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View Full Version : Main harddrive split into two, how to make it one again?


baz5
Sep 8th, 2008, 08:26 PM
Many years ago, my C drive somehow split into two. Partitions or something?
I have no idea how it happened. But the main drive is like 14gigs and the other one is 56gigs. I store stuff on the "D" drive now, but my C drive is at like 13gigs and it's a pain running programs, always getting warnings about no disk space. Is there a safe way that I can make the drive one again?

13sundin
Sep 8th, 2008, 08:28 PM
back up everything... delete both partitions and then create 1 big one

Frankie3s
Sep 8th, 2008, 08:30 PM
There is no safe way but there is a way. First, backup everything and then maybe make a second backup set just in case. Test your backup to see if it works. Once you are satisfied that you have a good backup. Then you can go ahead and use "Partition Magic 8.0,"

http://www.symantec.com/norton/partitionmagic.

Chances are you wont need to use your backup set but if the power fails on you or something dies during the procedure it's game over.

willy
Sep 8th, 2008, 08:54 PM
Or the free Gparted ... http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

I think you can try to ...

1. Backup the important files (or everything).
2. Delete the 56GB partition.
3. Resize/extend the main partition to use the 56GB unallocated space.
4. Restore the info that was originally on the 56GB partition back to your now-extended main partition.

Disclaimer : Try it at your own risk ...

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In case you don't want to play around with the partitions *and* you have a spare HD kicking around, you can use 13sundin's suggestion.

CameraBill
Sep 8th, 2008, 09:38 PM
Move your virtual memory to the D drive

control panel
(classic view)
System - > Advanced Tab -> Performance - Settings
Performance Options Window
Advanced Tab
Virtual memory section -> Change
Change to D: drive

baz5
Sep 9th, 2008, 01:42 AM
I have an extra hard drive Z. And there is room on there.
How do I make a proper back up?

baz5
Sep 9th, 2008, 12:57 PM
bump

TotallyKiller
Sep 9th, 2008, 02:20 PM
I have an extra hard drive Z. And there is room on there.
How do I make a proper back up?

If there are specific files that you want to back up and that's it, then just copy and paste them onto the backup drive. If you are looking to backup the system or configurations, then you would want to ghost the drive and copy that to the backup.

baz5
Sep 9th, 2008, 09:18 PM
Okay, I got Norton Ghost, and backed up C:/D: to my Z:.
I used partition magic to delete the D: thinking I could use the backup from Z: and add it to C:.
But when I use Ghost to recover backup, it says it's going to overwrite data on C:, and I'm afraid it means the whole drive will be erased?

So I was trying to use partition magic to create a new partition again, D: but make it small, so I can have more size on my C:. But when I try to do it with partition magic, I get errors and it does not do the task.

Any help?

*** Okay, I got it fixed. Had to do a scandisk and I guess it found errors, so I could partition the drive again.