Reclaim Drive's "Unallocated" Segment

[TMitchell]

I re-installed W2K (SP4) on a hardrive that previously had been
partitioned into one small segment for the original OS installation
(designated as the "C" drive) and the remainder of the drive space for
other files (designated as the "D" drive).

I selected the option during W2K set-up installation to delete the
second partition and then install the OS. What I ended up with is the
OS being re-installed on the first (and smallest) of the two former
partitions (still identified as the "C" drive) and a whole bunch of
seemingly inaccessible space on the drive labeled in Disk Management as
"Unallocated" (that doesn't show up as a separate drive letter) where
the second partition use to be. How do I "reclaim" this unallocated
drive space so that the OS is on the full space that physically is
available on this drive?

Is there something I needed to do differently when doing the
re-installation (and that I can go back and redo), or is there some
dos-style prompt or Safe Mode operation that will restore the full
physical drive capacity to the "C" drive?

 

[Dave Patrick]

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom or setup
disks. The set of four install disks can be created from your Windows 2000
CD-Rom; change to the \bootdisk directory on the CD-Rom and execute
makeboot.exe (from dos) or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the
prompts.

Setup inspects your computer's hardware configuration and then begins to
install the Setup and driver files. When the Windows 2000 Professional
screen appears, press ENTER to set up Windows 2000 Professional.

Read the license agreement, and then press the F8 key to accept the terms of
the license agreement and continue the installation.

When the Windows 2000 Professional Setup screen appears, all the existing
partitions and the unpartitioned spaces are listed for each physical hard
disk. Use the ARROW keys to select the partitions Press D to delete an
existing partition, If you press D to delete an existing partition, you must
then press L (or press ENTER, and then press L if it is the System
partition) to confirm that you want to delete the partition. Repeat this
step for each of the existing partitions When all the partitions are deleted
press F3 to exit setup, (to avoid unexpected drive letter assignments with
your new install) then restart the pc then when you get to this point in
setup again select the unpartitioned space, and then press C to create a new
partition and specify the size (if required). Windows will by default use
all available space.

Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your new install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
|I re-installed W2K (SP4) on a hardrive that previously had been
| partitioned into one small segment for the original OS installation
| (designated as the "C" drive) and the remainder of the drive space for
| other files (designated as the "D" drive).
|
| I selected the option during W2K set-up installation to delete the
| second partition and then install the OS. What I ended up with is the
| OS being re-installed on the first (and smallest) of the two former
| partitions (still identified as the "C" drive) and a whole bunch of
| seemingly inaccessible space on the drive labeled in Disk Management as
| "Unallocated" (that doesn't show up as a separate drive letter) where
| the second partition use to be. How do I "reclaim" this unallocated
| drive space so that the OS is on the full space that physically is
| available on this drive?
|
| Is there something I needed to do differently when doing the
| re-installation (and that I can go back and redo), or is there some
| dos-style prompt or Safe Mode operation that will restore the full
| physical drive capacity to the "C" drive?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I re-installed W2K (SP4) on a hardrive that previously had been
partitioned into one small segment for the original OS installation
(designated as the "C" drive) and the remainder of the drive space for
other files (designated as the "D" drive).

I selected the option during W2K set-up installation to delete the
second partition and then install the OS. What I ended up with is the
OS being re-installed on the first (and smallest) of the two former
partitions (still identified as the "C" drive) and a whole bunch of
seemingly inaccessible space on the drive labeled in Disk Management as
"Unallocated" (that doesn't show up as a separate drive letter) where
the second partition use to be. How do I "reclaim" this unallocated
drive space so that the OS is on the full space that physically is
available on this drive?

Is there something I needed to do differently when doing the
re-installation (and that I can go back and redo), or is there some
dos-style prompt or Safe Mode operation that will restore the full
physical drive capacity to the "C" drive?

If you have unallocated (i.e. unpartitioned) space on your disk
then you have these options:
a) Use diskmgmt.msc to create a partition in this space, or
b) Use a third-party partition manager (e.g. Acronis, PQMagic) to
expand an existing partition into the vacant space, or
c) Re-install Win2000, allowing the insallation process to re-partition
the disk.

While option b) is non-destructive, it is still a good idea to back
up your important data first.

 

[Andy]

I re-installed W2K (SP4) on a hardrive that previously had been
partitioned into one small segment for the original OS installation
(designated as the "C" drive) and the remainder of the drive space for
other files (designated as the "D" drive).

I selected the option during W2K set-up installation to delete the
second partition and then install the OS.

If your goal was to end up with a single partition encompassing the
entire disk space, you should have also deleted the first partition.
Then you would be able to create a new partition out of the freed
space, format it, and install Windows. This works as long as the disk
is smaller than 137 GB.