Deleted partition with disk management, can't get it back!

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Guest

Setup:
1 harddrive, 3 partitions: C(80GB)-vista, D(20GB)-xp, E(200GB)-storage

I decided I didn't want xp partition anymore so I used disk management in
Vista to delete the volume. It shows up as "Free space" now. When I attempt
to make a new simple volume in the free space (also using disk management) I
get error "There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete
this operation." What's up with that? Please help me get my 20GB back!

PS - I've tried extending my storage partition but it says there's not
volume to extend it to (diskpart)
 
So I just tired to repartition while booting off the Vista CD, but when I
went to make a new partition with the unallocated space, I got this error
"error 0x8004240f". Did vista just screw up my hard drive?
 
You did not typo the error code. I apologize for my misstatement.

Disk management gave me an error when I tried to format
raw space (green bar) rather than unallocated space (black bar).
Which do you have - raw or unallocated? If raw, delete it, create
a simple volume and format it. Delete again until you get back
to unallocated, then extend into the space from either side.
 
It is raw (green bar) but I am unable to delete it again. When I right click
on the block the only option I get is "New Simple Volume". "New Spanned
Volume", "New Striped Volume", and "Delete Partition" are grayed out.

The disk is a "Basic" disk. Does this make a difference? If it has to be
dynamic, is there any disadvantage to converting my only disk (holds OS and
storage) into a dynamic disk?
 
Your objective is to turn it into unallocated space. I don't know why
"delete partition" is grayed out - it wasn't for me. The partition should
not be marked boot or system if it's raw, but XP had files in there.
Maybe Vista is protecting its bootup, secretly living on D:? When
you select New Simple Volume do you get the error immediately?
Is there time to select *against* a drive letter and file system? Does
that complete, resulting in raw space? Then does delete work?

Since dynamic disks are complicated, and you want simple, I don't
think you want dynamic but I can't advise because I haven't tried them.

If it's still stuck there, try diskpart from a command prompt:
Start Search
cmd
diskpart
help
list disk
select disk # (where # is probably zero)
list partition
select partition # (where # is your target 20G)
(Try "delete partition" without using the "override" parameter)
delete partition
(If that doesn't work, use the "override" parameter)
delete partition override
quit

*Make sure* to put in the correct partition number in when you select it.

You might have to DVD repair the Vista boot.
 
When I select make a new simple partition, I can get all the way though the
prompts (selecting size, drive letter, format option, summary etc.) but when
I click finish that's when I get the "out of space" error i reported in my
first post. So it never completes and the space is still "Free Space" and
never changes. Delete is never an option except for the very first time when
I deleted it when it was still an XP partition.

I tried using the diskpart command line prompt and I still cannot do it
because the 20GB of free space doesn't even show up when I do a list
partition. When I do list disk, it does show my disk and say that there is
20GB of free space though. List partition just shows my Vista and storage
partitions. It just seems like that 20GB of free space is lost.

I also attempted to use the Vista boot CD to repartition it, but I got that
error that I reported in my second post.

Is my 20GB lost forever? =(
 
Have you tried to partition it using a small initial space, say 2 gig. Use
quick format. You can try to expand the partition later.
 
Yes, I have attempted creating a 10GB and 1GB partition in the 20GB free
space, same errors =(.
 
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