I hope that someone can help me with a wee query?

My folks have just bought an Acer laptop, and from what I've seen it's a really nice machine for the money.

The only snag is that the hard drive has been partitioned (by Acer) into 2 equal 20Gb sections. This wouldn't be a problem but my dad is wishing to transfer hours of home video (Digital8) to DVD, and he will be using the machine for editing etc.

The question is....... can the partition be removed without affecting the current set-up, or will it need a full reformat?

Many thanks.

PD

Hi - yes I believe you can extend the main partition to the max available. I've used Partition magic in the past - (which I think is freeware) - and it did the job. Do a search for partition freeware and I am certain you will find a useful tool that should work without having to do a reformat.

AGOW

Should be resizeable, anyway, and depending on what is in the second partition it should be removeable too. Visit ranish (http://www.ranish.com/part/) for a simple and small partition manager. Best back-up if you can first!!

Many thanks for the replies.

Cheers

PD

Have dear old Dad get a fast external drive (USB2.0 or firewire) for the video capture files - this way fragmentation and space issues won't affect the operation of your new machine.

The bigger the better as DVD-quality video can absorb several MB of space per second of video. (5 min segment = easily over 1 GB)

MPEG4 is a good choice for compression to keep the filesizes down.

cheers

VaP is right on the money here. 40GB of video is is nothing these days and it is not only easier to use an ext hard drive, but it also gives room to back up the Acer. Besides, that 40GB drive on the lappy is not the swiftest item on Earth, despite the rest of the machine being quite well specced. (I have one)

Conan

vapilot2004 / Conan the Librarian,

Thank you - I will look on the 'net' tonight (mum and dad are pensioners, and IT changes need to be implemented in very small increments :) ) an external drive was something I had not considered at all - but will provide a perfect solution.

Regards,

PD

Cheapest option, PD, remains back-up plus Ranish, but remember that the space available AFTER re-partition will always be filled, and the OS partition you created will always be too small.:) You/they will need to keep 'eyes' on the filling-up of the disk. Copy it off to a RELIABLE (http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=205145) DVD disk asap.

As suggested, external storage (or web if you have an ISP that offers that?) may be an idea.

BOAC,

Thanks for that :) .

I think the external drive is the route to go down to be honest. My mum and dad joined this IT game only quite recently and I want to make things as simple as possible for them.

If we opt for an external drive (200Gb for example), I can format it from FAT to NTFS, load on my dads video software (which is Sonic MYDVD or something that sounds like that), then he can save his files without any worry.

I'm not the most patient person to try and teach anything to anyone, and I've already 'snapped their (mum and dad's) heads' off over trying to explain that all 'Temp' video files must be removed because they are clogging up the 'C' and 'D' drives :{

Cheers PD

Is this an Acer 3613WLMi ?

I have one.

...if you decide to move partitions on the laptop - it sounds like you may have other plans, but if you to be carefull not to remove any partitions on the laptop, there is often a small / hidden one containing all the restore files for the laptop, i.e. the operating system and drivers etc. that you would need for a reinstall.

Just a thought :)

Nah - Acer are a Rolls Royce Company and spend the extra threepence to provide you with full restore disks, though it is a very good shout and I complement you on that one :}

Conan

Memetec is correct. The Acer machines have 3 partitions. One small hidden one and 2 at 20 gig.

Not sure what system you have on the machine but here Acer are fitting them with XP Professional which has a built in partition manager.

Suggest you go for the external drive as it would be safer if you are not too sure of what is to be done.

Regards