Using Vista’s Diskpart

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[Updated to fix formatting issue]

Earlier this week I moved build 5384 (Beta 2) of Vista on a 60GB hard disk to build 5456 on a 100GB one. There were some obstacles to overcome before I could do the restore, which I'll talk about in another post.

At the end of the restore the laptop rebooted into my familiar vista. It had two familiar partitions of 30GB each just as it had originally . Time to try out Diskpart. Disk part is the descendant of the FDISK and other tools. Lets you manage disks, partitions, volumes, and incorporates convert and format functions. Interestingly it can shrink or expand partitions dynamically. That get's it a rating of Cool on my "Vista Cool wall"

It took 5 commands to get rid of my redundant second partition and expand the first one.

Select Disk 0
Select Partition 2
Delete
Select Partition 1
Extend SIZE=50000

And whoosh - D: has gone and C: has grown from 30 to 80GB.

Tagged as Microsoft Vista Longhorn Installation