Simply want to add an extended partition to R61

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BobSmith103 · #1 Post by **BobSmith103** » Tue Dec 11, 2007 12:16 pm

Hello All

I finally made the plunge and got an R61 8934 A7U Thinkpad and am very impressed overall. Just one thing: Having a 120GB HD, I would like to simply add a second extended partition and use it as the data drive. Ideally I would like to dual-boot it with Win2K Pro but I know that you should always install the earlier OS first (it already has XP Pro) and I don't want to mess around with the recovery partition as I have already had the need to use it once and find its utility something always nice to have around for peace of mind (even having created the recovery DVD's).

Can someone give me the simple rundown on how to add a partition (possibly using a free trial version of one of the popular disk partitioning packages) to a Thinkpad and not blow away the recovery partition? Thanks for any advice!

#2 Post by **ryengineer** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 4:32 am

PartitionMagic works great with Windows XP.

#3 Post by **carbon_unit** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 7:17 am

Gpartedalso works well if you are looking for something free.

K0LO · #4 Post by **K0LO** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:05 am

Or, for a slicker package than GParted, try PartedMagic.

BobSmith103 · #5 Post by **BobSmith103** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 12:12 pm

Thanks for all of the suggestions-really appreciate it! Are there any hidden gotchas as far as stepping around the recovery partition? Anyone of you guys actually did the repartitioning with the recovery sector? Thanks.

#6 Post by **carbon_unit** » Wed Dec 12, 2007 8:18 pm

Don't move the position of the recovery partition. On the R61 it should be at the beginning of the hard drive (partition 1) so it should not be an issue. If it is at the end of the hard drive you want to put your new partitions after it by creating free space, sliding the recovery partition up and making the new one after it.
Back everything up before touching your partitions. It is very easy to lose everything when playing with partitions. Ask me, I know firsthand.

BobSmith103 · #7 Post by **BobSmith103** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:28 pm

Success. Thanks for the suggestion of PartedMagic. Works like a charm and if you spend some time reading the instructions to absorb the material it really helps.

Anyway, I created a CDR from the .iso file and booted the R61 up with it. What I saw as available partitions was the 106GB primary on the left side and the 5.59GB service partition in a tiny block over to the right.

The partitions used the linux dva nomenclature but it was obvious what they were. It was pretty straightforward anyway, and I simply left the little service partition alone over to the right and concentrated on shrinking the large primary partition to a smaller size.

I shrunk the primary down to 50GB (more than enough space by far to house the OS and multiple apps) and that left me with about 58GB for the new partition. Because WinXp lets you have 4 primary partitions I decided to just make the new partition a primary and formatted it with NTFS. It took a few minutes to shrink the partition and when that was done, another few minutes to create the NTFS partitition in the newly unallocated space.

I must give credit to PartedMagic for creating an extremely user-friendly interface. At no point did I feel It was getting away from me but I was glad I took some time to read the guide beforehand.

After I rebooted, Windows took a very long time to boot and it asked me at one point if I wanted to restart after adding a new something--must have been the new local disk---anyway, I said no to restart and let it boot all the way up, checked to make sure the new local disk:E was there (it was) and shutdown the system.

After starting it up again, it started normally, although it took a bit longer than before but once booted all the way up, everything looked normal and all my apps were operating OK as far as I could see, internet, Thinkvantage stuff, etc..

The new lineup in diskmanagement is as follows:

C:48.83gb E:57.37gb service:5.59gb

Thanks again to everyone who gave me suggestions and if any issues arise down the road I'll post them.

K0LO · #8 Post by **K0LO** » Fri Dec 14, 2007 3:58 pm

Glad to hear of your success. The guys who did the PartedMagic project did a really nice job with it, didn't they? From what I read, the original GParted project was done by a monk who eventually had to give it up when it started interfering with his other duties.

Fortunately, it is in good hands now.

Simply want to add an extended partition to R61

Simply want to add an extended partition to R61

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