hard disk space

[ekÆsine]

rookie if you want to make a logical drive you must first create an extended partition to contain the logical drives. do you already have an extended partition created? if yes, that could mean an error. if no than make it and you will have the option to create the logical.

fdisk can be used with winxp to make partitions, but you still have to format with winxp if you want to use NTFS. if you make a primary partition from the free space instead of a logical drive it will not be a big problem.

 

[rookie1010]

yes, i have a extended partition which contains 3 logical drives. this shows up on disk management too.

can you have two primary paritions in one logical drive then?

 

[rookie1010]

the unused bytes are in fact displayed as unallocated bytes (21 gigs of them), and they are not shown within the extended partition

 

[ekÆsine]

primary partitions are not created inside logical drives or extended partitions. have you gone into disk management and right-clicked on the free space and selected "create new partition"? is this when the error comes up?

you are using what is called a basic MBR master boot record disk. a basic disk can have up to 4 primary partitions or 3 primary and one extended partition with up to 23 logical drives contained inside the extended.

so yes you still have room for 2 more primary partitions assuming you only have 1 primary now.

 

[rookie1010]

the unused space was located outside the extended parition, i have converted it into a 2nd primary partition.
thanks dude

if i want to combine partitions using partition magic, can i combine a logical drive and a primary partition, what would the combined paritition be afterwards, a primary partition or a logical drive?

i think it would be a primary partition, but then again i wont bet my precious cents on it.

 

[rookie1010]

the new primary partition also says New Volume instead of Local Disk, what is the difference?

 

[ekÆsine]

oops sorry thats right rookie. since your free space wasn't part of the extended partition you can't make it into a logical drive. what i would do is delete the 21GB primary and allow partition magic to just merge the free space into the extended partition or merge into a logical drive. i would backup data on the partitions being merged, sometimes PM messes things up so be very careful.


-edit
you can just change the volume label, i think if you delete the name and hit OK it will default back to "local disk"

 

[rookie1010]

how about using windows setup to do that, i have got another (logical partition) which is totally unused. do you think it is wise to get windows setup to first delete the two paritions and then create a unified one partition(would that be a logical partition ?)