Newbie question about FAT32 / NTFS disk space allocation....

[stljeffbb]

I've been messing around with a 20 Gig hard drive for my Dell Insriron
8000 (laptop)....The CD-Rom is kind of touchy and only works about 1
in 20 times, so when I have been able, I use an external CD-RW.....

I started with MS-Dos 6.22 and installed Win98SE from there......for
these, my primary hard disk uses only 2 GB out of the 20 available in
the FAT32 system. Now that I've instaled XP, I would like to use all
20 GB for the C drive.

How can I go about doing this? I've poked around the help files and
tried creating a new partition with the unused space, but it assigns a
different letter for that space and I do not prefer that (2 GB is kind
of small for my applications on C). I'm hoping it won't mess with my
use of an external CD drive, and I don't think it will, but offered it
up for background info.

Thanks for any help in advance,

Jeff

 

[Joe727]

Partition Magic 8 will merge all the partitions into one large partition.

Joe

 

[Tom Porterfield]

I've been messing around with a 20 Gig hard drive for my Dell Insriron
8000 (laptop)....The CD-Rom is kind of touchy and only works about 1
in 20 times, so when I have been able, I use an external CD-RW.....

I started with MS-Dos 6.22 and installed Win98SE from there......for
these, my primary hard disk uses only 2 GB out of the 20 available in
the FAT32 system. Now that I've instaled XP, I would like to use all
20 GB for the C drive.

How can I go about doing this? I've poked around the help files and
tried creating a new partition with the unused space, but it assigns a
different letter for that space and I do not prefer that (2 GB is kind
of small for my applications on C). I'm hoping it won't mess with my
use of an external CD drive, and I don't think it will, but offered it
up for background info.

What you want to do is resize your current C drive to use the entire 20
GB of space on the drive. There is nothing included with XP that will
allow you to do this without losing all data on the drive.

There are a number of utilities available that you can use that will do
this without losing your data. My preference is Bootit NG from
www.bootitng.com.
--
Tom Porterfield
MS-MVP MCE
http://support.telop.org

Please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup only.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

MS DOS 6.22 does not set up FAT32. It sets up only FAt16, which the max
size is 2 GB. You would probably need to re-install XP as a "clean install"
so as to get the 20GB or buy Partition Magic 8 which will allow to to
convert to NTFS/FAT32 and resize to 20GB.

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Jeff.

If there is any data on your HD that you would like to keep, back it up
first. Don't bother backing up WinXP, because you'll be reinstalling it
from scratch. Don't bother to back up your applications, because you'll
need to reinstall them from their original media (CD or floppy).

Then, shut down your computer and set it (in the BIOS) to boot from CD-ROM.
Put your WinXP CD-ROM in the drive and boot. Follow Setup's prompts,
especially the first one, to repartition and format your HD. Let it create
a single partition covering the whole HD and format it NTFS. Then let it
continue to install WinXP.

As soon as you can, make sure your firewall and antivirus are installed and
working, then visit Windows Update to be sure you have the latest Service
Pack and later fixes to protect you from all the viruses and worms out
there. Better plan on half a day for the whole project.

But you won't have to buy any third-party programs. All you need is on your
WinXP CD-ROM.

Caveats: I've never had a Dell - or any laptop - so my advice is subject to
correction by Dell and by those with experience on such computers. A laptop
that started with MS-DOS might not have enough power (memory and CPU speed,
especially) to run WinXP, even with a giant HD.

RC

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I've been messing around with a 20 Gig hard drive for my Dell Insriron
8000 (laptop)....The CD-Rom is kind of touchy and only works about 1
in 20 times, so when I have been able, I use an external CD-RW.....

I started with MS-Dos 6.22

A mistake, unfortunately. See below.

and installed Win98SE from there......for
these, my primary hard disk uses only 2 GB out of the 20 available in
the FAT32 system.

That's because you have FAT16, not FAT32. DOS 6.22 does not
support FAT32.

Now that I've instaled XP, I would like to use all
20 GB for the C drive.

How can I go about doing this? I've poked around the help files and
tried creating a new partition with the unused space, but it assigns a
different letter for that space and I do not prefer that (2 GB is kind
of small for my applications on C). I'm hoping it won't mess with my
use of an external CD drive, and I don't think it will, but offered it
up for background info.

There's no way to do what you want in Windows. It requires a
third-party program such Partition Magic or BootIt Next
Generation.

Alternatively, and perhaps the best choice in your case, is to
start all over again. Back up any data you need, then do a clean
installation by booting from the XP CD (if you have to try it 20
times, then do so). You'll be able to choose either NTFS (which I
recommend) or FAT32. Do *not* first install DOS 6.22 or Windows
98.

You can find detailed instructions here:
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

 

[Alex Nichol]

I started with MS-Dos 6.22 and installed Win98SE from there......for
these, my primary hard disk uses only 2 GB out of the 20 available in
the FAT32 system. Now that I've instaled XP, I would like to use all
20 GB for the C drive.

How can I go about doing this? I've poked around the help files and
tried creating a new partition with the unused space, but it assigns a
different letter for that space and I do not prefer that (2 GB is kind
of small for my applications on C). I'm hoping it won't mess with my
use of an external CD drive, and I don't think it will, but offered it
up for background info.

if you have nothing on the hard disk except that 2GB partition - all the
rest empty, and not in use for data partitions (which I would find odd
to say the least) *and* have converted it to NTFS, then you can
'extend' your C into the space (See Help and Support, Search on
"extend" - look at 'extend a basic volume'). But if you have other
partitions around you will need third party software, to shrink other
partitions, releasing space, and might just as well use that to resize
the C as well. I would use BootIT NG, from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35
shareware - 30 day full functional trial)
- not bothering to Install it, but Canceling that to enter Maintenance
and hence take Partition Work