Partitioning and Disk Management on M1530

I removed all the bloatware with a fresh install, and i've somehow ended up with a 36 gig empty 'extended volume' which i CANNOT delete. Probs best to go through this with screen shots, also on my external drive, im wanting to extend into the unallocated space area, and not having any luck.

On with the xps first, as you can see, its empty, free space, and i'd prefer it 'unallocated' so i can extend the main drive into it,

The option is certainly there to delete, so i go for it



then a warning, that its an extended partition.. i proceed



but apparently, not enough disk space to DELETE a partition, now that just doesnt make sense!



so any takers for solving this one, and not a reformat/reinstall of vista

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Now onto the external hdd, which 'was' my hdd in desktop. Anyway, I kept my files partition on the hdd, and proceeded to delete the other windows and programs partitions in vista. This has left me with 320gb files space, and plent of unallocated space to use too.

so, it would be great to simply 'extend' the existing partition makin a nice big storage drive. And the option again, is there, so i go through the steps.



a warning of it being converted to dynamic drive, not to be used for an OS, no problem, as its just a storage drive right?



Obviously there is a problem, i then get this message.



Really need to get this sorted, its very frustrating, and ive heard vista has a weird way of partitioning now so other apps like partition magic now no longer work?

 

For the first problem, I think that the fact that you've got that 2 GB primary partition on the end is confusing Vista. Windows doesn't seem to like unallocated space between partitions.

For the second problem, is this external drive a USB drive? Maybe WIndows won't let you create a dynamic disk that includes a removable drive (like a USB drive). If you created a dynamic disk, and removed the USB drive, you wouldn't be able to boot your laptop.

 

ok thanks for that quick input. That 2gb partition at the end i believe is media direct's partition as it is not available in windows expolore, as well as the tiny 47mb partition at the front of the drive. Just feels silly for me to make a 36G partition..

As for the external drive thing, i guess that makes sense, but i dont understand why it cant just extend it as a basic disk, its unallocated in one big chunk, from the beginning of the drive. Maybe its worth using a 3rd party tool under xp for the extrenal drives extending?

 

Problem is Vista is telling you fairy tales about your partitions.
I had several logical partitions deleted by this so called "Microsoft Disk Manager".

Get a decent partitioning program to have a look at your partition table.
Accessing a console from a Linux Live CD would do. You don't have to install linux: you use it to see what's really on your system and in which order.

I strongly suggest that you copy the first sector of your disk (with dd) and have a direct look at your partition table (with an hex editor). I am afraid you'll have to surf the Web a bit to learn how to decode those 4 strings of 16 bytes, but it could be well worth it.

If you are lazy enough, though, you might also try to use a GUI tool, like GParted and try to see if it can sort it out for you.

Remember to back up all your valuable data before even thinking to tampering with your partition structure.

 

Ill look into GParted, I assume its something ill have to burn to disk and run at boot?

 

yes there is a linux live cd devoted to just Gparted
downloading:
http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/

help/doc:
http://gparted-livecd.tuxfamily.org/larry/livecd/livecd.htm

 

Buy something proper like Acronis Disk Director .... this will sort all your problems, it's a really easy to use. No issues with it so far.