Hi Gramps:
The funciton of that factory hidden D: partition was to make recovery from a
mishap very fast and easy; it is not nearly as fast or reliable to recover
from external media such as CD's. If you have plenty of storage space on
your hard disk, I recommend you put a copy of the recovery files back where
they were and hide them again if possible. Perhaps your computer mfg could
help.
I am certain you can merge the two partitions but, whether you use XP or
some 3rd party partition software, merging partitions- with just one
mis-step- can result in unintended consequences including loss of data and
system integrity. If you need the extra storage space on your computer, and
you have a couple of backups of the recovery files (at least one set in
another location), then why not use the D: partition as storage space?
It is not certain from your post exactly what you have done but the D:
partition might already be available to XP for storage. If not, you might
have to take a step or two to prepare the D: drive but this would almost
certainly be simpler, faster, cheaper and MUCH SAFER than buying more
software and fiddling with merging partitions. Once prepared, the D:
partition and any files and folders it contained would show up under "My
Computer" and Windows would be able to read any information on D: just fine.
You could copy, paste... whatever ... much as if D: were a folder on the C:
drive.
Many users utilize an additional, seperate partition for storage of large
projects such as photo albums, the argument being that backup of such
projects is simpler and faster when done from a seperate partition, i.e.- one
can "backup all files on D:" instead of sorting through folders in My
Documents to select what you want to back up. An addiditonal benefit might
be that you could re-load the recovery files onto D: at some point in the
future if you felt you needed to.
Hope that helps.
Mark
