How to format a part of harddrive

[Craig]

My C-hard drive is 150 GB. Only 40 GB was partitioned as a C-system drive
(WinXP Pro).
The rest of HD does not have a drive letter nor was formatted.
Now, I would like to assign a driver letter ("F") and format it.
But I could not figure out how. Please advise me how. TIA.
Craig

 

[Nepatsfan]

(e-mail address removed),

My C-hard drive is 150 GB. Only 40 GB was partitioned as a
C-system drive (WinXP Pro).
The rest of HD does not have a drive letter nor was
formatted. Now, I would like to assign a driver letter ("F")
and format
it. But I could not figure out how. Please advise me how.
TIA.
Craig

Right click My Computer and select Manage from the drop down
menu.
Note: You can also go to Start -> Run and enter compmgmt.msc in
the Open box.
In Computer Management, click on Disk Management in the left
hand column.
You should see a graphical representation of your hard drive in
the right hand pane.
Look for unpartitioned space.
You can right click on the space and create a new partition.
Once the partition is created you can format it.
Once the new drive is formatted, you can assign a drive letter
by right clicking and selecting "Change Drive Letters and
Paths".

Here are a few articles with more info that you may find
helpful:

How to use Disk Management to configure basic disks in Windows
XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/

How to partition and format a hard disk in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=313348

Good luck

Nepatsfan

 

[Mike Hall, MS-MVP]

Right click on 'My Computer'.. select 'Manage'..

When the window opens, navigate to Disk Management..

Right click on the part that is NOT allocated.. create a partition if there
isn't one already.. then format it..

You can create multiple partitions in the free space if you want..

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Right click on My Computer, select Manage. On the following screen, click
on Disk Management. It will appear on the right hand side of the screen,
from where you can create a new partition and format it, then assign it a
drive letter.

 

[Jonny]

My C-hard drive is 150 GB. Only 40 GB was partitioned as a C-system drive
(WinXP Pro).
The rest of HD does not have a drive letter nor was formatted.
Now, I would like to assign a driver letter ("F") and format it.
But I could not figure out how. Please advise me how. TIA.
Craig

Just a note.

You can't use disk management if you want the FAT32 filesystem beyond an
anticipated 32GB partition size.

 

[Craig]

Thank you for all your help.
I made it.
Thanks.

Craig

 

[Donald McDaniel]

Thank you for all your help.
I made it.
Thanks.

Craig

Just a note.

You can't use disk management if you want the FAT32 filesystem beyond an
anticipated 32GB partition size.

You may, however, create a second or third FAT32 partition on your HD
IF you have enough free space, and they are each less than 32GB. In
addition, FAT32 or NTFS partitions may be mixed on a physical HD, just
as long as they each meet XP's formatting limits.

To create a second or third partition (no matter which format you
use), just open Disk Management in Administrative tools, and create
them, then format them with the format of your choice. Just remember
that FAT32 partitions may be only created using Disk Management if
they are 32GB and under. NTFS partitions may be created of any size,
up to 2 terabytes.

Most third-party partitioning utilities will create FAT32 partitions
of any size the FAT32 standard supports (several hundred GB, maybe
more). In addition, a third-party partitioning utility usually can
increase your current System partition of 40 GB up to the maximum size
of the physical disk, and without causing the loss of data (as long as
there is free space with which to do it), no matter which format it
is.

Just remember that anything can happen at any time. Especially
considering our current hot weather, which could cause rolling
brownouts at your house, and if you happen do be doing such a
repartitioning operation at the time your house looses power, you
could really scramble your HD, even to such an extent that you could
lose all data on it. I've never seen any physical damage caused by
such a power-loss, since the best utilities recover well from such
power-loses. Nor have I ever seen any data-loss. But it can happen,
and developers do warn you to back up files BEFORE beginning such an
operation. Any very low-level disk operation is dangerous. Remember,
"To fore-warned is to be fore-armed".


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Donald L McDaniel
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