installing new hard drive....

good day everyone.

i dont know how to begin, but here's an over view.

i had assembled my desktop about 3 months back and and installed vista on it. it took me almost a week to install all of my programs, get all of my music, documents, games and pictures in their respective places.

i have a single hard drive (160gb)with two partitions (C and D). now recently the free space in both is running low, so i have decided to go in for one of those 500gb hard drives and transfer my documents and backup into that one. now for the problem

1st hhd, 2 partitions (windows in C(60gb), documents in D(100gb))
2nd hhd, single partition (500gb)

what i need:
1st hhd, single partition (160gb) only for windows
2nd hhd, single partition (500gb) only for documents and back up

without re-installing windows.

transfering and linking the documents is easy. what i cant figure out is how do i remove the partition in the 1st hhd without corrupting the windows installation

one of the methods i could use is go through control panel>admin tools> computer mangmt. and delete the partition from there. i can remove the d drive from there. but it wont combine this with c drive.

i tried making both drives as slaves in another computer (windows xp) to transfer and format the 1st drive, there are still some files it wont transfer, thus corrupting windows again. which we are trying to avoid.

any help would be greatly appreciated
thanks in advance

cheers
baggi

If I'm not mistaken, the creation of the partitioning was done during the low-level (i.e., hard) formatting system. That is done BEFORE the installation of the Operating system such as Windows. Hence, the partition will remain as is and if the partition definition (or parameters) is removed, the secondary disk identification may have been removed but it goes into the netherworld--since the contiguity of sectors and clusters cannot be established. Therefore, the primary drive (C:) will remain functional but the previous partition drive (D:) will not be usable.

The only solution I can recommend is to reformat (at low-level) the original 160GB HDD which will effectively remove the partition and identify the whole disk as a single drive medium. Then you reinstall Windows as your OS (Alas! All other programs you may have installed will have to be reinstalled, too.). I presume that the reason you want the partition removed without compromising the original contents of Drive C: will be a) you don't have the Windows Installer CD and/or b) you installed other programs that you are not sure you can reinstall after installing a fresh operating system.

Just a minor comment, really.

-Goitz

[QUOTE=I presume that the reason you want the partition removed without compromising the original contents of Drive C: will be a) you don't have the Windows Installer CD and/or b) you installed other programs that you are not sure you can reinstall after installing a fresh operating system.

Just a minor comment, really.

-Goitz[/QUOTE]

hi, it is nothing of the sort.

i have the windows cd and have back up of all the programs installed. also cds for the monitor, graphic card and the wireless keyboard and mouse.

re-installing is not a problem. am just trying to save the time required to
1) re-install windows and drivers for the monitor, graphic card and the wireless keyboard and mouse
2) updating them
3) updating windows
4) re-installling games
5) installing other small programs required for browsing, listening to music and video files
6) sorting the music and the video library
7) sorting the bookmarks

basically avoid the hassles of a fresh intallation.

if it cant be done, then it cant be done. then only option i have is to do a fresh install.

#1. Move your documents to the 500GB HDD - ie create a folder ther called "My Documents" or whatever you please.. (you mentioned you knew how.. so I wont bother you with more
#2. Get an Drive imaging program and create an image of your Windows Partition.. this is in case there are problems with the option I list.
#3. Option 1- Get a Partition management program like Partition magic or Acronis:
Step 1. delete the now empty Drive 0 - Partition 2
Step 2. Expand the Drive 0 - Partition 1 to fill the empty space
Option 2 : follow the earlier posters advice and delete the partitions and format.. but restore the drive image from the image we created earlier

If you have no issues with your existing Windows installation.. then it will be no problem doing this..
BUT: The advice to do a clean install is sound in regards to installations that are unstable, or over a year in age.. you will be amazed how much faster the beasts can be,,
so there is a couple of more ways to skin the cat..

hi Und3ertak3r,

drive image you say? yes......it could work with that.

and after reading your advice again, am thinking that if i am to be doing this on another desktop, then i could just re format the drive and convert this into one big drive and restore the image back.

as for the documents.......windows already understands that they are in "D" drive.

will go on to work on this and will let you know how it turned out

cheers

hi Und3ertak3r and Goitz,

thanks for all the help.....but after major searching through the net, i found this entry in one of the forums. just posting here just in case some one wants to do the same thing:-

Merge two partitions with Windows Vista

1. Go to the Start menu and open “Control Panel”
2. Select the “System and Maintenance” option if you are using the Control Panel Home View and “Administrative Tools” if you are using the “Classic View”
3. In the “Administrative Tools” section, select “Create and format disk partitions”.
4. For “Classic View” users, select the “Computer Management” option and select “Storage”. When done, click “Disk Management”
5. When the list of your drive is displayed, choose the one with which you want to merge your partitioned drive with (e.g. disk D:) and select “Delete Volume”.
6. Hence, select your drive C: and the option “Extend Volume”. You computer will automatically select empty available spaces on your hard disk, and you can alter them if you wish to do so.

cheers evryone

baggi,

Great! I suppose that will ease things for you.

I took a look at my PC (using Windows XP SP3) and saw the same (thanks for that tip--filed for future reference). I have three (HDDs) installed of variable sizes with a total of five logical drives and it would appear that such an approach is feasible under XP, too. I don't want to tweak the partitioning right now (all have "healthy" status reports) but I may choose to do so in the future.

Cheers, too!

-Goitz