partitioning without formatting?

[Spawn-Inc]

so i tried googling, and searching the forum but couldn't find the answer i wanted. i tried to partition my hard drive but it just messed up the whole hard drive and now it won't work. here (http://www.dansdata.com/images/io060/drivepart1024.jpg) is a picture of what i did, what went wrong?

ok so all joking aside i want to partition my harddrive that i currently use but i don't want to format it. i have about 80gbs left so i want to make a 20gb partition. is there a way to do it without risking losing information? if there is any risk i'm not doing it, if i lost this information i would be very pissed.

thanks!

[xRyokenx]

I don't think you can... every time I've tried it's always said I have to reformat... unless someone else knows otherwise?

[calumc]

theres a few utilities like partition magic on Hirens bootdisk, ive never used them for doing this but linux distros can do it so it must be possible

[Helix666]

using something like gparted from a Linux Live CD, you can resize a partition. You would not need to re-format the whole drive to resize a partition. (AFAIK)
However, it is recommended that you back everything up (and defrag) before trying.

http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_05.htm

[Spawn-Inc]

ok so will just save up for the second 250gb hdd and do it then. +rep for fast response.

[Dilphat]

if i remember theres a tool in hirens 8.6(now i think they are at 8.9 not sure) but yeah you could, ive seen it done at school.

theres a few utilities like partition magic on Hirens bootdisk, ive never used them for doing this but linux distros can do it so it must be possible
i think thats it. its like a bar type of tool that you use and you can choose the closest point to where you wanna make the new partition parameters. I can try to take a picture of it later when i get home or something.

[SgtM]

Partition Magic also works well.. assuming you want to buy it.