Hi, Ron.
WOW! Your question generated a LOT of responses! Sadly, few of them are
helpful and many are just plain wrong. There is so much MIS-information in
the thread that I don't have time to try to respond to all of it.
Perhaps your use of Kubuntu created some problem that I've never seen
because I've never installed any version of Linux.
You didn't tell us HOW you created the partition for Kubuntu. Did you use
Disk Management for that? Or did you use some tool that came with Kubuntu?
You also didn't tell us HOW you deleted that partition. Did you use Disk
Management for that job?
Since I have no experience with Kubuntu, I'm only guessing. But my guess is
that you should have used a Linux tool to undo that partition and restore
the pre-Kubuntu configuration.
message saying there is isn't enough space to delete it.
This does not make sense to me. Disk Management should not need any space
to delete a volume. This reinforces my feeling that some Linux tool has
written unfamiliar data into critical partition management areas on the hard
drive.
In my earlier reply I said, "In Disk Management, click Help | Help Topics |
Disk Management Welcome for lots of good information that most computer
users never get around to learning." This morning I took another look in
that Help file. They’ve CHANGED IT! Much of the good information has been
deleted or summarized to the point of near-uselessness. :>( Many of the
important and helpful details have been removed. I'm not sure when this
happened, perhaps in Vista SP1 a couple of months ago.
The Help file now points us to the DISKPART utility, reached from the
Command Line. DISKPART will do the job, all right, but it is far too
powerful a tool for the average user. Any tool this powerful can do at
least as much harm as good when used carelessly or by someone without
experience in its quirks. For instance, the first time I used it to extend
a volume by 3 GB of the contiguous 8 GB Free Space, I entered "3" when it
asked "how much?" - and got the whole 8 GB. THEN I read that said to
specify in MB not GB - and that an invalid entry (3 MB should have been 3000
MB) would cause Extend to use the whole available space.
At the risk of extending this already too-long thread, let me quote from
DISKPART Help:
<paste>
C:\Windows\system32>diskpart
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6001
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: RC-PC
DISKPART> help
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6001
ACTIVE - Mark the selected basic partition as active.
ADD - Add a mirror to a simple volume.
ASSIGN - Assign a drive letter or mount point to the selected volume.
ATTRIBUTES - Manipulate volume or disk attributes.
AUTOMOUNT - Enable and disable automatic mounting of basic volumes.
BREAK - Break a mirror set.
CLEAN - Clear the configuration information, or all information, off
the
disk.
CONVERT - Convert between different disk formats.
CREATE - Create a volume or partition.
DELETE - Delete an object.
DETAIL - Provide details about an object.
EXIT - Exit DiskPart.
EXTEND - Extend a volume.
FILESYSTEMS - Display current and supported file systems on the volume.
FORMAT - Format the volume or partition.
GPT - Assign attributes to the selected GPT partition.
HELP - Display a list of commands.
IMPORT - Import a disk group.
INACTIVE - Mark the selected basic partition as inactive.
LIST - Display a list of objects.
ONLINE - Online an object that is currently marked as offline.
OFFLINE - Offline an object that is currently marked as online.
RECOVER - Refreshes the state of all disks in the selected pack.
Attempts recovery on disks in the invalid pack, and
resynchronizes mirrored volumes and RAID5 volumes
that have stale plex or parity data.
REM - Does nothing. This is used to comment scripts.
REMOVE - Remove a drive letter or mount point assignment.
REPAIR - Repair a RAID-5 volume with a failed member.
RESCAN - Rescan the computer looking for disks and volumes.
RETAIN - Place a retained partition under a simple volume.
SAN - Display or set the SAN policy for the currently booted OS.
SELECT - Shift the focus to an object.
SETID - Change the partition type.
SHRINK - Reduce the size of the selected volume.
UNIQUEID - Displays or sets the GUID partition table (GPT) identifier or
master boot record (MBR) signature of a disk.
DISKPART> help extend
Extends the volume or partition with focus and its file system into free
(unallocated) space on a disk.
Syntax: EXTEND [SIZE=<N>] [DISK=<N>] [NOERR]
EXTEND FILESYSTEM [NOERR]
SIZE=<N> Specifies the amount of space in megabytes (MB) to add to
the
current volume or partition. If no size is given, all of the
contiguous free space that is available on the disk is used.
DISK=<N> Specifies the disk on which the volume or partition is
extended. If no disk is specified, the volume or partition
is
extended on the current disk.
FILESYSTEM Extends the file system of the volume with focus. For use
only
on disks where the file system was not extended with the
volume.
NOERR For scripting only. When an error is encountered, DiskPart
continues to process commands as if the error did not occur.
Without the NOERR parameter, an error causes DiskPart to
exit
with an error code.
On basic disks, the free space must be on the same disk as the volume or
partition with focus. It must also immediately follow the volume or
partition with focus (start at the next sector offset).
On dynamic disks with simple or spanned volumes, a volume can be
extended
to any free space on any dynamic disk. Using this command, you can
convert
a simple dynamic volume into a spanned dynamic volume.
If the partition was previously formatted with the NTFS file system, the
file system is automatically extended to fill the larger partition. No
data
loss occurs. If the partition was previously formatted with a different
file system than NTFS, the command fails with no change to the
partition.
If the partition was not previously formatted with a file system, the
partition will still be extended.
A volume or partition must be selected for this operation to succeed.
Example:
EXTEND SIZE=500 DISK=3
EXTEND FILESYSTEM
</paste>
As I said, Ron, it's a powerful tool, so use it with care!
RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)
