Hard drive space (after deleting partitions) ???

[j4mes_bond25]

After managing to format the hard-drive & then installing Windows XP Professional quite successfully, I wonder that BEFORE all this set-up, my cousin had partition on her hard-drive:

C: 8 GB
H (software): 2 GB
G (music): 12 GB
L (songs): 10 GB

or something along these figures. When we deleted all the other partition, I remember there was a mention of around 38,000 Mb of space i.e. 38 GB. Earlier, I had a feeling that hard-drive is ONLY 8 GB (when simply checking the C but at this stage, I realised that the actual hard-drive was around 38 GB splitted into different partition.

After the XP installed successfully, we went to "My Computer" & could see C: drive, A: drive, G: drive for DVD Rom & H: drive for CD Writer. When clicked on C: & properties, we could ONLY see 8 GB of total space, out of which 1.5 GB was taken, due to Windows XP installed & remaining was free space.

This means that we still have the SAME sized i.e. 8 GB hard-drive as before, EVEN AFTER deleting the partion (whereby each partition had its own allocated space, as mentioned above). Wonder why is it only 8 GB space on C: as opposed to around 38 GB ??? Shouldn't it be 38 GB of total space on C: drive ???

 

[ceewi1]

Perhaps you deleted the old partition without allocating the space to your primary partition? To check your drive in XP, go to Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management. If the drive shows unallocated space that's probably your problem. You can't change it here without destroying your data, if you want to increase the size of the partition you'll need to either get a program like Partition Magic which can change the size of the partition without destroying data, or reinstall XP, and while doing so, delete the old partition and create a new, larger, one. Alternatively, you can just create a new, secondary partition in Disk Management.

 

[j4mes_bond25]

ceewi1 !!!

Perhaps you deleted the old partition without allocating the space to your primary partition? To check your drive in XP, go to Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management. If the drive shows unallocated space that's probably your problem. You can't change it here without destroying your data, if you want to increase the size of the partition you'll need to either get a program like Partition Magic which can change the size of the partition without destroying data, or reinstall XP, and while doing so, delete the old partition and create a new, larger, one. Alternatively, you can just create a new, secondary partition in Disk Management.

As far as I remember, I was able to see all the partition BEFORE installing Windows (after the Windows booting from CD) on the "blue" screen with white text (just to get you the exact picture), there was NO option which asked me IF I wished to allocate the deleted partition's space to the primary partition. When the C: drive was formatting, it showed 38,000 MB at the top of the "progress" bar (showing the progress of C: drive formatting).

I can't see any drive other than the basic A: (floppy disk drive), C: (primary hard disk), G: (DVD ROM drive) & H: (CD-RW drive), in "My Computer" option & as the Windows XP is freshly installed, there's NO data on PC to lost/destroy.

I wouldn't mind reinstalling the XP, however, unlike last time, I need to know as how exactly can I NOT JUST delete the partition (which I managed to do, earlier) BUT ALSO being able to allocate space to the primary drive (C.

Thanks for your help in understanding the problem & wonder if you could enlighten me bit towards how do I go about simply allocating all the available space of the hard-drive to the primary drive (C

 

[ceewi1]

Sure. First make sure that this is the problem by checking disk management! If the drive shows unallocated space, boot from your XP CD and delete all partitions including the C:. Then create a new partition that is the entire 38GB and install Windows on this new partition.