Problem creating partition

[Bob Stringer]

I am new to WinXP, and there seems to be something very basic that I'm
missing.

I just got a new Dell Dimension 8300 with WinXP Home Edition SP 1. It
has two hard drives. The OS is on the C: drive, which is 80 GB. The D:
drive is 40 GB.

I also purchased Acronis Partition Expert, which I promptly installed
before anything else, since I want to put my apps and data on
partitions separate from the operating system.

Partition Expert appears to have installed just fine, but although I
can create partitions of any size that I want on the D: drive, the
maximum size of a new partition that I can create on the C: drive is
only 7.183 MB (that's MB, not GB). Also, although I specified that the
new partition (I named it the G: drive) was to be created from free
space on the C: drive, when I go into My Computer and right click on
the G: drive, it shows it as having only 5.346 MB of free space, and
2.468 of used space. I have no idea of what accounts for that used
space, since when I double click on the G: drive to open it, there's
nothing there.

Another odd thing (maybe just odd to me, I admit, since this is my
first experience with WinXP), is that Partition Expert shows that
on "Disk 1" (the master drive) only 74 GB is ntfs and the other 6 GB
is FAT16. The FAT16 "partition" doesn't have a drive letter assigned
to it, and it doesn't appear in My Computer.

Can anyone help me understand what's going on here? I sent an e-mail
message to support at Acronis, but it'd be nice if I could get this
figured out this weekend, so I can get the computer set up.

Thanks very much.

Bob Stringer

 

[davetest]

I am new to WinXP, and there seems to be something very basic that I'm
missing.

I just got a new Dell Dimension 8300 with WinXP Home Edition SP 1. It
has two hard drives. The OS is on the C: drive, which is 80 GB. The D:
drive is 40 GB.

I also purchased Acronis Partition Expert, which I promptly installed
before anything else, since I want to put my apps and data on
partitions separate from the operating system.

Partition Expert appears to have installed just fine, but although I
can create partitions of any size that I want on the D: drive, the
maximum size of a new partition that I can create on the C: drive is
only 7.183 MB (that's MB, not GB). Also, although I specified that the
new partition (I named it the G: drive) was to be created from free
space on the C: drive, when I go into My Computer and right click on
the G: drive, it shows it as having only 5.346 MB of free space, and
2.468 of used space. I have no idea of what accounts for that used
space, since when I double click on the G: drive to open it, there's
nothing there.

You don't really explain how much free space is on the drive and what
you expect. Perhaps that's all there is.

Another odd thing (maybe just odd to me, I admit, since this is my
first experience with WinXP), is that Partition Expert shows that
on "Disk 1" (the master drive) only 74 GB is ntfs and the other 6 GB
is FAT16. The FAT16 "partition" doesn't have a drive letter assigned
to it, and it doesn't appear in My Computer.

This may be a Dell installed partition, either for recovery or some
diagnostics. Check with them.

Can anyone help me understand what's going on here? I sent an e-mail
message to support at Acronis, but it'd be nice if I could get this
figured out this weekend, so I can get the computer set up.

Thanks very much.

Bob Stringer

Most operations done to the system disk (disk 1) should be done by
using the acronis bootable floppies or CD what ever they have.

DAve

 

[Bob Stringer]

You don't really explain how much free space is on the drive and what
you expect. Perhaps that's all there is.

I guess the problem is that I don't know what else there is
to explain. What information did I fail to provide?

I've already stated that (1) the G drive was created with
7.183 MB of "free space," (2) if I right click on that drive
=> click Properties, the General tab shows the drive as
having only 5.346 MB of "free space" and 2.468 MB of "used
space," yet (3) in Windows Explorer the drive is shown as
being devoid of any folders or files (in Folder Options I've
checked "Show hidden files and folders", so that's not an
issue).

While this may be perfectly understandable to someone who
already knows about such things, this all seems very
counterintuitive to me. First, re #2 above, why is over
one-third of the space on a partition created solely with
"free" space showing up as being "used"? Second, how can
the partition have almost 2.6 MB of "used" space which can't
be seen in Windows Explorer? And third, why, on an 80 gig
hard drive, was I only able to create a new partition that
was 7 MB?

If this makes sense, I'm perfectly happy to be informed that
that is so, but then I'd like to know why it makes sense.

This may be a Dell installed partition, either for recovery or some
diagnostics. Check with them.

Shall do.

[snip]

Most operations done to the system disk (disk 1) should be done
by using the acronis bootable floppies or CD what ever they have.

That's what I did.

If you or anyone else can make sense of this for me, I'd
appreciate it.

Thanks.

Bob Stringer

 

[Ron Sommer]

Are you sure that you have two hard drives and not one 120 GB drive?
How did you get free space?
Did you shrink the existing partition?
--
Ron Sommer

You don't really explain how much free space is on the drive and what
you expect. Perhaps that's all there is.

I guess the problem is that I don't know what else there is
to explain. What information did I fail to provide?

I've already stated that (1) the G drive was created with
7.183 MB of "free space," (2) if I right click on that drive
=> click Properties, the General tab shows the drive as
having only 5.346 MB of "free space" and 2.468 MB of "used
space," yet (3) in Windows Explorer the drive is shown as
being devoid of any folders or files (in Folder Options I've
checked "Show hidden files and folders", so that's not an
issue).

While this may be perfectly understandable to someone who
already knows about such things, this all seems very
counterintuitive to me. First, re #2 above, why is over
one-third of the space on a partition created solely with
"free" space showing up as being "used"? Second, how can
the partition have almost 2.6 MB of "used" space which can't
be seen in Windows Explorer? And third, why, on an 80 gig
hard drive, was I only able to create a new partition that
was 7 MB?

If this makes sense, I'm perfectly happy to be informed that
that is so, but then I'd like to know why it makes sense.

This may be a Dell installed partition, either for recovery or some
diagnostics. Check with them.

Shall do.

[snip]

Most operations done to the system disk (disk 1) should be done
by using the acronis bootable floppies or CD what ever they have.

That's what I did.

If you or anyone else can make sense of this for me, I'd
appreciate it.

Thanks.

Bob Stringer

 

[Bob Stringer]

Are you sure that you have two hard drives and not one 120 GB drive?

Definitely. In fact, I had no problem creating the
partitions I wanted on the 40 GB drive.

How did you get free space?
Did you shrink the existing partition?

I may be a little lost regarding terminology, but basically
the way PartitionExpert had me do it was to first select the
Hard Drive I wanted to Partition. I picked the 80 GB drive
(which PartitionExpert called "disk 1," and showed as
consisting of the C Drive of 74 GB and the remainder in a 6
GB Fat16 ~thing~ (a hidden partition with .cab files I'm
guessing). PartitionExpert then asked me where I wanted to
take the space from, and I designated the C drive, and
checked that it should take free space only. It then told me
that the maximum size new partition I could make was 7.183.
While that was a ridiculously small size (I think), I went
ahead and created it, because merely canceling the operation
left me without any information. I figured I'd create the
new partition and see where it lead -- which is where I am
now, as noted in my initial message. The only other thing I
can add is that I then tried to see if I could create yet
another new partition from the C drive, and PartitionExpert
told me I couldn't do it.

Hope that makes sense. If not please let me know.

Thanks for the help.

Bob Stringer

 

[davetest]

Definitely. In fact, I had no problem creating the
partitions I wanted on the 40 GB drive.


I may be a little lost regarding terminology, but basically
the way PartitionExpert had me do it was to first select the
Hard Drive I wanted to Partition. I picked the 80 GB drive
(which PartitionExpert called "disk 1," and showed as
consisting of the C Drive of 74 GB and the remainder in a 6
GB Fat16 ~thing~ (a hidden partition with .cab files I'm
guessing). PartitionExpert then asked me where I wanted to
take the space from, and I designated the C drive, and
checked that it should take free space only. It then told me
that the maximum size new partition I could make was 7.183.
While that was a ridiculously small size (I think), I went
ahead and created it, because merely canceling the operation
left me without any information. I figured I'd create the
new partition and see where it lead -- which is where I am
now, as noted in my initial message. The only other thing I
can add is that I then tried to see if I could create yet
another new partition from the C drive, and PartitionExpert
told me I couldn't do it.

Hope that makes sense. If not please let me know.

Thanks for the help.

Bob Stringer

Bob, perhaps you are missing a step. For space to be "taken" from
your 74 GB partition, that partition has to be reduced in size first.
For example, if out of that 74GB, 50GB is used - that leaves 24GB
empty space within that partition.
You could reduce the size of the partition to 60GB. That will leave
you 10GB within the partition that's empty, *and* 14 GB
*unalllocated* space for you to do with what you like.

Create a logical partition, for example.

Dave

 

[Bob Stringer]

Bob, perhaps you are missing a step. For space to be "taken" from
your 74 GB partition, that partition has to be reduced in size first.
For example, if out of that 74GB, 50GB is used - that leaves 24GB
empty space within that partition.
You could reduce the size of the partition to 60GB. That will leave
you 10GB within the partition that's empty, *and* 14 GB
*unalllocated* space for you to do with what you like.

Create a logical partition, for example.

OK, I guess I misunderstood what I was being asked.

I understood that in the course of creating a new partition,
space has to be taken from somewhere else -- meaning that
the existing partition had to be reduce. But I didn't think
I was not being asked about that, because it's part and
parcel of the process of creating the new partition. In
other words, I did *not* have to reduce the size of the
existing partition *as a separate step.* PartitionExpert,
like PartitionMagic, is set up so that it creates the new
partition from free space on the old partition -- i.e., it
reduces the size of the old partition and creates the new
partition in tandem. Now, maybe it does it in two steps
internally, but as far as the steps that a user has to take,
the command is done all at once. It doesn't require the user
to do something specific to reduce the size of the old
partition separate from the action that's taken to create
the new partition.

In any case, it appears that there was some problem with
WinXP (I'm guessing). After a reboot this morning, I kept
getting to a screen that ask me to select my user name, but
didn't give me any names to select -- the only choice was to
shut down, and so there was no way to use the computer at
all. I was on the phone more than half the day with Dell,
and they tried various repairs, and when nothing worked,
they had me reformat the drive and completely re-install
Windows afresh. After I did that, I installed Partition
Expert again, and this time it worked like a charm -- I was
able to make partitions the sizes I wanted.

So, I still don't understand the stuff I had questions
about, but at least things are working correctly now.

Thanks for the advice.

Bob Stringer