How To Repartition Your OS Drive In Windows XP

Using Norton PartitionMagic 8.0

Be sure you have read and understand the instructions on the previous page before proceeding!

Norton PartitionMagic home page.

Open PartitionMagic. Right-click on the drive you wish to resize (in this case C:) and choose Resize / Move.

Whatever you choose to resize the drive to, make sure you leave enough space for it to grow. Also, the Windows XP built-in defragmenter needs 15% of free space to work (good 3rd party defraggers don't). Pick your desired size and click OK.

Now you are back at the original screen. Under the partition you have just resized is Unallocated Space. Right-click on it and choose Create Partition. I the resulting screen pick a Label and Size for it. You should keep everything else as is. Click OK when you're ready.

You are back at the original screen. Up to now no changes have been made. Double-check and make sure everything looks like you wanted it to. When you are sure click the Apply button at the lower-left of the screen. In the resulting screen click Yes.

Click OK and XP will reboot.

When you restart you will most likely see this next screen because you have new devices (partitions).

When XP is finished installing the new devices click Yes.

Open Norton PartitionMagic again. You should see your new changes.

If you decided to burn your My Documents to a CD:

Create a new folder called My Documents in the new non-OS partition. Right-click on the My Documents folder on your desktop/start menu and choose Properties. In the resulting window click on the Move button and type in or browse to the location you want to move it to...

If you did not delete the original contents of the My Documents folder:

Answer Yes when it asks if you want to move the contents of this folder.

If you did delete the original contents of the My Documents folder:

Answer No when it asks if you want to move the contents of this folder.

You're done!