Windows 7: Unable to Format a free partition space in WIN 7...

Hi... im having this prob where a total of 40GB of space out of 160Gb in my HD cant be formatted. I were using Windows Vista before upgrading it into Win 7....
I had 3 partitions ( c:, d:, & N... All 3 of it works perfectly. The only problem im facing here is with this 40GB of free space which i couldn't Format in anyway.. it keeps on bugging me with this warning of "not enough space to complete operation" thingy...
Here is an image of it, where the green colored free space (39.06Gb)... cant be formatted.
I tried Formatting it while the Windows 7 installation process, yet, i still couldn't do anything.
Can someone plz help me out.........

I'm in the process of setting up my secondary rig, and haven't done too much more than the installation, and I ended up with an unallocated space ahead of the partitions, much as your's except mine is much larger. I intend to use a third party program such as Acronis Disk Director Suite, or something else to move and resize the partitions. I can't recommend DDS, because it is not Windows 7 compatible, but I already have it, and I think that it would do the job, booting from it's disk.

There are other partitioning tools available that are free, but I haven't used any of them, except Partition Wizard, but I'm not familiar with it enough to say that it would handle this type of problem or not.

Partition Wizard is a free download and is pretty handy at issues like this. While you are at it, consider using the Copy command to move C:\ to the unallocated space, since it is the fastest access region on the drive.

In PW, you set it all up (with options to back out) within the windows GUI and then when you re-start, PW will step in and complete the operations before automatically booting back into windows. It is able to move the entire Windows installation without losing any setup, users etc.

Often times when I want to clean out and re-format a partition I right click on the partition (with Computer Management) and select "Delete Volume." Then I'm allowed to format.

Don't know if the same thing would apply in your case.

I was about to suggest the same thing. Deleting and recreating the partition.

No, unallocated/free space is not a partition, therfore it can't be deleted.

Makes sense. So would he have an option to extend his D: volume into that space? I have extended and shrunk with Vista, but it's been awhile and I have low retention rate the older I get. I seem to remember something about the extendable space being to the right of the volume you're extending, though. Maybe I had just better leave this alone before I confuse the poor guy more.

I would start from scratch and delete all partitions then format entire drive and recreate your partitions.

Or better yet add a second physical drive to store data on which would better protect your data, if the drive you are using physically fails so to do all your partitions so a second physical drive is always better.

One thing you may try is to partition PART of it. Say 39gigs or a little less and see what happens. To be honest I have NEVER seen a partion or freespace shown AHEAD of my system partion (C). This is all a bit prplexing for me as well..I would reinstall just because it looks kind of screwy...but I am new to the way things are being done with Win 7. I am of course making guesses here and there are folks here that know more than I do.

I though Win 7 showed unalloacted as Black in the diagram and listed as such?
Perhaps I misunderstood, or overlooked something here.

Apologies if so.

I tend to agree a fresh install would be best, so the Os isnt in the middle
(slower part of the drive)

Just back up all data you need to keep and delte everything and remake partitions in setup.