Restoring a New Partition

Try again on the picture.

Any particular reason you need a logical partition or dynamic disks? You can make 4 ordinary primary partitions.

How many partitions do you need of whatever type?

Hi ignatzatsonic,All I want is 2 partitions: one for the OS and one for data and to be able to create an image of the C:/, that's all.

But Hp computers have a volume for the C:/, one for the Recovery, one for SYSTEM and one HP Tools which makes 4 partitions and I just added another by shrinking the C:/. I understand I can have four ordinary partitions but I don't know what to do with the Recovery, System and HP Tools partitions and I wonder how useful they are.

Also, I tried deleting the new partition I had made and go back to the original size of the C:/ but it keeps the Disc as Dynamic.

Do you want some type of data partition on disk 0?

Or are you satisified with the existing 4: (C, system, hp tools, and recovery), with all data being on the separate disk 1?

There is a way to get out of the dynamic disk thing, but I can't recall offhand what it is.

Sounds like a job for Partition Wizard.

Offhand, I suspect HP Tools is to access all of the crap that HP put on the PC that you do not need.

I assume you want to make a data partition out of the unallocated space on drive 0?

I suspect you HDD came with 4 primaries and when you went to make another partition Windows made the primary partitions dynamic (as you appear to have discovered). I think you need to convert back from dynamic to basic. See the tutorial:
Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

If you can move the unallocated back into the dynamic partition on the left you can try my method 1: Post 85
Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk

The current version of Partition Wizard bootable CD will enable you to change the MBR type ID from hex 0x42 (dynamic) to 0x07 (basic primary). I describe the details in the post above. The tutorial has incorporated the second method. Although it appears simpler, it's more work and maybe risk since you have to do a partition recovery.

gnatzatsonic,

Like I said, I would be happy with a couple of primaries. Like you say, I don't think the other partitions mean a whole lot they are designed help people in some way but I don't feel like I need them. The best would have been to have joined 3 of them together and have 2 different partitions but I need to shrink the C:/ in order to have more space to allocate to another partition before doing anything else. I'm just going by what I know and I obviously had no idea about basic and dynamic disk before this issue.

Also, what I would prefer to do is reformat the computer and create 2 or 3 partitions but I don't have a Windows 7 CD, all I have is the number on the back that came with the computer.

mjf,

You are right in what you said, my HDD came with 4 primaries and when you went to make another partition Windows made the primary partitions dynamic (as I appear to have discovered). I think I need to convert back from dynamic to basic. I've read the Tutorial to Convert a Dynamic to a Basic but everyone recommends (rightfully so) to do a back up.

I assume and what I'd like to know is if there's a way (with the Windows Tools) to get back to where I was prior to creating the new partition. Since I have the backup I did with Ghost before making any changes, I could recover the whole C:/ with this backup but I obviously can't do while it's still a Dynamic Disk.

Is this only way to convert back to Basic but what is explained in that tutorial?

Thanks for the help so far!

I assume the old C: is the new C: plus the unallocated.
Did your image include the system reserved partition at the front?

gregrocker said:

Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD to convert Dynamic back to Basic. This is the only way to do it that won't destroy the data. But you should back it up anyway.

I would also try to generate your Recovery Disks if you haven't already, but a Dynamic Recov partition may not be able to either generate Disks or run Factory Recovery from boot.

Then rightclick on the Unallocated space with PW CD to attempt to create a New Logical partition for your data. If it won't allow it you might have to merge the System partition with Win7, or delete the Tools partition to free up a slot to allow creation of Logical extended or another Primary.

You could also in the future clean reinstall to get a better Win7 that is not burdened by all the HP bloatware and useless Utilities which have much better versions built into Win7: re-install windows 7

The current free Partition Wizard no longer has this ability (the paid version does).
I have given the OP links to the relevant tutorial and my instructions on how you can do this (dynamic to basic conversion) with the current version by changing the type ID from 0x42 (dynamic) back to 0x07 (basic).
Then the unallocated should be combined to get back the original 4 primary partitions. The system partition could probably then be made logical.
I would be hesitant to delete the tools partition.

I believe the tutorial is a destructive conversion, except for Option 3 which uses free Partition Wizard to convert without destroying data. If this feature is removed from PW CD then the tute needs to be edited to reflect the change.

A System Partition cannot be made logical as an OS cannot boot from a Logical Partition.

You could back up files and a Win7 image of the HD, delete and merge the System partition's space into Win7 partition, mark it Active and then run Startup Repair 3 times to write the System boot files to Win7.

I would also try to make Recovery Disks now if you haven't made them, then test the Recov partition to see if it will run after conversion. If not, you can delete it and create a partition in all of that Unallocated space.