Unwanted partition (FAT & NTFS) After XP installation

[Louise Joy]

Hello. I recently loaded Wiindows XP on an older box
computer I purchased at a thrift shop. It is a Dell
Optiplex G1 450 MHz, Pentium II, with 64MB SDRAM, which
came with a 4GB Quantum Fireball HDD, if any of this
information helps. During installation, at the
prompting, I selected the file system to be NTFS.
However, I noted in MyComputer that the hard drive
partitioned itself into:

Local Disk C (1.5 GB; now with 1.3 GB free) &
Local Disk E (2 GB; now with only ~50 MB free)

Windows XP, the MyComputer files, etc, and all loaded
programs automatically installed on the Local E disk
drive. ONLY the Epson 640 printer (which is old,
purchased ~1999) automatically installed on the Local C
disk drive. I keep getting a popup that I am critically
low on disk space on Local Disk E. As you can see, I
have 1.3 GB left on the FAT Local disk C. I do not have
a clue what to do, and no amount of research discusses
this issue. I did not select partition. I wanted and
expected I would have one contiuous NTFS drive.

Is it possible to make one drive (ie, delete the
partition) without destroying the filed on the NTSF Local
disk. The printer files are not an issue, an easily
reloaded program. Please help. No research has shed
light on how to handle this issue.

 

[Guest]

hallo
during setup you have been ask, to install into an existing partition or create a new partition. At that time you could have deleted the old partitions
Now you have to ways to handel it. Stard a new instalation or use partition magic (powerquest) to delet the unwantet partition an resise the wanted to full harddrive sise
manfre

 

[bill]

xp in itself with the drivers installed and sp1 is 1.5gb+. You won't be
doing much with that hard drive besides swearing at xp.With that system you
should restrict yourself to 98 or win me and you'll have a stable machine
with space on the hard drive leftover. Put your me or 98 cd in and boot to
the dos prompt with cd support and fdisk with fat32 then format and install
and you'll be much happier.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Is it possible to make one drive (ie, delete the
partition) without destroying the filed on the NTSF Local
disk. The printer files are not an issue, an easily
reloaded program. Please help. No research has shed
light on how to handle this issue.

Only by using third party software - Partition Magic 8.0 or BootIT NG,
from http://www.BootitNG.com ($35 shareware - 30 day full functional
trial)


You would have to move stuff into the partition you want to keep until
it fills, then use the utility to shrink the other as far as it will go
and expand the first, Repeat until the second is empty and can be
deleted.

Caution though. Your XP may be set up in such a way that the hidden
boot files (ntldr, ntdetect.com boot.ini) are on a C: drive, with
everything else on the other letter. In that case preserve them and
shrink C to say 100MB only, leaving the boot pattern as it is