I have a pc with the primary drive partioned into 4 drives.This is causing me some problems with files and i have been trying to sort out how to make it into one drive again with no success. Is it possible to do this?.If i install another spare drive as a slave could i move the C drive contents to this complete with windows? Paul.
I

You can re partiction your hard drive to make it just one whole one again....BUT you WILL lose everything on that drive when you do it, including windows!!! so make sure you have everything you need to reinstall windows before you start including the windows code key password thingy.

As for moving the entire contents of C:/ onto a fresh hard drive I'm pretty sure this can be done but I'm not sure of the proceedure to do it.

Hope this helps

Theere is a piece of software called partition magic that will merge adjacent partitions into one. BUT it can fail so best to backup the important stuff first

http://www.powerquest.com

As Simon said Partion magic will do what you want.

U2U sent.

Dave.

Partition magic will do it. Or you can use the FDISK command in good old DOS.

Make a boot disk for windows ME or 98 (if you need a creator let me know and I will email you one. Pop it in the floppy drive and reboot. Wait for it to all load, and you should come to a screen with options to boot with or without cd drive etc. Select without, and wait for it to load. Eventually you will get an A: prompt. Type in FDISK and hit return. You will need to tell it to enable large disk support if the drive is over 2Gb. From there you can delete partitions or add them as you wish. Its quite self explanatory. When you are done, reboot. Remove floppy disk. Insert windows CD, change boot order to cd first then HDD. Reboot. Wait for it to load and reinstall windows.

IMO partitions are great, but if your files get jumbled it can lead to problems.

If all else fails you can manage partitions actually in windows using drive manager. Its a bit crap though, and liable to corrupt everything (speaking from experience). The interface is called 'disk management' search it on windows help and you will get a link to it. Alternatively search 'partition' and you will get all the info you need to manage partitions in windows.

Hope thats of some help,
David

[Edited on 24/5/05 by flak monkey]

Ive just googled and found out about windows disk manager but had a quick look at it and dont fancy taking my chances.
I was glad of the partion a while ago when i had a drive crash and managed to reinstall windows and not loose to much data, but now have run out of space for windows updates and got in a mess moving files to try and create some.
I think I will install a new disk install xp and then copy across the files from my old drive after installing it as a slave.
I could then format it and use it as 1 disk i assume.
Paul.

quote:

---

Originally posted by flak monkey
IMO partitions are great, but if your files get jumbled it can lead to problems.

If all else fails you can manage partitions actually in windows using drive manager. Its a bit crap though, and liable to corrupt everything (speaking from experience).

Hope thats of some help,
David

---

You may have issues if your old disk also has XP installed as well. If one of your partitions only has windows, drivers and software onthen i would format that partition before putting a new HDD in. There are other ways (ghosting) but i personally favour the simple methods And yes once all your files are where you want them you can just format the old drive (though you may still need to remove the partitions manually).

Other than that new HDD's are cheap as chips, so no reason not to upgrade.

David

[Edited on 24/5/05 by flak monkey]

quote:

---

Originally posted by flak monkey
. There are other ways (ghosting) but i personally favour the simple methods
[Edited on 24/5/05 by flak monkey]

---

Fdisk only allows very limmited partiition manipulation ( ie delete and/or create) and it isn't a tool for the novice.

Used with caution Partition Magic works just fine --- provided it is the correct version -- as earlier versions don't support the Xp version of the NTFS file system.

Another good way to manipulate Windows partition is to use the partition programs in a Linux install cd Mandrake/Mandriva or Fedora have particularly good partition tools.

As for cloning the drive usin Ghost or partition Magic before hand it is a good idea but be aware some OEM versions of WinXp take a hissy fit and refuse to run if you do this --- there is a work around involving changing the drives id number (note physical drive not partition).