Hard Drive partitions

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I just bought a used Gateway computer from a neighbor and I've bumped into a
problem that's causing myself to ask: what the hell was this person thinking!

The Gateway contains Windows 2000 on it on a 9.52 or 10.00 Gigabyte hard
drive but the big mistake he made is that he created three other partitions
on the basic disk of the drive and the main drive C:\ where Windows stores
the software files is the one that's loosing all the storage space and the
rest are all beefed up.

I've tried to fix this problem using Disk Management in the Administrative
Tools section of the control panel and tried to see what happens by deleting
the E:\ partition. I taught the free space would go to the C:\ drive but the
computer considers it as free space.

As you can see here, what I would like do to is transfer the space of those
partitions to the C:\ drive. any help would be appreciated.

Ushnell
 
Ushnell said:
I just bought a used Gateway computer from a neighbor and I've bumped into a
problem that's causing myself to ask: what the hell was this person thinking!

The Gateway contains Windows 2000 on it on a 9.52 or 10.00 Gigabyte hard
drive but the big mistake he made is that he created three other partitions
on the basic disk of the drive and the main drive C:\ where Windows stores
the software files is the one that's loosing all the storage space and the
rest are all beefed up.

I've tried to fix this problem using Disk Management in the Administrative
Tools section of the control panel and tried to see what happens by deleting
the E:\ partition. I taught the free space would go to the C:\ drive but the
computer considers it as free space.

As you can see here, what I would like do to is transfer the space of those
partitions to the C:\ drive. any help would be appreciated.

Ushnell
Click to expand...

You will have to use third party tools to do this, it cannot be done
with any of the built-in Windows 2000 tools. Utilities like Partition
Magic, Acronis Disk Director or BootItNG can do this for you. All of
the above are commercial "pay for" utilities but Terabyte's BootItNg is
small (fits on a floppy), well proven and free to use for 30 days. You
don't need to install it to use it, you simply boot the computer with it
and at the installation screen you cancel the install and the utility
enters a maintenance mode where you will be able to do the partitioning
work.

You should be warned that while these utilities work very well and are
for most part trouble free, any glitch while doing partitioning work can
cause catastrophic data loss. A power failure while repartitioning the
drive will almost certainly lead to complete loss of all the data on the
disk, user errors can also lead to complete loss of data. Although
these complete data losses are rare, they do happen on occasion, if you
have valuable files on the disk make sure you have a backup before you
do any partitioning work!

John
 
It doesn't work that way.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289876


Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your repair install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Dave Patrick said:
It doesn't work that way.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289876


Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your repair install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Ushnell said:
I just bought a used Gateway computer from a neighbor and I've bumped into
a
problem that's causing myself to ask: what the hell was this person
thinking!

The Gateway contains Windows 2000 on it on a 9.52 or 10.00 Gigabyte hard
drive but the big mistake he made is that he created three other
partitions
on the basic disk of the drive and the main drive C:\ where Windows
stores
the software files is the one that's loosing all the storage space and the
rest are all beefed up.

I've tried to fix this problem using Disk Management in the Administrative
Tools section of the control panel and tried to see what happens by
deleting
the E:\ partition. I taught the free space would go to the C:\ drive but
the
computer considers it as free space.

As you can see here, what I would like do to is transfer the space of
those
partitions to the C:\ drive. any help would be appreciated.

Ushnell
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Ushnell said:
Dave Patrick said:
It doesn't work that way.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289876


Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your repair install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Ushnell said:
I just bought a used Gateway computer from a neighbor and I've bumped into
a
problem that's causing myself to ask: what the hell was this person
thinking!

The Gateway contains Windows 2000 on it on a 9.52 or 10.00 Gigabyte hard
drive but the big mistake he made is that he created three other
partitions
on the basic disk of the drive and the main drive C:\ where Windows
stores
the software files is the one that's loosing all the storage space and the
rest are all beefed up.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I meant Windows 2000 Professional-if that doesn't matter then I have to tell
you that it's the C:\ hard drive partition not having any sufficeint storage
space that is preventing me from installing the service pack which I already
downloaded.
 
As previously stated you can only use third party utilities, or use the
win2k cd to delete all partitions and start afresh - you will loose
everything on the hd!


Ushnell said:
Ushnell said:
Dave Patrick said:
It doesn't work that way.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289876


Be sure to apply SP4 and these two below to your repair install before
connecting to any network. Internet included. (sasser, msblast)
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/A/E6A04295-D2A8-40D0-A0C5-241BFECD095E/W2KSP4_EN.EXE
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-043.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/MS03-049.mspx

Then

Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows 2000 Service Pack 4
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...CF-8850-4531-B52B-BF28B324C662&displaylang=en



--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
I just bought a used Gateway computer from a neighbor and I've bumped
into
a
problem that's causing myself to ask: what the hell was this person
thinking!

The Gateway contains Windows 2000 on it on a 9.52 or 10.00 Gigabyte
hard
drive but the big mistake he made is that he created three other
partitions
on the basic disk of the drive and the main drive C:\ where Windows
stores
the software files is the one that's loosing all the storage space
and the
rest are all beefed up.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I meant Windows 2000 Professional-if that doesn't matter then I have to
tell
you that it's the C:\ hard drive partition not having any sufficeint
storage
space that is preventing me from installing the service pack which I
already
downloaded.
Click to expand...
 
Dave Patrick said:
Yes, I understood on both counts. Did you read the article?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Ushnell said:
I meant Windows 2000 Professional-if that doesn't matter then I have to
tell
you that it's the C:\ hard drive partition not having any sufficient
storage
space that is preventing me from installing the service pack which I
already downloaded.
Click to expand...

Yes I did Mike but there I also bumped into a obstacle. The article seems to go through steps on how to extend the hard disk partition using the 2000 cd which I don't have in my possession and another is I can't find the winnt.ifs file it stated I have to edit with Notepad to extend the primary partition. is the file named different in the Professional version or something?
Click to expand...

Ushnell
 
I appreciate your help Dave but I have to say that I took the route of using
the partition software BootItNG John John recommended in replying to this
post.

It seems that it's an extended partition that's now stealing the space of
the basic disk and the software considers it as a Master Boot Record which
makes me think if I delete it then the computer won't boot Windows 2000. is
this common?
--
Ushnell Fenell


Dave Patrick said:
Mike?

Without the install CD-Rom you won't be able to accomplish the task in this
manner. You'll need to manually create winnt.sif if you're going that route.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308662/EN-US/


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

Ushnell said:
Ushnell
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Hey there John! Thank you for referring me to using BootItNG to solve that
partition crisis I was having. I have been using it to delete those useless
partitions to merge the space of them to the C:\ drive but there's something
I need your help on if you have used BootItNG yourself. Here's the current
rundown of my partitions.

MBR ENTRY 0 Partition 9766 MB FAT-32
MBR ENTRY 1 Partition 8 MB EXTENDED
--------------- Volume 8 MB Free Space
BootIt EMBR Partition 8 MB BootIt EMBRM

As you can see, there's now only 8 megs left to allocate to the c:\ drive
but I can't seem to do it because the resize feature won't allow the size of
the extended partition to be set to 0 in space outside. one thing that I feel
warned about is if I delete the Extended partition then the volumes will be
lost which a dialog screen warns about. Is this common in using BootItNG to
edit partitions? look at the rundown above and see how you can help. Thanks!

Ushnell Fenell
 
I wouldn't bother about it too much, it's only 8 megabytes, for all
intents and purposes the C: drive already has just about the whole disk
to itself.

You can probably delete the extended partition, it is probably just an
empty container, it probably doesn't contain any logical drives. Just
boot to the Windows 2000 installation and use the Disk Management tool
to have another look at the disk, you can explore the partition and see
what it holds. If it isn't the System or Boot partition you can delete
it with the Disk Management tool.

I see that you installed BootItNG, that was not necessary. You can
uninstall it, if you don't remove it when the trial period is over it
will start to nag you every time you start the computer, at first it
will be a short nag but as time goes by the nag time will be
increasingly longer. You can do partitioning work without installing
the program, when you boot with it at the installation screen just click
on "Cancel" and the program will go to the Maintenance Mode and you will
be able to do partitioning work.

You will never be able to reclaim the last free "Volume" 8 megabytes,
Windows 2000 reserves this space for the use of Dynamic Disks.

John
 
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