How to make HDD partition without coverting to dynamic drive?

mOkie · 13 Jun 2012

Greetings everyone! I'm a newbie here in SEVENforums.

I just bought a LENOVO Y580 1TB (notebook) and I'm having difficulties in making partitions in my HDD. Initially, here's the default hard drive partitions:

4 Partitions:
(hidden): Healthy System
C(local): 836MB
D(Recovery): 150MB
(hidden): OEM

so first, I follow the normal way of making a partition. which is:
• right click on my computer
• manage
• disk management
• shrink a desired drive
• right click on the unallocated (make simple volume)
• go through the wizard instructions
• click finish

however, when i hit finish, there's a popup saying:
" The operation you selected will convert the selected basic disk(s) to dynamic disk(s). If you convert the disk(s) to dynamic, you will not be able to start installed operating systems from any volume on the disk(s) (except the current boot volume). Are you sure you want to continue?"

I've been plowing the net in search for help in these matter. so far what i found out is that converting to a dynamic hard drive is a "bad idea" so thats a NO NO i guess. Also, I saw some forums saying that I should have "Ubuntu live CD" or "GParted" etc... to solve this problem. but i dont want to install additional software.

So my questions are:

1.) Is it possible to make partitions without installing other software?
2.) (If the case is having too much partitions) Can I delete an existing partition? say, OEM?
3.) How do I expand my drive D (Recovery)
4.) How to post a screen shot or images in a thread?

( newbie note hehehehe)

Hope you can enlighten me on this matter. Thanks in advance!

Cheers everyone!

Night Hawk · 14 Jun 2012

Hello mOKie Welcome to the Seven Forums!

There are a few options depending on whether or not you are comfortable using or not using a command prompt. At the command prompt in order to create a new basic volume in then vacant unallocated drive space following the shrink of the C primary you would simply type the following at the command prompt "C:\users\user account name\" dos like prompt.

DiskPart
List Disk
select disk 0 (most likely the only hard drive)
List Volume (will show all partitions presently there)
Create partition primary
format fs=ntfs 60
exit

Now for deletion of an existing partition you would instead enter the following:
DiskPart
List Disk
Select disk 0
List Volume
Select Volume # (depending on if the OEM is first at the front of the drive or last at the rear of the drive)
delete volume #
exit (if not performing other operations

Note commands can be entered in lower case letters. The capitalization here is for reference only.

For the gui method by booting live from cd or usb flash drive the open source community's main driver partitioning program is GParted Live(Gnome Partition Editor) being one free program that runs stricly from the live cd or usb flash drive the iso download is written to.

The live gui method allows you to pick and choose partitions especially if you have already labeled the volume by the right click properties screen>Genera tab ahead of time to avoid deletion of the wrong one. For any new partition primary or extended once created you have the option for formatting it as well while booted live and select the file system from the dropdown list of choices for the intended OS.

The Fat 16/32 or NTFS option will be found in lower case letters.

CyberZeus · 14 Jun 2012

I think that the problem is that your disk has already 4 primary partition and Windows 7 allows maximum 4 primary partition or 3 primary partition and 1 extended partition.
Take a look here Partition or Volume - Create New
The best way on doing this is using GParted that doesn't have the above limitations.
It's bad idea to remove the OEM or Recovery partition, since they are used to reinstall your PC.

Cheers
CyberZeus

DavidE · 14 Jun 2012

Hello and welcome to Seven Forums.

4.) How to post a screen shot or images in a thread?

( newbie note hehehehe)

Seven Forums has a lot of Tutorials that can help you.
The Tutorials Link is near the Top of the Page:
Tutorials - Windows 7 Forums

For uploading a screen print see this tutorial:
Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

There is also an FAQ link toward the bottom of the page that may help you.
Windows 7 Forums - FAQ

You should make a set of recovery DVD's for your new PC before doing anything else.
You should have instructions for this in your User Guide, or "Getting Started" info.

For what you are asking you should post a screen print of your fully expanded Disk Management screen.
Post #14 in this thread has an example of this:
I start my computer and get "No operating system found. Press Ctrl....

hope this helps!

mOkie · 14 Jun 2012

Many Thanks for the warm welcome guys! I guess i have to backup my files first before doing anything else.
il take note of all the methods you share with me here. thanks mates!

gregrocker · 14 Jun 2012

Please post back a screenshot of your maximized Disk mgmt drive map and listings, using the Snipping Tool in Start Menu: Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums - Windows 7 Forums

Tell us where you want new partition(s) and we will give you the exact steps to avoid converting to Dynamic which is only intended for partitions to span other HD's.

mOkie · 14 Jun 2012

@gregrocker
hey dude!
Here's the screen shot of my partition drives. as you can see, i already have 4 partitions. my goal is to shrink my drive C to at least 500gb, then make a 350gb new partition drive. i also want to expand my drive D but i cant. the "Extend Volume" button for drive D in not available.

How to make HDD partition without coverting to dynamic drive?-partition-screen-shot.jpg

cant extend drive D:

How to make HDD partition without coverting to dynamic drive?-partition-screen-shot2.jpg

hope you can help me out Thanks!

gregrocker · 14 Jun 2012

To add a new partition since you already have the maximum four you'll need to convert C to Logical, then you can add as many contiguous Logical partitions next to it as you want. For operations like this we use a bootable CD which is the only partition manager which will not fail besides Disk mgmt: free Partition Wizard bootable CD

You'll also have to Resize the Win7 partition using the PW CD since Disk Mgmt likely won't allow you to shrink it that much. Then to expand D to the left you'll also need PW CD since Disk Mgmt cannot Resize to the left.

What is on the Lenovo partition D? Do you know for sure it's intended for data and not for Recovery? It is small enough it appears to be part of the Lenovo Recovery or Tools . I would unhide System and Hidden files in Control Panel>Folder Options>View tab to see if there are any Lenovo files on there first.

If in doubt be sure to make your Lenovo Recovery Disks first since Factory Recovery may not run if you mess with that partition. However if you don't want Factory Recovery, or want to rely on a Win7 backup image or a future superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 you can get rid of the two last partitions to use that space for a data partition (D) or other storage.

Download PW CD ISO file, burn to CD using Windows Imge Burner or ImgBurn, boot CD, select 1 for screen res, rightclick on C to Modify>Set to Logical, click OK.

Then rightclick on C to Resize, drag right border to the left to make as much space as you want, click OK.

Then if you want to resize D, rightclick on it to Resize, drag left border to the left to take up as much extra space as you want, Click OK.

Now you can create a new partition in the space if you want in the space by rightclicking on it to Create, select Logical, NTFS, give it a label and drive letter, OK, Apply all steps.

Here are video tutorials to demonstrate each of these steps:
Partition Wizard Move/Resize Partition Video Help.
How to set partition as Primary or Logical.
Partition Wizard Create Partition Video Help

Night Hawk · 14 Jun 2012

Once you shrink the C primary you will first need to "move" the D partition over to the left to fill in where C had been before you can expand it outward towards the OEM part. You can't simply expand it without first moving it.

You will also be better off following the recommendation CyberZeus made about creating a set of recovery disks from the OEM partition which contains the preinstalled Windows driver sets and preactivation in the event you need to restore the OS. Otherwise you would need to borrow the installation media for the same edition to perform a clean install and track down the driver sets, hardware updates on your own as well as getting some through the Windows updates.

As for shrinking C, moving D over, and then expanding D GParted is the better option since that will get around the problems you can run into at time with OEM drives. For the last few years each newer release has overcome some problems that program saw with some older 0.3.0.4-9 releases now seeing the latest 0.12.1.

The instructions for resizing partitions with GParted can be seen at GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - RESIZING

The General documentation can be looked over at GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - GENERALITIES

As far as how to partition drives there's a number of guides on this seen at Partition Hard Drives - How To Information | eHow.com

As for just how many partitions as well as how how many for what type we go to an MS page which shows:

Primary partition

A primary partition can be directly addressed as a drive and cannot be additionally partitioned. The operating system is usually installed on a primary partition. The operating system can therefore start from an active partition.

The boot procedure for the computer involves several steps that occur in the following sequence:

The BIOS runs the power-on self test (POST).
The BIOS looks for the starting device. This is usually the hard disk.
The BIOS loads the MBR when it starts from the hard disk.
The MBR determines the active partition.
The MBR loads the boot sector from the active partition.
The boot sector initializes loading of the operating system.

Extended partition and logical drive

An extended partition cannot be addressed directly as a drive. It is just a container. An extended partition enables you to incorporate logical drives. Individual partition tables instead of the MBR manage these logical drives. These tables are also named EBRs (Extended Boot Records), and they are based on the MBR. The most notable feature of EBRs is that they are interlinked like a chain. This means that the number of logical drives is not limited by the capacity of the partition table, but by the number of free drive letters. Possible partitions

The hard disk can be partitioned as follows:

One primary partition
One primary partition and one extended partition with logical drives
Two primary partitions and one extended partition with logical drives
Three primary partitions and one extended partition with logical drives
Four primary partitions
One extended partition with logical drives for a hard disk that cannot be used for the boot procedure.

That page is an oldie seen there for reinstalling XP, creating partitions seen at Reinstalling Windows XP Home (Part 3): Creating partitions