Three unwanted partitions

I have XP Pro, and am preparing for Vista, and on a budget.

I have 2 30 GB HDs, and want Vista to be on one, alone.

I tried to use Partition Magic to merge the three existing partitions three
times because the process failed previously. Now I have six partitions on
the 30 GB hard drive Eventually I want one partition, but I want to take the
6, and merge into two partitions.

What is the best and cheapest (free, if possible) way to do that without
crapping out the HD?

Is it a good idea to use the present XP pro disk, and format each partition?
Yeah, I'll have to back up my C, D and E partitions, I know on a DVD, then
restore from that, but is that viable?

Install xp cd,boot to xp cd,at the menu screen press r For recovery,select 1
For C: Press enter for password,typeiskPart In DiskPart,delete the
unwanted
partition(s),leave some or whatever you decide raw (for vista),or mix up to
needed.
Or delete all,create one,press ESC key,type:EXIT Or type:FORMAT D: /FS:NTFS
D: being new partition.

"John T" wrote:

> I have XP Pro, and am preparing for Vista, and on a budget.
>
> I have 2 30 GB HDs, and want Vista to be on one, alone.
>
> I tried to use Partition Magic to merge the three existing partitions three
> times because the process failed previously. Now I have six partitions on
> the 30 GB hard drive Eventually I want one partition, but I want to take the
> 6, and merge into two partitions.
>
> What is the best and cheapest (free, if possible) way to do that without
> crapping out the HD?
>
> Is it a good idea to use the present XP pro disk, and format each partition?
> Yeah, I'll have to back up my C, D and E partitions, I know on a DVD, then
> restore from that, but is that viable?

John T <John T@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I have XP Pro, and am preparing for Vista, and on a budget.
>
>I have 2 30 GB HDs, and want Vista to be on one, alone.
>
>I tried to use Partition Magic to merge the three existing partitions three
>times because the process failed previously. Now I have six partitions on
>the 30 GB hard drive Eventually I want one partition, but I want to take the
>6, and merge into two partitions.
>
>What is the best and cheapest (free, if possible) way to do that without
>crapping out the HD?
>
>Is it a good idea to use the present XP pro disk, and format each partition?
>Yeah, I'll have to back up my C, D and E partitions, I know on a DVD, then
>restore from that, but is that viable?

Are you trying to preserve the existing content of those partitions?

If not then simpy use Disk Management in Windows XP to delete these
partitions, creating unused space. When all of the partitions have
been deleted then create a new partition to use the entire capacity of
the disk.

With Partition Magic you cannot merge the *contents* of partitions.
You must first manually copy all of the content to the partition(s)
that you will keep. Then you can merge the empty partitions with the
ones with content to create larger partitions.

If the existing partition contents cannot all be fit into the single
partition then you need to do this in stages. Move out part of the
content, resize the partition(s), then move out the rest. When doing
this you must pay attention to the physical location of the partitions
as the two partitions being resized must be physically adjacent and
when you reduce the size of one you must ensure that the unused space
is created between the two, so it can the be added to the other
partition.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2008)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca
Syberfix Remote Computer Repair

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