamus.]

Yes, your suggestion worked. But the disk amount i was able to shrink is only 42GB, i dont know why.

Unfortunately this is one of the downsides of using Vista's disk management, the space available to create a new partition is reduced by the space occupied by shadow copy, pagefiles, etc..

I am planning to format all of the disk. 

As you're planning on formatting your disc, if you use the the Vaio recovery centre, there is an option to resize the partitions during the process..

For further information and a guide on the procedure see page 39 of the Troubleshooting and Recovery Guide, available to download from HERE

I would prefer recovery DVDs instead of allocating my harddrive.

You can (and should) create a set of recovery disc's using the Vaio recovery centre, however if you decide to then delete the Hidden HDD recovery partition be aware that if you have a CD/DVD drive problem or your recovery disc get lost or damaged, then you won't be able to use the recovery partition to restore your Vaio..