How do I unpartition my hard drives?

Question

I have a C drive and a D drive. I upgraded to XP from Windows ME. It partitioned my drives. C has all the space but somehow XP was put on D and it only has a little bit of space so now my computer doesn't run very well. Help me!

Answer 1

I don´t know whether you are a PC expert, so i´ll try to go with this as easy as I can. go here:

http://www.putergeek.com/downloads/#winme_full



It´s a startup disk for win ME. I assume, somehow you now got a startup menu, which asks you to activate winme partition or XP. Your machine is running very slow since (the ton of memry usage XP does), you have very little HD space.



Now, if you reaallyy...want to get over this the EASY way: Save all of your files in a pen drive (4GB) or so. That´ll cost u around $30 bucks or so. And delete the entire machine.



If you still want break your head up, try getting the DISKETTE image i got the link up there.



Then start the machine with the DISKETTE in it. It´ll run the winme dos version. tell it you want the System simbol (or if you didn´t get this message, download win95 diskette image..it plays for sure!) anyways at the symbol, type: fdisk. It´ll ask you to activate wither small or big partitions, say yes to BIG.



Then you´ll see a menu, what you´ll do here, it´s to select the XP partition on your D drive and REMOVE -delete - EXTENDED LOGICAL PARTITION on HardDrive....then...it´ll do it.it´ll ask you if it´s ok...and of course you type "Y"



Next,back at the root menu, you´ll see the CREATE extended logical partition on your hardrive, it´ll show you the D unit not being formatted or anything. It´ll ask you to format this unit. "Y" of course. It´ll delay a couple of seconds. then it´ll tell you to reeboot.



....



There is an even easier way to solve your mess. From windows XP, go to the UNINSTALL programs, say uninstall XP and it´ll be gone, leaving your machine the way it was after 1h:45 mintues of de-install.



Hope that helps.

Answer 2

The only way to unpartition your hard drive is to delete the partition and create a new partition. This is assuming that your C and D drive are actually two partitions on one physical hard drive. There is no easy way, if any, to move your current Windows XP installation from your D drive to your C drive so you will also need to re-install Windows XP. Be prepared for loss of data because if your C drive still has remnants of a previous Windows installation, you will need to format the hard drive to prevent any interference with or errors in the new Windows XP installation.



I recommend that you partition the hard drive into two unequal parts. The smaller partition (C) should store the actual Windows installation while you should use the larger partition (D) as storage. This way, when you have to re-install Windows or reformat the drive, you do not need to touch the storage partition and you can retain your data. I would recommend that the size you set for the smaller partition be at least 10 gigabytes and at most 20 gigabytes. By the way, you can do the majority of the drive partitioning and formatting through the Windows Installation screen. You might have to create and format the second partition through Windows' Disk Management Program (accessible by left-clicking My Computer and choosing Manage).



Really, how you wish to set your computer up depends on how you use your computer. If you mess your computer up again, you might be better off actually having someone who knows what they're doing set everything up for you.

Answer 3

How to Delete a Partition or Logical Drive



To delete a partition or logical drive:

In the Disk Management window, right-click the partition or logical drive that you want to delete, and then click Delete Partition or Delete Logical Drive.



Click Yes when you are prompted to delete the partition or logical drive. The partition or logical drive is deleted.



IMPORTANT:

When you delete a partition or logical drive, all data on that partition or logical drive is deleted in addition to the partition or logical drive itself.



You cannot delete the system partition, boot partition, or a partition that contains the active paging (swap) file.



You cannot delete an extended partition unless the extended partition is empty. All logical drives in the extended partition must be deleted before you can delete the extended partition.





After you have done this on both of your drives, have your computer boot from a cd, and place your operating system disk in the cdrom drive. when prompted to delete a partition, do so, and create a new partition on your C, (or D) drive. Follow through the setup as normal.



Hope that helps.

Answer 4

To delete partitions on my hard drive (i.e., to merge the partitions back into the C drive):



You can choose to delete a partition in which case all the data in the partition will be destroyed.



To delete a partition (and all of its contents): click Start, Control Panel. In Classic view, double-click Administrative Tools. Double-click Computer Management, and then click Disk Management. All of the partitions will be listed in the right window. Select the one you wish to delete. Click Action, All Tasks, Delete Partition.



OR you can merge all that extra space into one partition. But to do it safely (i.e., without losing its content), you will need programs that can add or change disk partitions without erasing information.

Symantec’s PartitionMagic ($53-$70) at http://www.symantec.com/partitionmagic/features.html

Acronis’ Disk Director ($50) at http://www.acronis.com/products/partitionexpert/

and VCOM Partition Commander ($50) at

http://www.v-com.com/product/Partition_Commander_Home.html

can merge partitions and, if need be, change the file format in the partition so that the resulting partition can read it. Back up your data first, just in case.



To use a partitioning program: first install the Windows operating system. Then install the partitioning program. Use the partitioning program to divide the available space on the disk and create another bootable partition. Then install a Windows operating system in that partition.



The partitioning program will include a utility to handle booting. Here you will enter names for the partitions. You can choose which partition to use by selecting the desired partition when you boot up. You can also password protect each partition to restrict access to a partition.



You can get more information at:

http://www.powerquest.com/solutions/personal.cfm

Answer 5

u have several options...but if all u have is an upgrade edition im not sure....with XP u can delete partitions while ur installing it. u can in fact reinstall XP onto C: also so u have it on both drives...you will have an option of which to boot from that is a pain everytime you turn on so to get rid of that you would then edit ur boot.ini file to remove reference to D:....personally i would nuke both partitions and just reinstall windows to a single partitiojn drive...i just cant remember on an upgrade if you actually have to have mellinium installed first or if you can just feed it the ME cd when prompted....



...i dont recommend moving or resizing the windows partition after a windows install. you can try it but just redoing everything and deleteing both partitions when ur loading XP is how i would do it.

Answer 6

use a program called Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Editor to combine the partitions together to for one partition.

Answer 7

Get the program Partition Magic. It is the safest way.

Answer 8

delete the unwanted partitions, thus freeing up space....make sure all data is backed up from the partition you will delete...try a program called partitionmagic from symantec....

Answer 9

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/convertfat.mspx look up fdisk also u may have to do that, hoping that you can save ur info by disk or something or use the help n support from the start button