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Merging drives on Win Xp pro?

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11 replies

by electronvolt

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There are six partitions on my machine viz C,D,E,F,G,and H. Windows XP professional is persent in C drive and the drives D, G and H contains some data. The remaining E and F drives are empty. In this situation how to merge the empty drives i.e E and F without disturbing the rest setup (i.e. the operating system and the data)?

11 replies

by dwightp

Hi:

We use Norton's Partition Magic 8 to do the same thing on three machines here. Worked great and allows for what you are looking to do.

Hope this helps.

Dwight

by softcorp.us

Hello,

I agree about using Partition Magic and I have had many good experiences with it. But...

Before you attempt to use Partiition Magic, be sure you have a complete backup of all of the partitions on your drive. Sometimes an error occurs and Partition Magic cannot complete the operation. If that occurs, you will lose everything.

-----Steve Jackson

CEO/CSA
Software Corporation (Softcorp)
http://www.softcorp.us/probono
Advanced pro bono tools and utilities free for personal use

by softcorp.us

Regarding "If the partition magic (Norton 8) is used, then is it possible to merge two non-adjacent drives?"

Answer: No. Partition Magic can merge two adjacent partitions on the same drive only. It cannot merge two partitions on different drives.

by thechas

Just a side note:

Answer 1 is correct that Partition Magic or a similar partition manager utility is required.

However, it is ALWAYS best practice to back up your data prior to revising the partition structure on your hard drive.

While partition managers work well, now and then an error occurs and data can be lost.

Chas

by electronvolt

If the partition magic (Norton 8) is used, then is it possible to merge two non-adjacent drives?

by chaosad

All the above are correct, always backup your data before you begin any task where data is to be at risk, partitioning software is great to minimize tasks and reconfigure as an after thought.
HOwever if you cannot purchase thirdparty software, XP Pro has some built in capabilities that may or may not be of use to you.

1st Backup all Drives, 2nd convert all drives to NTFS if they are not already 3rd convert all drives to Dynamic Disks, 4th you can now either begin creating mounting expanding volumes or extending volumes.
For the full details of how to perform these functions go to microsofts website and perform a search on dynamic disks, mounting, extending, expanding and spanning volumes.

I hope this helps.

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