hard drive problem

[tomtom_9]

im having trouble with my hard drive, i only have 1 hard drive but it
says i have 2!?!?
1 of them is 2gb and is being used as primary drive. is there any way
i can make my hard drive back into 1?

thanx tom

 

[Guest]

You possibly have a partitioned hard drive. a program like partition magic,
should be able to fix it without too much trouble. MAKE SURE YOU BACK UP
BEFORE ATTEMPTING. Ideally though, you would backup, wipe both partitions,
use the windows setup disk to delete the partions, then re-install windows.
Partition magic can remove partitions without data loss though, but nothing
is foolproof.

 

[tomgasgas]

hey yeah i thought i had a partition do you know of any free way of
removing the partition? as i am 15 so i cant really afford to buy any
software. i have nothing of importance on my hard drive as i have only
just got this computor and it was free soo i have no documents etc if
you do know a free way of removing the partition can you please walk
me through it if it isnt too much truble?

many thanx tom

 

[peter]

Use the 30 day free trial version
http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html
download and then expand it to a floppy.
Start your system with the floppy in place...........but do not let it
install ..click cancel when it asks.
This will run it from the floppy and a screen will show with Icon
choices..........pick the Partition Work Icon.
It will then show you your HD nd its partitions............delete the
partition you do not want and then expand the other partition to include
that Unallocated Space.Readme file is included for detailed instructions
peter

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

im having trouble with my hard drive, i only have 1 hard drive but it
says i have 2!?!?

You have one hard drive, but it is divided into two partitions.Each of those
partitions appears to be an independent hard drive.

1 of them is 2gb and is being used as primary drive. is there any way
i can make my hard drive back into 1?

Unfortunately, no version of Windows before Vista 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.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

hey yeah i thought i had a partition do you know of any free way of
removing the partition?

I caution you to get the terminology right. If you don't, whatever software
you use, you are likely to misread the directions and do the wrong thing.

It's not that you have *a* partition, and what you want todo is not
*remove* the partition.

All drives have at least one partition. You can't use a drive until you've
partitioned it and created at least one partition.

In your situation you apparently have two partitions. What you want to do is
not remove a partition but combine the two existing partitions into one.