Vista Partitioning - Creating a new Volume

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Guest

Hello, I need some help with creating a partition from within my unallocated
region. I first successfully shrunk my “C†drive, and then followed these
steps:
1/ Then right-clicked an unallocated region on your hard disk, which is
43.96 GB, and then click New Simple Volume.
2/ In the New Simple Volume Wizard, I clicked Next.
3/ In Specify Volume Size I have a Max disk space of 45,019 MB – I specified
5,000 MB in Simple volume size.
4/ I accepted the letter drive “Fâ€.
5/ In Format Partition I accepted “Format this volume with the following
settings†of - File system: NTFS, Allocation unit size: Default, and Volume
label: New Volume.
6/ The next window of: “Completing the New Simple Volume Wizard†states “You
have successfully completed the New Simple Volume Wizard.â€
7/ I click “Finish†and a Dish Management window opens and states: “There is
not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks
 
Assuming no other partitions on the drive other than C:

Accept the default 45,019 MB and create the partition.
Then, resize the partition to 5,000 MB.

(You should not have to do it this way.)
Are you sure that C: resized? Or, is it simply in a queue to be resized?
 
I accepted the default of 43.96 GB and remaining defaults and still get the
window “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this
operation."
 
Jill, I don't know what this means, but I have the following five sections in
Disk 0:
1/ 55 MB Healthy (EISA Configuration)
2/ Recovery (D:) 10.00 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
3/ OS (C:) 55.77 GB NTFS Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash
Dump, Primary Partition)
4/ 43.96 GB Unallocated
5/ 2.00 GB Healthy (Primary Partition)
All the above sections are color coded Blue indicating a Primary partition,
except for the Unallocated section which is color coded Black confirming that
it is unallocated.
Thanks
 
Bob,

Hard disks have a limit of 4 primary partitions per disk. Even though you've
got unallocated space, you've already got 4 partitions--EISA, Recovery, OS,
and your 2GB Primary Partition. It's unfortunate that the error message is
not helpful here--I've bugged this after multiple people reported this.

You're not going to be able to add another partition unless you delete one
of your existing ones. What is #5 below? It's only 2 GB. If you can move
that content to another partition and then delete it, you'll be able to
create a 4th partition.

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Want to learn more about Windows file and storage technologies? Visit our
team blog at http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/default.aspx.
 
Jill Zoeller said:
Bob,

Hard disks have a limit of 4 primary partitions per disk. Even though you've
got unallocated space, you've already got 4 partitions--EISA, Recovery, OS,
and your 2GB Primary Partition. It's unfortunate that the error message is
not helpful here--I've bugged this after multiple people reported this.

You're not going to be able to add another partition unless you delete one
of your existing ones. What is #5 below? It's only 2 GB. If you can move
that content to another partition and then delete it, you'll be able to
create a 4th partition.

--
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Want to learn more about Windows file and storage technologies? Visit our
team blog at http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/default.aspx.
Click to expand...
 
Jill,

Sorry, this should have been the contents of my previous "attempted" posting
on the 30th. I am not sure what #5 is, this notebook is new and as far as I
remember, it came configured this way, except for #4, which I attempted to
add.
I tried to delete #4, but the option to delete is not available in the drop
down menu. How can I remove this partition?

Thanks,
Bob
 
Bob, it must be a special type of partition created by the OEM. Can you tell
if there is data on it? There are some types of partitions that have their
Delete command disabled. I wouldn't recommend forcing a deletion until you
know for certain what the partition contains.
 
Jill, I’m sorry if I confused you. The volume that I can not delete is the
new one (#4) created after I shrank the “OS (C)†volume to make room for
another partition. I did not know that the additional partition would make
and exceed a limit of four. Even if I had known that there is a
four-partition limit, I thought that I only had two because I only saw two,
OS (C) & Recovery (D), when I looked at the Computer in Windows Explorer.
The Windows Explorer window does not show the 2.00 GB partition (#5 below),
so I don’t know if it contains any data. I am so confused and I hope that
the above is clear to you.

The computer management window still shows the following.

1/ 55 MB Healthy (EISA Configuration)
2/ Recovery (D:) 10.00 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
3/ OS (C:) 55.77 GB NTFS Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash
Dump, Primary Partition)
4/ 43.96 GB Unallocated
5/ 2.00 GB Healthy (Primary Partition)

All the above partitions are Primary partitions as indicated by a blue
highlight, except for #4, which has a black highlight. The only active
options/actions that I can perform (from the right-click drop down menu) are:
New Simple Volume, Properties and Help. No delete option/action is available.

Would a restore point undo the changes I made? Unfortunately, I did not
make one, but there is a restore point in the system that appears was
automatically established, and by the time stamp appears to have been prior
to my changes.

Thanks again,
Bob
 
Hi Bob,

You definitely have 4 partitions on your disk. Two of them don't have drive
letters, #1 and #5, but they are still partitions. #4 is just empty space
(unallocated) so it's not technically a partition and you can't store data
there.

OEMs create "special" partitions for various purposes (such as storing
restoration data should you need to restore). Unless you looked at the
Computer Management screen, you'd have no idea those partitions exist
because they don't have drive letters. Prior to Vista, OEMs (typically)
created one of those special partitions and then a data partition. Nowadays
though they seem to be creating 2 or 3 partitions that aren't usable by the
user. This would be fine if there were no way to shrink your data partition
in hopes of adding another one, but you've hit a situation where you have
the unallocated space available that you can't create a partition in thanks
to all those other partitions that are of no use to your data.

I wouldn't recommend deleting #1, #2, and since we don't know what's on #5
then it might be dangerous to delete this. There might be others here who
are braver than I am who would still try this. (And since the snap-in won't
let you delete it, you'd need to get creative about deleting it in the first
place.) You could try calling the OEM of your computer and asking about that
2GB partition.

The only simple solution I see for you right now is to extend your OS
partition back to its original size so that you don't have 44 GB of unusable
space. A restore point won't roll back your disk changes.

The Disk Management team has seen your feedback and the posts from others
who have encountered the same situation. I hope that we can at least improve
the error message for SP1.

Would you be willing to send me a screenshot of your Computer Management
screen? I'd love to have this picture to illustrate to the team what's
happening. You can remove "online" from my email address to contact me.
 
Jill, I tried sending the screenshot to (e-mail address removed) and it
came back undelivered. Please send your addy to (e-mail address removed)
Bob
 
I was under the impression that a Basic Disk could include a max of 4
partitions, of which 3 can be Primary and 1 Extended, and that the Extended
partition could be further subdivided into as many as 2000 logical disks that
behave exactly like a primary partition with separate drive letters. So how
do we take the Unallocated Space and turn it into an Extended Partition for
futher subdividing?

-jv
 
jvit said:
I was under the impression that a Basic Disk could include a max of 4
partitions, of which 3 can be Primary and 1 Extended, and that the
Extended
partition could be further subdivided into as many as 2000 logical disks
that
behave exactly like a primary partition with separate drive letters. So
how
do we take the Unallocated Space and turn it into an Extended Partition
for
futher subdividing?
Click to expand...

It can't be done from the GUI. It can be from an elevated command using the
diskpart command.
 
Too bad they don't tell you these things! I'm in the same boat as
"Bob".....with a C: that has the OS, D: that's a Dell created Backup drive,
E: that's has the original Dell factory settings on my pc, and an un-named
EISA volume that's for who knows what. All are color coded as primary
partitions, but only the lettered drives actually say "primary" in the
dialog. The EISA has no options but "Help" when Rt clicked.

Wouldn't one of those have to be an extended volume.............probably the
EISA no-name?

-jvit
 
jvit said:
Too bad they don't tell you these things! I'm in the same boat as
"Bob".....with a C: that has the OS, D: that's a Dell created Backup
drive,
E: that's has the original Dell factory settings on my pc, and an un-named
EISA volume that's for who knows what. All are color coded as primary
partitions, but only the lettered drives actually say "primary" in the
dialog. The EISA has no options but "Help" when Rt clicked.

Wouldn't one of those have to be an extended volume.............probably
the
EISA no-name?
Click to expand...


Look at Acronis Disk Director Suite version 10. It works fine in Vista.
Newegg.com has it at $31.99, and then one day offered a $10 off from that
price special, so the final was $21.99 plus $4.99 shipping. The price from
Acronis is $49.99.
 
Thanx for the lead on Acronis. Here's one for you to checkout:
www.scottsnewsletter.com April, 2007, Volume 7, Issue 90 reviews the
compatibility of various partitioning software with vista. Partition Magic
and Partition Commander both come out zero; Acronis build 2160 works but with
serious problems; Paragon Disk Director 10 came out the best in the author's
opinion.
 
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