Partitioning laptop with 4 primary partitions

Question

I have HP laptop with 4 primary partitions. The second one is windows partition and other 3 are recovery, system and blah blah(i.e. unusable) So, basically my explorer shows only one partition where i can put my data and the same partition has my windows installation. Now, if I wanted to create more partitions for the sake of data storage, how do I it?

So far, I have read that converting my disk to Dynamic is the only option. What does it mean and what will it affect? Can I convert my disk back to normal from dynamic without losing data?

Similar question here with more information on HP recovery that may be useful to you in the future...http://superuser.com/questions/359414/how-to-make-a-drive-partition-and-install-windows-on-it-from-an-hp-install-disc — Moab, Apr 25 '12 at 17:57
@RandolphWest "This process works only if you have not used any one of the new features of dynamic disks." I would like to know more about this? — Moab, Apr 25 '12 at 18:02
If you're using software RAID (the only reason I'd enable dynamic disks, which is why I don't enable dynamic disks), then you will have data loss when converting back to basic. This is why I said in my deleted comment that it would result in data loss. I've never considered using dynamic disks outside of software RAID, and even then, I believe dynamic disks do not survive an OS failure (e.g. moving to another machine, reinstalling the OS). — , Apr 25 '12 at 18:11

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Apr 25 '12 at 17:53

4

backup your hard disk
check the backups can be read
resize partitions to make space
convert one primary partition to an extended partition
create two or more logical partitions in the extended partition
restore data to the converted partition.

See this tutorial

edited Apr 25 '12 at 17:53

Moab

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answered Apr 25 '12 at 11:37

RedGrittyBrick

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score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 25 '12 at 11:43

RGB already gave you an answer if all you need is more partitions. Dynamic disks are different and allow more sophisticated usage of disks such as spanning, which is combining instead of partitioning disks. You can look it up on Microsoft technet for more details but I don't think you need that from your question.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Apr 25 '12 at 14:38

As you have 4 primary partitions the easiest way to go is convert one of the primary partitions to logical.

Then you can shrink one of the partitions - (where you have more free space) - and create a new logical partition out of the freed space.

Please note:

Creating new partitions, shrinking, resizing of partitions which are booted involves repairings in BCD (Boot Configuration Data store) as boot entries will no longer correspond to partition properties !

You can use Visual BCD Editor to correct BCD entries.

Before doing any changes backup your important user files and have a Recovery CD/USB/DVD ready ! Partition operations are very dangerous if not done properly - you risk data loss.

A good and free tool for partition operations is Mini Tool Partition Wizzard. There are also other free tools - do some research before doing any changes.

Partitioning laptop with 4 primary partitions

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