No. What you see is a logical drive.
The hard drive can have no more than three primary partitions so the fourth will become a logical partition.
I see you have some allocated space towards the right of the logical drive so you can go into disk management and extend the partition to take up the slack.
Anyway, pleased we got your problem sorted. Satisfied customers is what WSF is all about. :)
You should be able to delete D in Disk Management to recreate it as a Primary Partition. I am not sure why it became Logical since you only have one other partition on the HD - unless you chose that using a partition manager.
After deleting it but before creating the new one, rightclick on D and change it's drive letter to E. Then you can create a new D partition on DISK0 next to C.
Partition or Volume - Delete - Windows 7 Forums
Partition or Volume - Create New - Windows 7 Forums
You guys are the best!! Thanks!!
Questions: The "D" drive was an existing secondary hard drive, and contains a LOT of important data. I do not want to lose that by messing with the drive letters... so, should I back up it's entire contents prior to doing what you're suggesting? Any danger there? Thanks.
I guess I'm confused on this point.... the D drive is just a secondary hard drive for data storage... isn't that how all hard drives are listed.... as a Basic, Primary Partition like it shows in my screen shot?
Yes, back up your data before changing drive letter - it should be backed up anyway.
Basic refers to type of Disk vs. Dynamic which allows spanning partitions across disks.
Primary partition allows installation of an OS' boot files, although since you're allowed three Primaries before it creates a Logical Extended (to add as many sub-partitions as you want) it is fine for just data storage.
You can leave the partitioning alone if you want, but since you asked to change D to Disk0, and possibly still need to delete the rest of XP off of E, I gave you the steps to do all of this at once.
Data loss is never very pleasant and if I were you I'd seriously consider getting an external drive to backup your data drive.
I've just shelled out £80 ($120) for one that has password protection, 1TB of storage space, automatic incremental backups, USB3 transfer speed and goes to sleep when my computer does......peace of mind, you can't put a price on it.
If you choose to change the drive letter you can do without risking your data.
Last edited by seavixen32; 04 May 2011 at 14:21.
Thanks guys....
I do have an external backup - I know what you mean about losing data!
How do I merge the 9mb of unallocated space with the E partition shown in my Disk Manager screen shot?
Also... I looked on the E drive and don't see any files whatsoever after I right/click and deleted the 'Windows' folder I had on it. Are they somehow 'hidden' on the drive? I don't want to remove that partition if I don't have to. Thanks.
Just extend E into the space: Partition or Volume - Extend
Why do you not want to delete E to make sure everything from XP is gone? As I stated before, deleting the Windows folder is NOT how uninstalling an OS is done except in rare circumstances which require more surgery.
Simply delete the partition and create a new one in Disk Mgmt. Swap the driver letters if still desired.
Ok... I'll do that.... just was concerned that if I deleted that partition it might affect the Windows 7 installed on the C drive... but that's probably not the case?
Thanks a ton again, for your willingness to help....
Deleting the old XP partition in no way can affect Win7 unless it holds the System Active boot files - which is why I asked you to post the screenshot. It is good to GO>
Glad to help. Stop by anytime.
Thanks Gregrocker.... I will do it - appreciate your patience. Rock on!
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