I cant seem to allocate more partition space to C drive

[alazar14]

I am trying to allocate space to the C drive on the netbook I just bought. This netbook comes Windows 7 Starter edition as well as as a very annoying partition on the hard drive.

The hard drive on this netbook is divided into 2 different partitions. C and D.

I went into the administrative tools and disc management program where it shows the 3 partitions.

1 is partition C with 100GB of space and the system stuff in it.

Then there is a 15GB healthy primary partition sitting there in the middle for some reason.

Then the Disc D with 117.86 GB of space completely empty.

What I tried to do was to shrink disc D into like 10GB and leave 107 GB of unallocated space. Then I right clicked on disc C and the option for "extend volume...was not letting me extend the damn volume -_-" however when I did the same thing on disc D Extend volume it let me re- put the 107GB I made into unallocated space.

Similarly if i split disc C and make some of it by shrinking volume unallocated space I can re attach it but only to disc C.....how do I add all of the space in Disc D to disc C so I can just have 1 HDD...or better yet, how do I simply make Disc D 10GB and the rest of the space placed on disc C....also what is the purpose of a 15GB "Healthy primary partition..if I already have all the windows data on disc C.. however when I open the my computer screen, I only have it showing Disc C and disc D...


I hope I made sense about my problem. I wanted to put up pictures to make it easier to understand but I dont know how to add pictures to this post on this forum from my netbook.

hope you guys can help me plz ^_^

 

[Phone Man]

You can only extend a partition into unallocated space that is adjacent to the partition you want to expand. If you have a partition between C and D then it needs to be moved so you have unallocated space next to C.

I use BEST FREE Partition Manager Software for Windows supports all 32-bit & 64 bit Windows No-server OS.
which works great.

I think that 15GB partition may be a recovery partition.
Also to post pictures just click on the "paper clip" and follow the download prompts.

Jim

 

[alazar14]

This really confused me equally as much...I guess my question is how in the world do I move partition D next to partition C...if that other partition of 15Gb is in between it..I tried to combine partition D and then the 15GB into a single one...to then maybe some how transfer some of the GB to partition C but it doesnt let me add to partition 15GB that has no name (Which is prob recovery)...
basically this is how it looks

Partition C 100gb /Mystery 15GB partition)/ Partition D. 117gb

That program doesn't help me much if I cant find a way to make partition C accept the open space I make from partition D...heck I even went as far as making all of partition D nothing more than unallocated space but that did not work either..

 

[ignatzatsonic]

The mystery partition is undoubtedly a recovery partition put there by the manufacturer.

As it sits now you can't expand C or D with Windows own tools. Phone Man linked you to the best tool for the job.

With Windows own tools, you can expand a partition ONLY into unallocated space to the IMMEDIATE right.

So if you split C, or D, you couldn't do anything with it with Windows own tool.

You could delete the recovery partition if you wanted. That would give you 15 unallocated between C and D. I think you can do that with Windows?

If you have nothing on D, you can delete it and generate more unallocated space.

You could then add the unallocated space from the mystery partition and the unallocated space from the deleted D to C

If you want to keep the reserved mystery partition, you should move it to the far left, so it is not between the current C and the current D. Then you can operate with Windows own tools.

Use the tool Phone Man linked if you want to keep the recovery partition.

 

[alazar14]

I guess I just dont know how to move it to the far left with the program..I keep dragging but nothing happens.

When i click the move button on the wizard and drag it all the way to the left it tells me this...


The last opperation will create an overlapping partition, it is a bug of minitool partition wizard. And your last operation will be cancelled.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Don't give up.

Look here:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93322-partition-wizard-use-bootable-cd.html?ltr=P



Wait for further help if you can't figure it out with the tutorial. I've never used it for your purpose.

 

[alazar14]

Sadly as this machine is a netbook It does not have a CD drive nor do I own an external drive.

secondly, the only backup that came with it is that which was installed on the netbook itself, it did not come with backup discs of any kind.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Partition Wizard comes in 2 versions: the bootable disk version and the "regular install" version.

Can you install the regular version on your netbook? Never laid eyes on one, but I assume they have drives and accept applications?

I'm not sure where that would leave you, but it might still enable you to move that partition.

 

[mjf]

This will enable you to run multiple tools including partition wizard from a single USB.
Boot Multiple ISO from USB (MultiBoot USB) | USB Pen Drive Linux
I strongly suggest you make reliable images of your netbook before attempting any partition changes.
For this situation I recommend Macrium Reflect and image every partition including the factory recovery partition. You will need an external USB HDD. Without recovery DVDs (& no DVD reader), the factory recovery partition (prob. the 15GB) is important.

Edit: Note the installed version (MiniTool) of Partition Wizard can be unreliable and you are best using the bootable version. This is the version generally recommended by members.

 

[Phone Man]

Here is the tutorial for Partition Wizard.

Resize Partition for Windows Server 2000/2003/2008 - Move/Resize Partition safely

Basically you would select the D partition and drag the left side to the right to create unallocated space to its left. Then select the 15G partition and drag the right side up against the D and then drag the left side to the right there by creating unallocated space between the C and 15G. You could also delete D making it unallocated and then drag the 15g all the way to the right.

Jim

 

[alazar14]

In here i have attached a picture with the exact issue I am encountering...maybe via visualization its easier to help me with it. In the pic i explain the problem.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Have you failed at dragging FAT 32 to the right as mentioned by Phone Man??????

 

[alazar14]

This is what happens when I do that


As you can see....there is no usable space there when I merged them together even though the invisible HDD is now 137 or so GB...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Regarding the left hand picture, 2 questions:

1 Where is your C drive in that picture?

2: is the grey space you typed into now all "unallocated space"?

Answer those 2 questions and go to Windows Disk Management and take a current snapshot of your disks, after you are temporarily done with Partition Wizard. Post those pictures.

 

[alazar14]

NEVERMIND I GOT IT WOOOT! Resize to the right like you said...then move the small partition again to the right and it puts the large free space freely bellow C drive THANKS SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR HELP! you guys rock

 

[Phone Man]

Go to the Partition Wizard and under tutorials look at copy a partition. This may let you make a new fat32 partition to the far right and then copy the existing fat32 to it. Then you can delete the old fat32. Do you have a way to backup your hard drive to an external drive before you do this.
Macrium Reflect FREE Edition - Information and download is a good image program. You can create a rescue disk from this program and then if things go south you can restore the disk to original.

I need to get some sleep but will check back tomorrow.

Jim

 

[mjf]

Playing around with your recovery partition like this with no other backup is/was very risky. If you can still do a factory recovery in the future you'll be lucky.
I have some experience here and doing a large partition (your 15GB) copy/move with the installed partition wizard is risky. I hope it works out for you.

 

[Phone Man]

Glad you got it working.

Jim

 

[gregrocker]

As Michael warns, Factory Recovery may lose its link to run from Windows and boot from Recovery key at startup. I would test each to see if Recovery will cue up to run.

Hopefully you made your Recovery disks. You can always order new ones from Tech Support, or reinstall using a clean copy OS DVD with Product Key on COA sticker.

You needed to rightclick the FAT partition to Resize, then left click hold on the partition to drag it intact to the right. Then rightclick Win7 to Resize dragging the right arrow to the right to take up the Unallocated Space.