OT: Computer question..

[asterix]

Somehow my PC has acquired a logical drive separate from the one on which the system files are stored. In effect it has bisected the hard drive and refers to the empty half as 'data'. The system half contains 'my documents' as well as programs and is too full to defragment.

I'd like to re-merge the hard drive and give back the space to the system half. There is a 'Windows' option to delete the logical drive under 'disk management' but all I know is that this will lose any data under that drive letter. Does anyone know why my hard drive was partioned into 2 halves and also whether I can simply delete the logical drive in order to regain all the space under the system drive? Data loss would not be a problem.

 

[domtyler]

Just move your data to your data partition. It is standard practice to have a separate partition for your stuff - Say your Windows install messed up in a big way and you had to reinstall the OS, you would not touch the data partition and thus it would still be there for you once you had finished your reinstall.

If you are determined to merge your partitions for some reason then you need a third party partition tool like "Partition Magic" or alternatively you can back up your data and reformat the drive and start over.

 

[woohoo]

If you really want to merge the partitions, I would also recommend using one of the partition tools like Partition Magic or the equivalents. Note that these programs sometimes appear as freebies on the discs taped to the front of computer magazines BUT check that these work with the your version of Windows e.g. Partition Magic only supports Windows versions up to XP/2000 i.e. not Vista. You could try Acronis Disk Director, which I have used successfully, if you have Vista (check they might even do a free trial download and you will only need to use it once).

If it were me, I would try domtyler's approach first and see how much space you free up on the system partition before doing anything that is potentially more risky.

 

[asterix]

Thanks for the tips - I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as it looked!