How do I eliminate hard drive partition

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My computer came with 2 hard drives. Actually, they are physically the same
drive, but one is the C drive and the other is a portion called the D drive.
I no longer am using this drive in the computer, so I want to use it for
backup, but I need all the space. It's an 80GB drive, and I want to put a
70GB file on it. In order to do this, I have to encroach on the 5GB D
partition.

How do I do this and have the drive continue to function?

Thank you very much,

Norm Strong
 
My computer came with 2 hard drives. Actually, they are physically the same
drive, but one is the C drive and the other is a portion called the D drive.
I no longer am using this drive in the computer, so I want to use it for
backup, but I need all the space. It's an 80GB drive, and I want to put a
70GB file on it. In order to do this, I have to encroach on the 5GB D
partition.

How do I do this and have the drive continue to function?

Thank you very much,

Norm Strong
Click to expand...

How to install an additional hard drive using Windows XP Disk Management
http://www.seagate.com/support/kb/disc/howto/install_xp_disk_mgmt.html
 
Assuming that it is installed as a slave drive now, and that you do not wish
to keep anything that may be on it..

Navigate to 'My Computer' and right click on the icon.. select 'Manage'..

When the next window opens, select 'Disk Management'..

Ensure that you click on the drive to be repartitioned.. right click on the
second partition and select 'Delete Logical drive'.. now right click on the
primary partition and select 'Delete Partition'.. now you can start over,
partitioning and formatting the drive as just one block..
 
It's probably helpful to agree on the most appropriate words
to use in your case. While not everyone agrees with this, in my
book a "disk" is the physical thing (e.g. you buy an 80 GByte
disk) whereas a "drive" is a formatted partition on a disk.
You currently have a single disk with two drives on it, presumably
drives C: and D:, and you wish to turn them into one single
drive.

The usual method involves using a partition manager, e.g.
from Acronis. This is non-destructive but you should still
back up your important files before you use it.
 
The actual size of the drive is 74.5 GB.
You can delete the two existing partitions and create one partition.
 
Hi Norman:

With respect, I think there may be some mis-communication here, thus the
varied replies you have received. I understand your situation to be as
follows:

You have (or had) ONE physical hard drive installed on your computer. This
hdd is 80GB in size and has TWO partitions, C: and D:. Your desire is to
place a 70GB backup file on this hard drive.

It is a little unclear what you mean when you say, "I no longer am using
this drive in the computer...". Do you mean that you have purchased and
installed another physical hard drive? If so, did you ADD the new physical
hard drive to your system or did you REPLACE the existing physical hard
drive, i.e., the original 80GB hdd is no longer physically installed?

Any reasonable advice would depend on the configuration you wish to achieve
.... and WHY.

Please let us know.

Mark
 
Callmark1 said:
Hi Norman:

With respect, I think there may be some mis-communication here, thus the
varied replies you have received. I understand your situation to be as
follows:

You have (or had) ONE physical hard drive installed on your computer.
This
hdd is 80GB in size and has TWO partitions, C: and D:. Your desire is to
place a 70GB backup file on this hard drive.

It is a little unclear what you mean when you say, "I no longer am using
this drive in the computer...". Do you mean that you have purchased and
installed another physical hard drive? If so, did you ADD the new
physical
hard drive to your system or did you REPLACE the existing physical hard
drive, i.e., the original 80GB hdd is no longer physically installed?

Any reasonable advice would depend on the configuration you wish to
achieve
... and WHY.
Click to expand...

Good points. I didn't make myself entirely clear. This is the original
80GB hard drive that came with the computer. It has ONE partition, yielding
2 "drives", the C and D drives. The D drive has the system files on it (at
least that's what I assume.)

I had to have the computer repaired 2 years ago. While it was in the shop,
I asked them to add a larger hard drive, to take the place of the 80GB
drive. They installed a new 120GB HD as the primary one, and left the 80GB
one as the slave drive on ID0. I decided to use this 80GB slave drive as a
backup for my music files, totalling about 50GB. My plan was to
"synchronize" the music files on the 2 hard drives. The purpose, of course,
was to save the 50GB, which represented countless hours of acquisition, in
the case of a sudden hard drive failure.

I never got around to it. Instead, I copied the files to 15 DVD+RW discs
and gave them to a neighbor for safe keeping. 2 months ago I bought a new
computer with a 200GB HD. After much effort I managed to transfer all my
files from the old computer to the new one. I removed the 80GB drive from
the old computer and decided to use it as the backup for this one
file--which by this time had grown to about 69GB--too much to get on the
80GB hard drive with the partition in place. It's my hope to remove the
partition so that the entire HD is available for backing up this one file.
Careful investigation convinces me that the file in question will not grow
over 71GB, so it should be an excellent solution. Complications? Yes.

This new computer uses SATA hard drives; the old computer used parallel
connections. I bought a Promise card for $10 that added parallel ID2 to
the new computer. I then plugged the 80GB drive into the Promise card and
transcribed about 67.5GB of my music files to this old HD. I did this with
the computer open and laying on its side. As soon as the files were
tranferred, I removed the HD and sent it to my neighbor for safekeeping.. I
had to use a single DVD+RW to finish copying the entire file. With the
partition removed I should be able to get the entire file on this one HD.

Any additional suggestions?

Many thanks--both for reading this rambling post, and for your help,

Norm Strong
 
Good points. I didn't make myself entirely clear. This is the original
80GB hard drive that came with the computer. It has ONE partition,
yielding 2 "drives", the C and D drives. The D drive has the system files
on it (at least that's what I assume.)

I had to have the computer repaired 2 years ago. While it was in the
shop, I asked them to add a larger hard drive, to take the place of the
80GB drive. They installed a new 120GB HD as the primary one, and left
the 80GB one as the slave drive on ID0. I decided to use this 80GB slave
drive as a backup for my music files, totalling about 50GB. My plan was
to "synchronize" the music files on the 2 hard drives. The purpose, of
course, was to save the 50GB, which represented countless hours of
acquisition, in the case of a sudden hard drive failure.

I never got around to it. Instead, I copied the files to 15 DVD+RW discs
and gave them to a neighbor for safe keeping. 2 months ago I bought a new
computer with a 200GB HD. After much effort I managed to transfer all my
files from the old computer to the new one. I removed the 80GB drive from
the old computer and decided to use it as the backup for this one
file--which by this time had grown to about 69GB--too much to get on the
80GB hard drive with the partition in place. It's my hope to remove the
partition so that the entire HD is available for backing up this one file.
Careful investigation convinces me that the file in question will not grow
over 71GB, so it should be an excellent solution. Complications? Yes.

This new computer uses SATA hard drives; the old computer used parallel
connections. I bought a Promise card for $10 that added parallel ID2 to
the new computer. I then plugged the 80GB drive into the Promise card and
transcribed about 67.5GB of my music files to this old HD. I did this
with the computer open and laying on its side. As soon as the files were
tranferred, I removed the HD and sent it to my neighbor for safekeeping..
I had to use a single DVD+RW to finish copying the entire file. With the
partition removed I should be able to get the entire file on this one HD.

Any additional suggestions?

Many thanks--both for reading this rambling post, and for your help,

Norm Strong
Click to expand...


Norm:
Without delving *too* deeply into the history of your situation, here's my
understanding of your present situation...

1. You have a new PC with a 200 GB SATA HD - possibly even another SATA HD
is installed, but that's not clear. We'll assume only that one SATA HD, the
200 GB one is installed in your new machine

2. The 200 GB SATA HD is your boot drive and contains all your programs and
created files, including a large number of music files totaling about 69 GB
which you copied from their backups on DVDs.

3. You have an 80 GB PATA HD and (apparently) a 120 GB PATA HD from your old
computer. The 80 GB HD originally contained your music files which you
copied to the DVDs and then later copied over to your new 200 GB SATA HD in
the new machine. (You never again refer to the 120 GB HD so I'm unclear as
to the disposition of that drive).

4. You purchased a Promise controller card (you say for $10 - is that amount
significant because it may be a used piece of equipment?), installed it in
your new computer and connected the 80 GB HD to it. You then (again?) copied
your music files to that drive. I assume you did this copying from the music
files you already had copied to your 200 GB SATA HD. Or was this copying
done from the DVD disks that contained backups of those music files? In any
event that doesn't seem to matter. You say you accomplished this copying
with "the computer open and laying on its side". Is there some significance
to this? Are you somehow concerned that the copying function may have gone
awry because of this?

5. After you (hopefully) successfully copied the music files to your 80 GB
HD for a backup you removed the drive to another location for additional
safekeeping.

Now you refer to a "partition removed" (I'm not clear what this means) and
that "I should be able to get the entire file on this one HD." "the entire
file"? You're referring to all of your music files, yes? Perhaps hundreds of
these files, yes? But haven't you done exactly that? Is there some sort of
remaining problem here? Perhaps you can clarify this or simply ignore my
questions if there is no further problem or issue.
Anna
 
Anna said:
Norm:
Without delving *too* deeply into the history of your situation, here's my
understanding of your present situation...

1. You have a new PC with a 200 GB SATA HD - possibly even another SATA HD
is installed, but that's not clear. We'll assume only that one SATA HD,
the 200 GB one is installed in your new machine
Correct

2. The 200 GB SATA HD is your boot drive and contains all your programs
and created files, including a large number of music files totaling about
69 GB which you copied from their backups on DVDs.
Correct

3. You have an 80 GB PATA HD and (apparently) a 120 GB PATA HD from your
old computer. The 80 GB HD originally contained your music files which you
copied to the DVDs and then later copied over to your new 200 GB SATA HD
in the new machine. (You never again refer to the 120 GB HD so I'm unclear
as to the disposition of that drive).
Click to expand...

I never referred to it again because it's part of the old computer, which
will be moved to the basement
4. You purchased a Promise controller card (you say for $10 - is that
amount significant because it may be a used piece of equipment?),
installed it in your new computer and connected the 80 GB HD to it. You
then (again?) copied your music files to that drive. I assume you did this
copying from the music files you already had copied to your 200 GB SATA
HD. Or was this copying done from the DVD disks that contained backups of
those music files? In any event that doesn't seem to matter. You say you
accomplished this copying with "the computer open and laying on its side".
Is there some significance to this? Are you somehow concerned that the
copying function may have gone awry because of this?
Click to expand...

The $10 is of no significance, neither is the fact that the computer was
laying on its side. I was just trying to add a bit of "color" to my
exposition. And yes, the copy to the 80GB drive was taken from the 200GB
drive in the new computer.
5. After you (hopefully) successfully copied the music files to your 80 GB
HD for a backup you removed the drive to another location for additional
safekeeping.
Click to expand...

Not all the files would fit on the 80GB drive. I was short by about 2GB.
That's why I had to put some on the DVDRW.
Now you refer to a "partition removed" (I'm not clear what this means) and
that "I should be able to get the entire file on this one HD." "the entire
file"? You're referring to all of your music files, yes? Perhaps hundreds
of these files, yes? But haven't you done exactly that? Is there some sort
of remaining problem here? Perhaps you can clarify this or simply ignore
my questions if there is no further problem or issue.
Anna
Click to expand...

The HD was the original computer drive and 5GB of it was partitioned off for
the system files. It's this partition I want to get rid of so I can put the
remaining 2 GB on the one HD. (BTW, not "hundreds of files". Try 37,000
files in 6,000 folders. :-)
I don't know what's necessary to get rid of the partition.

Norm
 
Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User said:
Assuming that it is installed as a slave drive now, and that you do not
wish to keep anything that may be on it..

Navigate to 'My Computer' and right click on the icon.. select 'Manage'..

When the next window opens, select 'Disk Management'..

Ensure that you click on the drive to be repartitioned.. right click on
the second partition and select 'Delete Logical drive'.. now right click
on the primary partition and select 'Delete Partition'.. now you can start
over, partitioning and formatting the drive as just one block..
Click to expand...

This appears to be the solution to the problem. Thank you Mike!

Something tells me it would be highly informative to go through the entire
computer and right click on everything in it, just to see what's there.

One issue is nagging me. Why does the D drive on the old computer require
only 4GB, whereas the D drive on my new computer takes up 7GB? After all,
it's the same operating system.

Norm
 
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