Deleting a partition.

G

Guest

Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to delete a partition that came with my
computer when I bought it. It has two logical drives on it, C and D, and C
is the one with all the system files. At the moment D is completely blank.
I want to join D onto the existing C drive so that I can have one big drive
rather than two 30GB drives. I tried looking at the disk management tools
but didnt have any success there.
 
G

GHalleck

MR said:
Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to delete a partition that came with my
computer when I bought it. It has two logical drives on it, C and D, and C
is the one with all the system files. At the moment D is completely blank.
I want to join D onto the existing C drive so that I can have one big drive
rather than two 30GB drives. I tried looking at the disk management tools
but didnt have any success there.

The tools are not in Windows XP except for possibly deleting
a partition. To expand the remaining partition, one needs a
third-party utility, such as Partition Magic.
 
V

Vanguard

MR EDDD said:
Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to delete a partition that came
with my
computer when I bought it. It has two logical drives on it, C and
D, and C
is the one with all the system files. At the moment D is completely
blank.
I want to join D onto the existing C drive so that I can have one
big drive
rather than two 30GB drives. I tried looking at the disk management
tools
but didnt have any success there.


Ranish Partition Manager is supposed to manage partitions and is free
(Partition Magic will cost money from Symantec who bought Powerquest).
I've never used Ranish.
 
R

Rock

Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to delete a partition that came with my
computer when I bought it. It has two logical drives on it, C and D, and
C
is the one with all the system files. At the moment D is completely
blank.
I want to join D onto the existing C drive so that I can have one big
drive
rather than two 30GB drives. I tried looking at the disk management tools
but didnt have any success there.

3rd party software is needed because XP's built in tools can't do this. Two
programs that do this are Symantec's Partition Magic which is not cheap, or
BootitNG from Terabyte unlimited. They have a 30 day full featured free
trial version.
 
G

Gerry Cornell

Far easier to relocate files / folders to your D partition.

To increase you free space on your C select Start, All Programs,
Accessories, System Tools, Disk CleanUp, More Options, System Restore and
remove all but the latest System Restore points? Restore points can be quite
large.

To move programmes use Add / Remove Programs in Start, Control Panel, Add /
Remove Programs to uninstall programmes. Create a Programs Directory on
your other partition and reinstall there.

Some other notes you may find useful.

Create a My Documents folder in another partition and copy ( not move ) the
contents of My Documents to your new folder. Then delete the files in your
My Documents folder ( if you encounter problems deleting use Shift + Delete
to bypass the Recycle Bin ). You will also need to change Default File
locations in the Microsoft Office programmes you use. For Word go to Tools,
Options, File Locations, highlight Documents, click on Modify and change
file path. For Excel go to Tools, Options, General and change default file
path.

For Temporary Internet Files select Start, Control Panel, Internet Options,
Temporary Internet Files. Settings, Move Folder.

To move the Outlook Express Store Folder select in Outlook Express Tools,
Options, Maintenance, Store Folder, Change.
http://www.tomsterdam.com/insideoe/files/store.htm

It is likely that an allocation of 12% has been made to System Restore on
your C partition which is over generous. I would reduce it to 700 mb. Right
click your My Computer icon on the Desktop and select System Restore.
Place the cursor on your C drive select Settings but this time find the
slider and drag it to the left until it reads 700 mb and exit. When you get
to the Settings screen click on Apply and OK and exit.

If your hard drive is formatted as NTFS another potential gain arises with
your operating system on your C drive. In the Windows Directory of your
C partition you will have some Uninstall folders in your Windows folder
typically: $NtServicePackUninstall$ and $NtUninstallKB282010$ etc.

These files may be compressed or not compressed. If compressed the text
of the folder name appears in blue characters. If not compressed you can
compress them. Right click on each folder and select Properties, General,
Advanced and check the box before Compress contents to save Disk Space.
On the General Tab you can see the amount gained by deducting the size
on disk from the size. Folder compression is only an option on a NTFS
formatted drive / partition.

Another default setting on a large drive which could be wasteful is that for
temporary internet files especially if you do not store offline copies on
disk. The default allocation is 3% of drive. Depending on your attitude to
offline copies you could reduce this to 1% or 2%. In Internet Explorer
select Tools, Internet Options, General, Temporary Internet Files, Settings
to make the change. At the same time look at the number of days history
is held.

The default allocation for the Recycle Bin is 10 % of drive. On your drive
5% should be sufficient. In Windows Explorer place the cursor on your
Recycle Bin, right click and select Properties, Global and move the slider
from 10% to 5%,



--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
J

Jonny

MR EDDD said:
Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to delete a partition that came with my
computer when I bought it. It has two logical drives on it, C and D, and
C
is the one with all the system files. At the moment D is completely
blank.
I want to join D onto the existing C drive so that I can have one big
drive
rather than two 30GB drives. I tried looking at the disk management tools
but didnt have any success there.

Can someone explain to me how C: can be a logical drive (partition)?
 
A

AJR

Mr. Eddd - Jonny is giving you the "needle" and. in a way. suggesting you do
some reading on drives/partitions.
Back to your post - some manufacturers (most laptops) rather than providing
recovery CDs install recovery options on another partition.
In some cases this partition is hidden and/or cannot be "read" by explorer.
May or may not be so in your case.
 
K

Ken Blake, MVP

MR said:
Hi, I'm wondering if its possible to delete a partition that came
with my computer when I bought it. It has two logical drives on it,
C and D, and C is the one with all the system files. At the moment D
is completely blank. I want to join D onto the existing C drive so
that I can have one big drive rather than two 30GB drives. I tried
looking at the disk management tools but didnt have any success there.


What you presumably want to accomplish is not to delete a partition, but to
combine two partitions, and have the resulting partition the full size of
the physical drive.

Unfortunately, no version of Windows provides any way of changing the
existing partition structure of the drive nondestructively. The only way to
do what you want is with third-party software. Partition Magic is the
best-known such program, but there are freeware/shareware alternatives. One
such program is BootIt Next Generation. It's shareware, but comes with a
free 30-day trial, so you should be able to do what you want within that 30
days. I haven't used it myself (because I've never needed to use *any* such
program), but it comes highly recommended by several other MVPs here.

Whatever software you use, make sure you have a good backup before
beginning. Although there's no reason to expect a problem, things *can* go
wrong.

Also, please be extremely careful of the correct terminology here. My first
paragraph says things very differently from the way you wrote them. I point
this out, not to make fun of you, but because if you use a tool like
Partition Magic or BootIt Next Generation, and don't know the correct
terminology, you are almost certain to badly screw things up. Deleting a
partition is *not* what you want to do.
 

Ask a Question

Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?

You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.

Ask a Question

Top