Windows 7: Free Space won't form New Simple Volumes

Hello friends. I have a Dell Inspiron 1440 laptop with 64-bit windows 7 ultimate installed in it. My Partitions were like this:
c: 40gb(primary partition)
d: 20gb(primary partition)
rest e: , f: and g: were 80 gbs each(approx.).
Understanding the need of more space in c:, i formatted d: and created it as unallocated space, shrunk it with c: to make c: total of 60gb. Up-to that i didn't have a problem.
Now my disk partition were:
c: 60gb(primary partition)
d: 80gb(logical drive)
e: 80gb(logical drive)
f: 78.09 gb(logical drive)
since my d: was empty, i decided to extend my e: with the 80gb available on d: . and so, i formatted the d: and then it changed to free space. Now, i cant reformat d: nor extend e: with the free space generated in d: . Whenever i try to create a new simple volume by right clicking the free space of 80gb in d: ., i get following error(shown in screenshot)...i also have run a chkdsk in prompt but it says "cannot open volume for direct access" . . .any idea where i went wrong my dear frens? please help me. thank you.

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

Your problem has occurred because for some reason you are using logical partitions, which are effectively an extension of the C partition. Free space is different to unallocated space in that there is a partition there occupying that space.

Your best bet is leave the C:\ drive as it is and delete the three logical partitions, then create a new primary partition or partitions on the resultant unallocated space.

You can have up to four primary partitions on one hard drive and if you need more partitions you can create logical partitions within the last primary partition.

Make sure you backup everything first before you delete your logical partitions and creating a restore point wouldn't be a bad idea either.

You might want to create a Partition Wizard boot disc for partitioning needs as it is far more versatile than Windows 7's disk management tool.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/index.html

First off all i'd like to thank you heartily for warm welcome in this forum...secondly, thank you for the quick reply..
does disk management feature in windows 7 allow a primary partition to be created?i mean i didn't format my laptop when i had first installed windows seven fresh on my computer, a technician did. So i am a bit nervous about this problem on my laptop..so help me once more please

Yes, it does.

What you should have done after the technician installed Windows was shrink the C drive, and then create a new primary partition (s) in the resultant unallocated space.

Just right-click each logical partition in turn and choose delete.

Once you've done that, highlight the unallocated space, then right-click again and follow the wizard's instructions to create a new primary (basic) partition. It'll also offer you the chance to format the new partition. Just choose the Quick Format option or you'll have to wait some time before a full format is completed. You'll also be able allocate a drive letter of your choosing.

Whatever you do, don't highlight your C drive because if you mess with that one you'll have no operating system to boot into.

Free space means free space in a partition. You have to delete the partition to get unallocated space. Then you can extend C.

Why do you want a primary partition. The only partition that needs to be primary is the one that is also "active" - meaning it contains the bootmgr. You are much better off with logical partitions for everything else. Note that you can anyhow only have a maximum of 4 primary patitions or 3 primaries with one extended ( that allows - theoretically - up to 128 logical partitions) per physical drive.

for a trial, i deleted only a drive e: not all of the logical volume...still it showed free space label...and strange thing is that when i right clicked it, it formatted and enabled itself to a new simple volume without any problem...while still the other free space is unavailable to be formatted and generates the same error...

Now, do i need to format the whole logical volume that has 3 partitions in it?? (please refer previous image)

Yes, the thinking behind my reasoning was to start afresh with the disk space other than the active partition that has Windows on it.

Once you've got a formatted primary partition, you can then decide what you want to do.

As long as you keep your C drive intact you shouldn't do any damage.

Hello NeptuneTech, welcome to Seven Forums!


If I understand you, you want to add the Free Space from D: to the E: Logical; that is possible using the free Partition Wizard program.

click to enlarge

Start with a look at Step Three (disregard the first 2 steps) for an idea of the process, in this tutorial linked below.

Partition : Recover Space Used by an Older OS

^^^^ thanks alot heartily for the warm welcome Bare Foot Kid...

Well, i used minitool partition wizard home edition and performed something on that my brain suggested. What i did was i somehow managed to make my drive D: unallocated(forgot what i did actually) from unused free space . And then, the wizard said i needed to restart the computer, i did. The wizard ran on startup, succeeded and restarted again. But then i got an error saying startup error or sth lyk that and startup diagnostic needed to be run, i did...error was fixed and computer was restored to an earlier point(according to the fixture) .

Now i have all the drives working fine. But what i dont understand is that does running this software always affects the startup and do i need to run the risk of loosing my OS when i run it ? ?

I clearly want to merge one logical to another logical drive, but now i fear if the software has some cons if i run it.

I'm sorry for my inappropriate explanations but thats all i remember what i did last night...

And one more thing, i tried to merge two logical drives accordingly as the tutorial Bare Foot Kid suggested, but i dont get "0 Operations Pending" on the left side of the panel.

Partition Wizard always affects your startup procedure when you boot into it in the sense you'll get to the PW user interface rather than your Windows desktop.

There is no risk to your C Drive (your operating system and applications) providing you don't highlight the drive when you are carrying out disc management tasks with Partition Wizard.