Partition

[red82]

hi,
i recently partitionedy hard drive with windows xp, and decided i didnt like it, and wanted the one c drive. i formated thed drive, reinstalled xp whilst deleting the partition. this all went fine, untill i discovered that my 40gb hard drive was still split. the c: had 2gb and 38gb "unallocated space". how do i allocate this space to the c: drive so i can just have a 40gb c: drive????
Please reply.
Thank you.
One more question: can anyone tell me the main advantages of a partitioned hard drive??
Thank you again.
:) :) :) :)

[Paul Komski]

Sounds like you had two partitions but only deleted one of them using the WinXP's disk management. Ensure you delete them all so that there is only unallocated space before installing. If you want more than 32GB (from within WinXP installation) you must choose NTFS format or else make the smaller partition FAT32 <32GB and then use a 3rd party partition tool to enlarge it afterwards or have created the large FAT32 partition beforehand and then installed WinXP into it without deleting it.

You could of course use a partition manager such as PartitionMagic or BootIt-NG (http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/) to enlarge an existing or future partition.

Briefly - partitioning a drive makes maintenance easier and faster and allows one to customise particular areas of data in a way that suits each individual. It is nearly always beneficial to keep your system files, data files, program files and downloaded files in separate and distinct areas. Partitions can augment backing-up data and are fundamental if you are arranging a multi-boot system.

[red82]

i tried deleting the second partition when reinstalling xp but it would not let me because it was the only drive left. All i really want to do is change my hard drive back to its default seting which is an unpartitioned drive with a c: drive of 40GB. :) :) :)

[Paul Komski]

Download BootIt-NG and use it to make an installation floppy diskette. Boot up to the floppy diskette but dont bother installing it on the HDD (unless you want to of course). Go into maintenance mode and choose partition work. Select your only 2GB partition and then use the slide button and then enlarge the partition to its full extent.

Alternatively use BootIt-NG to delete any partitions on the drive and then boot up to the WinXP CD and clean install it into the unallocated space but ensure you choose to forat it as NTFS.

If you boot to the installation CD and choose new installation it should still be possible to delete any existing partitions before choosing to setup a new installation into what should be just unallocated space. Just watch the prompts and read the messages very carefully.

[red82]

i will try that and get back to you.
thank you. :) :) :)

[red82]

i would just like to say thank you very much for all your help, it worked a charm. :) :) :) :p :)