hardrive 4 times when only 2 physical

[epsos]

hi

i have 2 hardrives on my computer

but when i start up it show 4 drives and then sayes low disc space

runnin xp pro sp2

how can i resolve this back to two hardrives

[Catweazle]

Each hard drive must be split into 2 partitions, or one drive might be split into w partitions.

Please report more information.

What are the sizes of the two actual physical drives?

What are the drive letters and sizes of the drives as reported in 'My computer'?

Which drive has Windows installed on it, and what is the available space on that one please?

[epsos]

okay thankyou

the drives are 60g each well th etwo physical ones then there is 2 more the letters are c,d,e,f, c has 20g b has 20g c has 20g and d has 60 how do i make them repartioned into two windows xp is installed ion c and wen i install anythink else it says memeroy full

hmm

[epsos]

do you reakon its been partionied forur time would a reinstall of window wipe em off

[caperjack]

do you reakon its been partionied forur time would a reinstall of window wipe em off

No a reinstall will not repartition the drive ,you will need to use windows Fdisk or a 3 party software like Partition Magic .
this site will help. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q255867

[epsos]

so would i have 2 join lall my hadrive back together if u get me in a lame begginers way

[Catweazle]

To 'join it back together' without losing your Windows installation, your programs and all your data you will need to use a commercial program. There are no free ones that are good enough for the job.

You don't need to join them back together anyway. you're only running out of room because you are allowing everything to go to the smaller Windows partition.

I'll give instructions for moving 'My Documents' and your installed programs to one of the other partitions a bit later (when I've got the time to do so) and that would 'fix' your problem for you ;)

[epsos]

o so wen i want to install anythink i choose a differeent drive okay i get u now but it seems stupid that ive seperated everything

[Kamex]

If I am currect, only one hard drive is split up?

When you set up XP, during one of the steps, it says "To Delete the Selected Partition, Press D" or something of that nature. You can use this to delete all of the partitions on the split drive before reinstalling the operating system on that drive. When you install XP on unpartitioned space, it creates a partition that basically fills the entire hard drive (I think it leaves a tiny insignificant amount left over). Since the other drive isn't split, you don't have to do anything in it.

Of course, this requires reinstallation of the operating system. If that's what you're willing to do to get rid of that, I don't blame you. :)

Edit: Heavily modified to correct misunderstanding.

[Catweazle]

Umm.....

You didn't explain that what you describe eliminates all programs and data files on the drive ;)

[Kamex]

Dwoopies! Thanks for pointing that out. :p

Yea, you'll want to back up your data before you do this, because this creates a new partition, all data on the old partitions will be gone. The data on the second hard drive should not be affected, but don't count on it. You could always hit the wrong thing/other problems. You should back up valuable data to a read-writable CD.

I have my drive divided up too, and it's rather annoying. Next time I reformat, I'm getting rid of one of them, but I want to keep the 2gb c: I have because I'm duel-booting DOS and XP.

[Catweazle]

Like I said, I'll give a fuller explanation later (tomorrow), and I apologise for the delay. I don't think you have a problem, merely a rather good drive partition structure that you don't really understand or know how to use yet :)

[Catweazle]

OK, got some time to attend to this.

Right, having Windows on a smaller partition of its own is a benefit. Things can remain uncluttered, it's far easier to keep your Windows installation defragmented, cleaned up and operating much more efficiently. Depending on the things you store on your system, and the amount of space they require, you can choose whether to have all your data files on a partition of their own or on multiple partitions organised according to type of data.

Having your data files on a different partition to your Windows installation means that if things screw up, you only need to format the system partition and you don't lose all your data files!

I'd suggest moving 'My Documents' to its own drive, dedicating a partition solely for use of installed programs, and working out your needs for what you want stored and where its best to keep it. Afterwards, you only need check and make a slight change occasionally when you save files, just as you do anyway to allocate them to folders.

You'll find instructions for moving 'My Documents' and your installed programs in this article.

[Packet.22]

You can try to do this i think this will repartition the Hard Disks with out hitting windows if you only kill the logical drives and dont mess with the phsical and once you get ride of the logical drive partitiones you will them have all that space on the physical....

1. Right click "my computer"
2. Left click "manage"
3. Look on the left colunm and then click on disk managment
4. There on the right side sould show you a list of all your physical and logical drives
5. Just remove all the logical and leave the physical ones there and that should fix it.

Logical = Software made it
Physical = The Actual Harddrive you have the first one is usally "C:" and the second one is usally "E:" if you dont have any extra cdrom drive it could be "f"

[epsos]

thankyou i wil try that thankytou

[caperjack]

5. Just remove all the logical and leave the physical ones there and that should fix it.

Correct me if Im wrong ,but this will not join the logical with the Physical part of the drive .,it will just make that part of the Drive useless for storage !Right .
The Drive s will still need to be Partitioned over to correct the problem ,Either with FDISK of some 3rd party software .

[epsos]

packet.22 i ma having problem i have done what you have sauid but my c drive is only 2 mb im confused im doing this for my grandads benefit as he is not all with it and it has taken me 20 mins 2 get to ths website as my grndad does not have a address bar it really really weird so i was windering what 2 do it says ive done one right and got that back but ive done the other one and becuase it has things on like progroam file what do i do help