How can I delete partition on my hard disk?

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swee'pea99

Legendary Member
Some of the older fellows hereabouts may remember helping me get my new (old) hard disk up & running, via installing ubuntu. Many thanks to all. It worked a treat. For various reasons, tho', I'm back on Windows XP.

The only problem is that in the course of the linux detour, I created a new partition on my hard drive, and now I can't seem to get rid of it. It just sits there holding onto a third of my very limited disk space, resisting all boarders.

Disk management shows it looking like this (it's the 13.09 bit):

atm14y.jpg


And when I followed the instructions to delete it using command line, I ended up looking at this:

rhs8ja.jpg


Any gurus out there have any ideas?
 
[quote name='swee'pea99']Some of the older fellows hereabouts may remember helping me get my new (old) hard disk up & running, via installing ubuntu. Many thanks to all. It worked a treat. For various reasons, tho', I'm back on Windows XP.

The only problem is that in the course of the linux detour, I created a new partition on my hard drive, and now I can't seem to get rid of it. It just sits there holding onto a third of my very limited disk space, resisting all boarders.

Disk management shows it looking like this (it's the 13.09 bit):

atm14y.jpg


And when I followed the instructions to delete it using command line, I ended up looking at this:

rhs8ja.jpg


Any gurus out there have any ideas?[/QUOTE]

As a super-quick answer; without looking too closely at your details, you've already deleted the partition which is why you have so much 'free space'. All you need do now is resize it away?
 

Carwash

Señor Member
Location
Visby
To clarify what SavageHoutkop said: you have removed the partition. What you're looking at there is unpartitioned free space.

In anticipation of your next question: As far as I know, Windows will not allow you to losslessly extend an existing partition to use up free space. Third party disk partitioning software may allow this though. You're probably better off partitioning the free space as a separate NTFS volume and using it for data.
 
And, also, Linux doesn't use NTFS by default, so Windows might not know what it's looking at.
Can't you resize partitions in the windows setup phase (i.e. if you insert the Windows CD and reboot?)

(It's been a very long while!!)
 
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swee'pea99

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
Blimey, that was quick! Thanks chaps. Ok, from the top...

All you need do now is resize it away?


Um, I've right-clicked and checked all the options I can find on the top menu and I can't find a 'resize' one anywhere. It sounds ideal - ie, resize it to 10mb, allowing the usable space to expand from 23.5 to 36.5 - but I can't see how I can do that.

You can extend XP volumes via diskpart, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/325590, however boot volumes normally fail.

Sorry, but does this mean I could 'extend' my usable 23Gb up to 36 using diskpart? And what does 'boot volumes normally fail' mean?

You're probably better off partitioning the free space as a separate NTFS volume and using it for data

Does this mean turning it into Drive F, or whatever, and using it to park stuff?

Can't you resize partitions in the windows setup phase (i.e. if you insert the Windows CD and reboot?)

Don't know. Can't remember that being an option, but...

I do like the sound of 'resizing it away' as my first option. Any more guidance on that would be much appreciated.
 
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swee'pea99

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
I think I just found out what 'boot volumes normally fail' means...

"Note In Windows XP and in Windows 2000, you cannot use Diskpart.exe to extend a simple volume on a Dynamic disk that was originally created on a Basic disk. You can extend only simple volumes that were created after the disk was upgraded to Dynamic disk. If you try to extend a simple volume on a Dynamic disk that was originally created on a Basic disk, you receive the following error message.

Diskpart failed to extend the volume.
Please make sure the volume is valid for extending
 
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swee'pea99

swee'pea99

Legendary Member
Done. Ta all.
 
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