Don't Know How to Remove Partitioned Hard Drive

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annoyed

Hi. I recently installed Norton Systemworks 2003 and used
Norton Disk Doctor (I couldn't find anything on the
Symantec website to help me). After running it for the
first time, DD told me that it found a partition of some
kind and asked me something I wasn't sure of, so I
clicked yes. To my surprise, after clicking on "My
Computer," there is a new hard drive, labeled "Drive
E:." This "hard drive" is FAT and only 46 MB. I really
would like to remove this from Windows as it is very
annoying. Is there any way to do this? Please help.
Thank you.
 
Hi, Annoyed.

Any utility powerful enough to do you a lot of good can also do you a lot of
bad! Most Norton utilities fall into this category.
there is a new hard drive, labeled "Drive
E:."
Click to expand...

But I don't think even Norton can create a new physical hard drive! You
must mean a new partition or a new logical drive in the extended partition
on your hard drive. What make and model is your computer? Some of them
(like some Dells) have hidden partitions holding some critical files from
the computer maker (not from Microsoft).

What does WinXP's Disk Management tell you about your hard drives? Its Help
file explains a lot about disk drives, partitions and logical drives. But
it knows nothing about Symantec/Norton.

RC
 
The guy is right about Norton stuff.. I think System Works is a real disk
space hog that people think is a necessary 'tool', but it really isn't
needed with Windows XP, (especially.) i used to use 'Cleansweep' and a few
other 'cleaning' apps but with XP, a basically solid and mostly trouble-free
OS, you don't need all that extraneous stuff to 'maintain your system in top
working order etc tetc' or whatever Norton-Symantic tells you. I think the
only way 'out' of your debacle, cleanly anyway, is to reformat the whole
drive and make 1 partition (which will give you all available space on the
HD) and re-install XP.. this will be the least problematic in the long run.
 
You have a COMPAQ, an HP, or an e-Machines, correct? Norton found the
hidden partition where your System Restore files are stored.

steve
 
You probably didn't mean system restore as those are under System Volume
Information. You likely meant recovery files as Compaq, HP and others often
use a hidden partition to store the recovery files.
 
Hi, it's me again. Thanks for all your input. I'll
clear up some of the confusion.
First of all, I have an e-machines desktop computer. In
reply to R.C. White, yes what was created was a new
partition, shown up as "Drive E:," not an actual,
physical hard drive. There's only one folder in it
named, "TEST" and contains mostly MS-DOS applications and
batch files.
In response to joust and Michael, I agree that these look
like hidden files such as system restore files as you
mentioned. Is there any other way than reformatting my
main hard drive (Drive C:) as Peter suggested to get rid
of this one small partition? Or did he mean just
reformatting the partition drive itself (Drive E:)? I
have so many files that I don't want to lose and don't
want to backup! :(
 
I think disk doctor has just created a partition out of
left over space.
Or it might be using it for some purpose of its own.
To remove it. Right click on My computer present on the
start menu. Click on Manage. search around that and you
will get disk management and you can use that to delete
the partition. If you are unable to do that go to control
panel, administrative tools and try to search for disk
management tool.
 
Thank you very much, Murali. Your method of removing the
partition worked. I appreciate everyone's help. Thanks
again.
 
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