partitions

I installed a new HD Western Digital 160gig. I set up partitions through
Disk Management more or less as follows. c & d as primary, e-f-g as
logical. My question concers the d partition. I deleted this d partition but
the space (about 700 mb) is now listed as "unallocated". I would like to
remove this altogether, but I'm not given the option. I can't even give it a
new letter.

Also, I'd appreciate any advice as to good partition allocations. I have
not loaded much onto the drive and can still make changes,

Thanks.

JHI wrote in message
...

I installed a new HD Western Digital 160gig. I set up partitions through Disk
Management more or less as follows. c & d as primary, e-f-g as logical. My
question concers the d partition. I deleted this d partition but the space
(about 700 mb) is now listed as "unallocated". I would like to remove this
altogether, but I'm not given the option.

Thats a brain fart by you. You can remove it just be expanding an
adjacent partition into that unallocated spade. XP Disk Management
cant do that with a basic disk without losing the data in the adjacent
partition. You delete the adjacent partition and then create a new
one which uses all the unallocated space in that part of the drive.

I can't even give it a new letter.

You can do that too, just create a new partition that uses
the unallocated space and then you can give it a new letter.

Also, I'd appreciate any advice as to good partition allocations.

I personally prefer a single partition per physical drive except
for a few special situations. Mainly because then the free space
doesnt get scattered over the partitions on a physical drive.

The main situation where more than one partition per physical
drive can make sense is when you have more than one OS
installed and want to multiboot between them, and where you
want to image the main partition. If you only have one physical
drive, you need somewhere to put the image files and that
cant be in the partition being imaged.

I have not loaded much onto the drive and can still make changes,

You can just delete the existing partitions and
create new ones the way you want them now.

If you are satisfied with the size of your C: partition, and can move
anything that might be on the other partitions to C: , delete D: , E:, F:,
and G:, leaving only the C: and unallocated space for the rest of the drive
(do this in Disk Management). Then create new partitions of sizes you want
using the unallocated space. You will have to format the new partitions you
create to use them. With WindowsXP there is no reason to make the
partitions smaller to keep cluster size down. In my case I have a 10gig C:
that I use for my WinXP installation, device drivers and utilities, have
another bigger partitions with all my program installations and My Documents
folder, and a couple of partitions for music and scans (this is a 250gig
drive); this setup allows me to reformat C: if my WinXP gets messed up and
needs wiped and clean install, deleting and reinstalling my software in the
programs partition to get back up and running without losing My Documents
(in my case over 300mb by now). I still have DVD backups of some stuff I
can't afford to lose if I get a disk crash, but save a lot of time not
losing anything (even back up emails and list my Contacts from C: . Getting
rid of all partitions but C is the only way you can resize or combine space
for less but bigger partitions.
Herb
"JHI" wrote in message
...
I installed a new HD Western Digital 160gig. I set up partitions through
Disk Management more or less as follows. c & d as primary, e-f-g as
logical. My question concers the d partition. I deleted this d partition
but the space (about 700 mb) is now listed as "unallocated". I would like
to remove this altogether, but I'm not given the option. I can't even give
it a new letter.

Also, I'd appreciate any advice as to good partition allocations. I have
not loaded much onto the drive and can still make changes,

Thanks.

There seems to be a difference of opinion. Rod says that I can expand D into
C (both are Primary) while cyborg says that I need to re-partition all of
the drives ( E F G are logical) to re capture the unallocated space.

I don't see how I can expand D into C as per Rod and I'm not sure that the
logical drive space will include the primary space as CY suggests.
Please clarify.

Thanks.
Jeff
"JHI" wrote in message
...
I installed a new HD Western Digital 160gig. I set up partitions through
Disk Management more or less as follows. c & d as primary, e-f-g as
logical. My question concers the d partition. I deleted this d partition
but the space (about 700 mb) is now listed as "unallocated". I would like
to remove this altogether, but I'm not given the option. I can't even give
it a new letter.

Also, I'd appreciate any advice as to good partition allocations. I have
not loaded much onto the drive and can still make changes,

Thanks.

JHI wrote in message
...

There seems to be a difference of opinion. Rod says that I can expand D into C
(both are Primary)

I didnt mean it like that, and not with just XP alone.

Its simplest to delete the current partitions since
you say that the data in them doesnt matter, and
just create the partition structure you want.

You can also use something like Partition Magic or
Acronis to include the unallocated space into C, but
neither of those are free. They wont lose the data tho.

while cyborg says that I need to re-partition all of the drives ( E F G are
logical) to re capture the unallocated space.

You do if you want to use JUST the XP Disk Management.

I don't see how I can expand D into C as per Rod

You need to use something like Partition Magic to do that.

and I'm not sure that the logical drive space will include the primary space
as CY suggests.

If you delete the partitions, the whole question of primary and
logical drive space goes away since you have just unallocated
space once the partitions are all deleted and you can create
whatever you like in the unallocated space thats the whole drive.

Please clarify.


"JHI" wrote in message
...
I installed a new HD Western Digital 160gig. I set up partitions through Disk
Management more or less as follows. c & d as primary, e-f-g as logical. My
question concers the d partition. I deleted this d partition but the space
(about 700 mb) is now listed as "unallocated". I would like to remove this
altogether, but I'm not given the option. I can't even give it a new letter.

Also, I'd appreciate any advice as to good partition allocations. I have not
loaded much onto the drive and can still make changes,

Thanks.

I've accumulated drives over a number of years, and had a number of smaller
partitions on the oldest drives still in my system (to keep Windows 98SE
cluster size down); I did the same thing I recommended to combine the
logical partition space into one larger partition on a couple of my older
drives (and deleted all partitions on one drive to get just one big
partition out of the unallocated space). I used WinXP's Disk Management
utility to delete and recreate all my partitions. I also used it to prepare
a couple of new drives including a 250gig drive added for data storage
space. I've never seen any ability in Disk Management to add unallocated
space to another existing partition, though I guess Partition Magic may be
able to do this. The only way in Disk Management to add space to C: would
be to delete C: also which you can't do if your Windows installation is on
that Partition: .
Herb

"JHI" wrote in message
...
There seems to be a difference of opinion. Rod says that I can expand D
into C (both are Primary) while cyborg says that I need to re-partition
all of the drives ( E F G are logical) to re capture the unallocated
space.

I don't see how I can expand D into C as per Rod and I'm not sure that the
logical drive space will include the primary space as CY suggests.
Please clarify.

Thanks.
Jeff
"JHI" wrote in message
...
I installed a new HD Western Digital 160gig. I set up partitions through
Disk Management more or less as follows. c & d as primary, e-f-g as
logical. My question concers the d partition. I deleted this d partition
but the space (about 700 mb) is now listed as "unallocated". I would like
to remove this altogether, but I'm not given the option. I can't even give
it a new letter.

Also, I'd appreciate any advice as to good partition allocations. I have
not loaded much onto the drive and can still make changes,

Thanks.

I've never seen any ability in Disk Management to add unallocated
space to another existing partition, though I guess Partition Magic may be
able to do this.

In general there is a DISKPART Extend command:

"Extends the volume with focus into next contiguous unallocated space.
For basic volumes, the unallocated space must be on the same disk as,
and must follow (be of higher sector offset than) the partition with focus.
A dynamic simple or spanned volume can be extended to any empty
space on any dynamic disk. Using this command, you can extend an
existing volume into newly created space.

If the partition was previously formatted with the NTFS file system, the
file system is automatically extended to occupy the larger partition.
No data loss occurs. If the partition was previously formatted with any
file system format other than NTFS, the command fails with no change
to the partition."

And, you can use Disk Management to extend volumes on
dynamic disks.

Thanks to all.
Peter, how does DISKPART work. I went into run and the "dos" screen opened
with
DISKPART
showing...now what?

Thanks
"Peter" wrote in message
.. .
I've never seen any ability in Disk Management to add unallocated
space to another existing partition, though I guess Partition Magic may
be
able to do this.

In general there is a DISKPART Extend command:

"Extends the volume with focus into next contiguous unallocated space.
For basic volumes, the unallocated space must be on the same disk as,
and must follow (be of higher sector offset than) the partition with
focus.
A dynamic simple or spanned volume can be extended to any empty
space on any dynamic disk. Using this command, you can extend an
existing volume into newly created space.

If the partition was previously formatted with the NTFS file system, the
file system is automatically extended to occupy the larger partition.
No data loss occurs. If the partition was previously formatted with any
file system format other than NTFS, the command fails with no change
to the partition."

And, you can use Disk Management to extend volumes on
dynamic disks.

Peter, how does DISKPART work. I went into run and the "dos" screen
opened
with
DISKPART
showing...now what?

"..now what?" what?

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=18992

What do I type? OR just do?
"Peter" wrote in message
.. .
Peter, how does DISKPART work. I went into run and the "dos" screen
opened
with
DISKPART
showing...now what?

"..now what?" what?

http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=18992