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(Solved) - removing partition/merging C and E drive

(16 posts)
  • Started 9 months ago by grantmcknight
  • Latest reply from grantmcknight
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grantmcknight
Posts: 5

Hi. I'm running XP media centre edition. When I first installed it I put a partition in my hard drive but now I'm running out of space in the C drive so I'd like to 'merge' the 2 (C and E) into one. I've also installed a 2nd hard drive which is blank at the moment.

I'd like to have the entire 1st hard drive available as C drive and all the stuff that's on E at the moment (photos,music,etc) on the new drive. Is there any way to achieve this in XP without reinstalling Windows?

If I have to reinstall windows, will saving the contents of C drive make it easier to reinstall all the other programs and settings later?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Posted 9 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

grantmcknight hi. Please can you post a fullscreen image of your Disk Management window. We can better help if we can actually see what you have.

Posted 9 months ago #
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grantmcknight
Posts: 5

Posted 9 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

That can be easily done. Question is whether it is a smart move to place your user data on the system partition. Should the system fail and you have to reinstall the OS, you will have a difficult time to recover your data.

But if you absolutely want to do that, those are the steps:

1. Save all the data on E to an external drive (or maybe to F).
2. In Disk Management, right click on E and delete the partition and volume to get 'unallocated space'
3. Right click on C and 'Extend partition'
4. Put your saved data back to C

Posted 9 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

My C: drive for Vista is smaller than that. What the heck you got on it ?

Posted 9 months ago #
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grantmcknight
Posts: 5

"My C: drive for Vista is smaller than that. What the heck you got on it ?"

I have no idea! Windows file is 12GB, program files 6.6Gb, documents and settings 9.6GB.

whs, thanks for your help. I've copied 'E' to 'F', deleted partition and volume 'E' to get unallocated space but when I right click on C there's no 'Extend Partition' option. I'm using windows XP. Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Posted 9 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

In XP you have to use a 3rd party partition manager,
Many of us use,
http://www.partitionwizard.com.....nager.html

But I would look into what is clogging up your C: drive first.

Posted 9 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

Hmm, that is strange. Probably because C is an active, running partition. Try the bootable CD of this program: http://www.partitionwizard.com/

Posted 9 months ago #
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grantmcknight
Posts: 5

Thanks Lighthouse. I wouldn't know where to look in the Windows folder, or whether it would be safe to delete anything in there, does 12GB sound excessive there? I have Photoshop and Illustrator software in program files so I guess they probably make it bigger than usual otherwise I'll weed through documents and settings and delete what I can.

Would you recommend using a 3rd party partition manager or are they prone to problems?

Posted 9 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

I use PW when Disk Management is not sufficient. Not had a problem with it yet.
Download the free iso, burn it to CD with,
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....h-imgburn/
And boot from the CD to do your partitioning.

But before you do any of that, I suggest you image your C: partition, with this,
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....p-utility/

You can never be too careful. You will have to create a recovery CD for it.

Posted 9 months ago #
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Xhi
Xhi
Posts: 6298

Aaa, folks, won't there possibly be problems with any registry entries still possibly having entries pointing to the old E: drive?

Posted 9 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

How is that. He backed up the data that was on E.

Posted 9 months ago #
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Xhi
Xhi
Posts: 6298

If he puts the data back on the C: drive any registry entries pointing to E: will be in error.

Posted 9 months ago #
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Lighthouse
Lighthouse
Posts: 13598

Depends how he put his data on E:.

Posted 9 months ago #
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whs
whs
Posts: 17584

I don't think this is a problem as long as you use Windows functions to move the files around.

Posted 9 months ago #
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grantmcknight
Posts: 5

Thanks guys for all your help. I've done as you suggested (can't believe Partition Manager is so easy to use!) I've now got a 100 GB C drive and put the E drive back in a partition of 180 GB on the same Hard Drive. I've still got the E drive backed up on F and once it's run stable for a couple of weeks I'll switch the other HDD to mirror the first.

Thanks again, enjoy the rest of your weekends!

Posted 9 months ago #
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