Changed volume partitions and now lost my C: drive

mrtennis27 · 30 Oct 2015

In an effort to remove my drive partitions and to have 1 C: drive like I have always been accustomed to, I messed something up and now have an E: drive and the System Reserved F: drive. I have tried to rename E to C, but I get a Virtual Disk Manager error - "The parameter is incorrect". I also deleted an unallocated drive, but I cannot even combine it with my primary (E) drive. It only gives me the option to "Shrink Volume" and not Expand when I right click on the E: drive.

I also changed the drive to Dynamic, so not sure if that was OK or if there is something I should do to correct that as well?

Please see the screenshot I have attached and let me know what I can do to fix this. Thank you all!

mitchell65 · 30 Oct 2015

Sorry I can't help directly here but yet again I would stress to anyone reading this thread to Backup with Macrium Reflect or similar before making any big changes to your system. I would rephase that by saying "Before any changes or updating" BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP! Sorry if I am getting boring by keeping on about this!

bigmck · 31 Oct 2015

As Mitchell said above when you get your disk corrected you need to back up your PC partitions at least weekly. Use this Macrium Reflect Free If you had a backup you could restore the files in 15 minutes and be running. Let's get you going now.

There are quite a few things that need to be changed to get things straight. The first one is to get rid of the Dynamic Disk. That will only cause problems. Read this tutorial and follow it.
Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

Let's get your System Reserved and Boot Files right. Follow this Tutorial.
Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times It is important to run the repair three times as it says.

When you get those two things done, let's see what it looks like then. Post a screen shot of your Disk Management. Be sure and expand the columns so we can read all of the print.

AddRAM · 01 Nov 2015

Yep you destoyed that drive.

As suggested, the 1st thing you have to do is change the disk back to Basic.

Why was C only 24 GB ? Way too small.

If you had the room on E (which you do, 91% free) you could have just used a Partition Wizard Boot CD to expand C and steal space from E.

Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

You`ll most likely be reinstalling windows, I would 1st make the 24 GB partition at least 200 GB with the above software, then reinstall windows.

jumanji · 01 Nov 2015

The OP has DELL OEM desktop.

The 24GB Partition is, I presume, the Recovery Partition. The large 450GB partition is his original C drive.

That is how I read the picture.( may be wrong, can't say for sure

)

Whatever, I do agree he should forthwith convert the dynamic to basic and then post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management.

Rest can be decided based on what the new screenshot shows. Does it resemble what he had earlier before he embarked on this misadventure? OP has to answer.

Has the OP made the recovery disks? When one buys an OEM machine, whether desktop or laptop the first thing to do is to make the recovery disks as outlined in the user manual.

AddRAM · 01 Nov 2015

Well that`s good and bad, good if he didn`t wipe out windows and converts it back to basic, bad that he wiped out the recovery partition.

mrtennis has not been on in 2 days, so things may have gotten worse.

That`s a shame, it was probably a perfectly working PC, other then the fact that it`s a Dell

mrtennis27 · 02 Nov 2015

Thanks everyone! I am about to convert from dynamic to basic and will give you an update shortly..

mrtennis27 · 02 Nov 2015

I tried to convert to basic using Disk Management, but when I right-click on my E: drive, "Delete Volume" cannot be clicked. When I try to delete volume on the Reserved drive, it allows me to click it, but I get an error that I cannot delete it. I figured out how to get into the System Recovery options at boot, but do I want to attempt to convert from dynamic with the Command Prompt "Clean All" process? My E: drive is my bootable drive, so this scares me..

I made my DVD-rom 1st in my boot order, but with my Windows 7 installation CD in, it just bi-passes it and loads Windows like it was not even in there.. If I wipe out my E drive, I am worried I wont be able to install Windows again.

And I do not have any recovery disks... I dont care about anything on this machine, I am just trying to reset it so that I can start all over!

mitchell65 · 02 Nov 2015

When you insert your Win 7 installation disc do you get a message asking you to "Press any key to load from a CD?" Don't know what you mean when you say "with my Windows 7 installation CD in, it just bi-passes it and loads Windows like it was not even in there." If it loads Windows isn't that what you are trying to do?

mrtennis27 · 02 Nov 2015

No, it does not ask me to Press any key, etc. It just starts-up into Windows like it supposed to rather than booting to my installation.

The comp seems to be working fine the way it is, but my primary drive is labeled E and I cannot change it to C. Again, everything is working fine like this, however it would be much easier if my hard drive was labeled C like it is supposed to.

I thought that if I reinstalled Windows from boot, it would correct the issue and I could start all over again...