Partition Question

[Guest Neezer]

I just installed XP onto my 160 GB SATA drive. I put it on a 20 GB partition, but in my computer, the rest of the drive doesn't show up. How do I get my memory back?

[SeanDude05]

It isnt memory, its hard drive space. Click on Start, then right-click on My Computer, click on Manage. Look down, find and click on Disk Management. You will see your 20Gig partition along with Non-partitioned space. Format the non-partitioned space.

[Guest Neezer]

sorry about calling it memory. I should know better than that. anywho....

I went to the disk management menu, but I cannot find the option to format the space.

[SeanDude05]

So you do see the empty, unpartitioned space? If so, right click on it and select Format

[JiveTurkey]

A right-click is going to present most of the options you're after. If it's unallocated space, you'll have to create a new partition for the 140 GB (or slice it up however you like). Another right-click and you can format that space into something usable by the OS.

[Guest Neezer]

I can see the space on the visual output part on the bottom part of the window, but it doesn't show up in the upper part of the window with the 20 GB partition, and my 40 GB HDD, and my cd and dvd drives.

 

 

I need to allocate the space is the problem. I want to make it an extended partition right?

 

Edit: I made it a primary and turned it into a G: drive.

Thanks for all the help. it is formatting right now.

[SeanDude05]

Primary partition.

[JiveTurkey]

Yep, non-bootable secondary partition should be extended. An extended partition can then be sliced into as many logical partitions as you'd like (although most folks only use one), assigned drive letters, and formatted.

[Guest Neezer]

You guys just contradicted yourselves. I want to put my music and program files onto the larger partition, that way, if I have to reinstall, I can keep the partition, and just reinstall on the smaller one right?

[SeanDude05]

Hmm I've always used Primary partition on every HDD. Never heard of why they'd need to be extended...

 

It should work the way your describing, as long as you do not delete the partition during XP setup.

[Guest Neezer]

I did a primary one. will what I described in post #9 work?

[JiveTurkey]

You're fine. There's a limitation in the partition table in the number of partitions you can create. An extended partition is an extension to this system that allows a larger number of partitions to be created within the extended partition. Unless you plan to take advantage of that, you should be fine.