No unallocated space to create a new partition

[Randy Morgan]

Please excuse me if this is in the wrong newsgroup. It seemed like the
closest thing to what I need, but I will re-post if necessary.

My machine runs WinXP Home SP2. I would like to create another
partition (actually, two) on the one large hard disk. I've been working
in the Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management
window. In order to add a partition the instructions say to right-click
on the unallocated space. The problem is that no unallocated space
shows up in the graphical (bottom) view, only the big c: drive and one,
smaller (204MB) partition presumably put there by the laptop manufacturer.

Is there a way to claim some space from the existing "big" drive that
will be designated as unallocated such that I can add some partitions?
If possible I'd prefer not to mess with the existing partition, mainly
because it's not big enough for what I need and because I didn't put it
there and don't know why or if it's used.

And, assuming I get past this, when I create partitions I have to create
them as primary or extended. From my reading it seems that the main
reason to use extended partitions is if you want to have more than four
logical drives on the basic drive, which I do not want to do. Given
that, I should create primary partitions, or am I understanding this
incorrectly?

Thank you.

 

[Patti MacLeod]

Hi Randy,

Since there is no unallocated space on the hard drive, you would need to use
a third-party partitioning utiilty (eg., BootItNG, Partition Magic,
Partition Commander) in order to create new partitions, using the free space
that is on the existing "big" C drive, without destroying the data that is
currently on it. Also, without the use of a third-party partitioning
utility, you would be limited to one Primary partition per basic disk. Since
you already have a Primary partition (the C drive), any further partitions
that you create on the same disk would have to be logical drives, and the
logical drives exist within an extended partition, whether you have only one
logical drive or more than four logical drives........I think that this is
what you may be misunderstanding, that the "main reason" for creating an
extended partition is not the only reason for creating one. And even though
the third-party utility can create more than one Primary partition on a
single disk, it does so by hiding any other Primary partitions........if
you're not planning on installing an operating system on the new partitions,
then this is probably not the route that you want to take.

The small (204MB) partition probably contains the file(s) (more than likely
contains one file that is a compressed image of the C drive) necessary to
perform a Recovery or Restore operation (factory Restore, not to be confused
with XP's System Restore). If this is indeed the case, then there is a good
chance that performing a Recovery or Restore operation would delete any
further drives that are created (destroying all data that is currently on
those drives), leaving you once again with only a C drive and the small
partition.



Regards,

 

[Randy Morgan]

Patti,

Thanks for the thorough response. I'll look into the third-party utilities.

What I'm really wanting to do is take an older PC I use primarily for
backups right now and try to configure a couple different web servers to
use for testing, as I find myself doing web development for a couple
family members.

My plan is to create two new partitions, one to install XAMPP or some
similar application, and one to actually install Linux. The XAMPP
application probably doesn't need an actual partition of its own, but
since Linux surely must I might as well go ahead and create two
partitions...it just seems "safer" to put all that Apache/PHP stuff
separate from the rest of XP.

At any rate, I was going to try to do this on the cheap (I could just
upgrade to XP Pro and get a web server, I believe), but maybe the
partitioning tools aren't too expensive.

Anyway, thanks again for your help.

Randy
Randy Morgan

 

[Patti MacLeod]

You're welcome

Of the three utilities that I mentioned, I believe that BootItNG is the
least expensive.



Regards,