How to partition hard drives without clearing hard drive?

[DemonicDerek]

Ok, me and my dad have gotten most of all the installation files installed onto our new computer. However I was wondering if there is a way that I can partition our hard drive without having to clear the hard drive (where you completely blank the hard drive)? So in other words I would like to partition my hard drive so that I would have 1 section for my dad and mom (largest) 1 section for me (2nd largest) 1 for my sister (3rd largest) 1 for my brother (same size as sister's)

Hard Drive size: 500GB
Due to the fact that Vista has a messed up way of measuring space on a hard drive it says that the total space on the hard drive is 455GB rather than 500 and these are what I would enter to total 455 GB.

Right now I am thinking of:
Dad's Drive C: 260GB
My Drive D: 160GB
Sister's Drive E: 17.5GB
Brother's Drive F: 17.5GB

[WickedVex]

I have heard a lot of good things about the program called Partition Magic. It says it allows you to partition your hard drive without destroying data (i.e. reformatting your hard drive)

http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/Partition-Magic.shtml

It's a free trial and under OS requirements it says Windows ALL. I'm a bit unsure of whether it really is compatible with Vista yet so it's worth some quick research.

[DemonicDerek]

any other suggestions as well (I will look at your suggestion wicked just right now I don't have time).

[The Wise Monkey]

You can use Vista's built-in Disk Management tool to organise your partitions as well.

1. Click on the Start Button and right click on Computer and select Manage.
2. Expand the Storage section and select Disk Management.

This allows you to..well... manage your disks. :)

[Rob]

Good thread. Sticky!

[dadbuilt]

Partition magic is a breeze you can get a trial free to use I use it all the time a few clicks and it's done.

[imagemaker5150]

Dadbuilt-
Please advise as to how to get FREE download of Partition Magic. I could only find links to Symantec requesting $69.95 for full download. It stated that there is no trial version available. Could this have changed since you downloaded? I couldn't find it free anywhere! Thanks.
:confused:

[Jamie Nixx]

The free trial is no longer in distribution mate.

[otto]

Partition magic works great and is only like $40 u.s. I recommend spending the money for the disk. I have bad luck w/ free download trials...

[aliasjanedoe]

I just want to add that everybody should ALWAYS BACK-UP YOUR FILES before partitioning. I used Partition Magic once and it took all night, wiped all my files, and didn't actually change my partitions because of some error. I then restored my files and went hunting for a different program. I think the one I ended up with was Partition Commander, and it did the job quickly and didn't zap any files.

[hellyan]

You might try EASEUS Partition Manager, Home edition
It Worked Great for me and it's FREE !!!

http://www.partition-tool.com/