Merging partitions...... windows xp

[Shinnen]

Hi,
I was given a Compaq DC7600, so I thought I would try to get it going.
It works fairly well, but the HDD has two partitions ..... a 100 mb NTFS primary system and a 37 gig boot logical. I have no idea why it's configured this way.
I've been thinking that it might run better if these two partitions were amalgamated; but don't know if I should, or how I can, do it.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thanks,
...... john

 

[johnb35]

No need to worry over 100mb. Not worth it. It won't run any different either way.

 

[Shinnen]

Hi John,
And, if I decide to give it a try. Can it be done?
Thanks,
..... john

 

[beers]

Windows usually makes a 100 MB 'recovery' partition when installing.

It's generally ill-advised to remove it as you could easily end up with a non-bootable state.

For a system that old I would also suggest some form of lightweight Linux as you won't have the end-of-support issues as well as eking out a bit more performance.

 

[Shinnen]

Hi beers,
The whole thing is very confusing to me. I'm used to dealing with computers that have only one partition. Perhaps you could explain to me what's what here.
Why can't I make the partition that contains my OS the boot partition, delete the other one, and merge it into the larger one? I changed the larger one to primary from logical; but when I tried changing it to active (which is what the smaller one is now) I was told not to do it because I could render the computer unbootable. Is there a way of making the larger partition bootable?
Thanks for your patience.
..... john

 

[Troncoso]

Precautions aside, to merge partitions do the following:

1. Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management
2. Select Disk Management under the Storage category
3. Select the partition you no longer need, right-click and select "Delete Volume"
4. Select the partition you would like to enlarge, right-click and select "Extend Volume"

 

[johnb35]

Precautions aside, to merge partitions do the following:

1. Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management
2. Select Disk Management under the Storage category
3. Select the partition you no longer need, right-click and select "Delete Volume"
4. Select the partition you would like to enlarge, right-click and select "Extend Volume"

He has windows XP, which doesn't have the ability to do that in disk management.

Like I said, its only a 100mb and its not worth it to do anything with it. If it was a few gigabyte definately. The only way to fix this is backup any data, delete both partitions and reinstall the OS with only one partition.

 

[Agent Smith]

Ease us partition manager would do this. XP has the partion option I recall. Under computer management. I only had the pro version of XP though and XP 64.

Edit- I can't make Ease us one word without the forum adding this crap. ******.

 

[Shinnen]

Hi all,
JohnB is right. I cannot use Disk Management to do this. And, I have tried Ease us, but it refuse to do it too.
Alright ....... I'm going to leave if for now.
Thank you all for you help.
..... john

 

[larsch]

John is correct. The other partition will get a little bit bigger, but it will not run better.

 

[strollin]

As has been said, not worth it for the 100MB but I'm curious why you say that Ease US refused to do it.

A partition can only be expanded into unallocated space which means that you need to backup all of the data from the 2nd partition and then delete that partition. After that, you should be able to expand the C: partition to include the disk space that was previously occupied by the D: partition.

 

[Shinnen]

Hi strollin,
It's not the space so much that I'm concerned with. I felt that the computer might run better, were I to have everything on one partition. And yes, I eventually realized what you say about unallocated space and merging partitions.
So, I made the partition with my OS, D, the boot partition, deleted C and merged it with D, so that I had only one partition; but it didn't run well (there were quite a few glitches), so I put in my backup clone drive and went back to having two partitions. Now it seems to run fairly well, so I'll probably leave it as is.
..... john