repartition without reformatting

[zip22]

when i put my computer together, i thought i was going to use a separate harddrive for my mp3s, etc. but as it turned out i didnt. now i've got all my mp3s on the same hard drive and partition (only 1 on drive). i want to reinstall windows, but dont want to loose all of my mp3s. can i somehow repartition my hard drive to make a separate storage partition, move all my mp3s to that, and then reformat the windows xp partition? or will i have to get another physical hard drive. ive only got a cd burner, and dont feel like going through all that trouble. i have windows xp home and a WD 120

edit: i looked at partition majic and that seems to be what i want, but i dont want to pay for it. are there any free ones?

[wquiles]

Depending on what format your current drive has (FAT32 or NTFS) you might be able to boot from a Knoppix Live CD and run the Linux version of partition magic (if your data is on FAT32 as dealing with NTFS is mostly a read-only afair).

If you decide to go this route, you might want to post in the "Alternate Operating OS" section of these forums to get more specialized help if you have never played with Linux.

[zip22]

doesnt windows xp automatically use ntfs? i have messed with linux and have the knoppix bootable, but im pretty sure its in ntfs. thanks for the idea though

[lyle]

Go here (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html) and download this program. It will let you partition your HD without losing any data. Make your system partition small, then create another data partition and copy all your data onto the new partition. Reformat and reinstall the small system partition and you are good to go. Best of all, if this is a one-time operation, you can sample it for free.

[zip22]

i dont have a floppy drive right now. is there anything i can do with a cd? does the windows xp cd have any such utilities on it?

[JoT]

For the love of your computer, do not use partition magic to repartition drives with data on them! I have lost much to that vile thing.

Basically, as far as I know, there is no way to partition a hard drive with data on it, without just moving all the stuff to a different drive, partitioning, then moving back.

Edit: Forgot about logical drives in windows, but that's a whole 'nother ballgame.

[zip22]

alright, i think ill "borrow" my roommates hd for the day tomorrow

[zip22]

do i need a floppy to reformat? or does the windows xp intstall disk have a formatting utility?