Can't create another partition

w850i · 07 Jun 2012

Hi everyone,

I can't deal with a specific problem. I bought a laptop and it was partitioned in a bad way. Now there was a pre-created partition D:. I deleted this partition and wanted to create a new partition D: with all the unallocated space. However, whenever I try to create the partition, I get the error message you can see in the attached picture. I read about this and I know about partition limitations. But as far as I understand, I have only one primary partition, which is C:. Even more, there used to exist a pre-installed partition D, it was only after I deleted it that I can't recreate one.
So I guess my question is: What's wrong, why can't I create the partition and what can I do to create it? I know there are some programs I could use, but I would want to stay away from those if there is an easy way to deal with the problem through windows. Also I read something about changing the unallocated space into dynamic space by right-clicking it and selecting the corresponding option, but when I right-click the unallocated space, there is no possibility for that.

Another questions I had is what those two partitions without a letter are and whether it is safe to delete them.

I thank you all for your answers in advance.

**Pauly** · 07 Jun 2012

You can only have a maximum of four standard partitions on one drive to add more you need to change the type of partition you are trying to make but i would strongly advise you not to do that as it can create all sorts of problems

Instead to recover the space on the drive to make it useable i would extend one of the existing four partitions to consume the spare space

Sometimes manufacturers will put a partition on the drive with recovery options on it in case of problems, this is often instead of supplying windows disks so it may be wise to procede with caution if you are planning to remove any more partitions and do not have any other recovery methods ie win disk or image backups etc

w850i · 07 Jun 2012

But there are only 3 partitions, aren't there? And only for one it says that it is a primary partition. Have you seen the screenshot? And even if you see it in another way: Can I safely delete one of the two partitions that do not have any drive letter?

w850i · 07 Jun 2012

Ok, it worked now. I deleted the green part you can see in the screenshot labeled "free space" and was able to create another partition. Can somebody maybe explain what just happened?

ignatzatsonic · 07 Jun 2012

Most likely that green space was a logical partition within an extended partition at one time.

You have to completely delete it and get it back to "unallocated space" status before you can make another primary partition. It isn't enough that you have "free space" as shown in your pic.

w850i · 07 Jun 2012

I did that just now. Thanks for the info, solved the problem.

Britton30 · 07 Jun 2012

The 200MB NTFS partition is the System reserved and has the bootrec on it, don't delete it or your system won't boot. the other one, 14.75GB is for a factory recovery. You can delete it but you would lose the factory restore option then.