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Author Topic: Combine Unallocated disk space  (Read 4621 times)

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McGuire

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    Combine Unallocated disk space
    « on: December 03, 2009, 08:51:14 AM »
    I'm doing a clean XP install.  I want to reformat the hard drive (C:) and end up with a single primary partition.  Currently, the drive is simple dynamic NTFS; half of which is Unallocated.  I tired reformatting from the Windows XP installation CD, but I'm getting an error . . . probably because the drive is currently split up?  I think I need to delete the Unpartitioned portion of the drive and then reformat, but I don't know how to delete the Unpartitioned portion.  Thoughts?

    Allan

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    Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
    « Reply #1 on: December 03, 2009, 08:57:54 AM »
    Why is the drive dynamic? Candidly, I'm not sure if there's any difference in deleting a dynamic partition during installation - I don't believe there is. At the beginning of the installation process you should be given the choice to delete and recreate partitions. Delete the extended and logical partitions and create a primary active partition

    McGuire

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      Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
      « Reply #2 on: December 03, 2009, 09:04:31 AM »
      The disk is dynamic because I was studying partitioning and RAID a few months ago and this is one of my Guinea pig computers.  When I was just trying to reformat, that unallocated portion to the hd showed up without a drive letter.  I'll start again and see what comes up.

      Allan

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      Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
      « Reply #3 on: December 03, 2009, 09:12:33 AM »
      Unallocated simply means unformatted and that's correct, it would not have a drive letter until it's formatted. But it should show up when you try to delete the partition during installation.

      McGuire

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        Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
        « Reply #4 on: December 03, 2009, 09:13:49 AM »
        Thanks, I'll let you know how it turns out...

        McGuire

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          Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
          « Reply #5 on: December 03, 2009, 10:17:28 AM »
          Could not delete the Unallocated space through disk mgmt.  Was able to delete, like you said Allan, during installation.

          Q: Is there any benefit to running dskchk /r after doing a clean install?

          Allan

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          Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
          « Reply #6 on: December 03, 2009, 10:22:02 AM »
          The command is chkdsk /r
          Did you do a FULL format or a quick format? If you did a full format then chkdsk /r was already run. If not then sure, boot to the recovery console and run chkdsk /r - can't hurt.

          McGuire

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            Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
            « Reply #7 on: December 03, 2009, 10:23:54 AM »
            It was a full format.  Thanks again.

            Allan

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            Re: Combine Unallocated disk space
            « Reply #8 on: December 03, 2009, 10:27:55 AM »
            You're welcome