HELP HARD DRIVE PROBLEM!!

[Confusednewbie1552]

Hello, I have a 74 Gigabyte Hard drive, and when I installed windows I accidently messed up and now I only have 10 Gigabytes, is there a way to bring back the 64 GB without having to buy or hire anything?

 

[Matthias99]

If you only created a single 10GB partition, the rest of the space is there, just unformatted. If you get down into Disk Management (it's under Control Panels somewhere... maybe under Services?), you can format the remaining space, which would become your "D" drive (or you could chop it up further into more partitions). There's no easy (free) way to combine them back into a single 74GB partition without doing a reinstall, though.

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

I'm willing to reinstall. Btw THANKS =)

Edit: How do I do it if I was going to reinstall it?

 

[Matthias99]

When you get to the partitioning step (where you can choose which drive to install XP on), delete the existing partition (you'll probably have to verify this step, since it's a system drive), then create a new partition that takes up the whole disk and install onto that.

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

K, Than you very much =D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also can someone help clarify the first thing Matthias mentioned about changing it within windows?

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

Nvm found it, but do I do Primary partion or Extended Partion?

 

[eXopium]

Calm down.

 

[imported_Bunter]

Extended.

 

[CraigRT]

Originally posted by: eXopium
Calm down.

cha man!!

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

Ok how do I make it all FAT 32? RIght now the only option is NTFS and the other partion is FAT 32 so i'm guessing this could make some problems. Why can't I use FAT 32?

 

[gokuhama]

Personally, I'd rather use NTSF.

 

[AnotherGuy]

If you have windows XP then u should make it NTFS which is better!
If u have win 98 then u cant use NTFS.

Win Xp can support FAT32 and NTFS, but NTFS is the latest and best format type.
and btw it doesnt matter if part of ur hard drive is fat32 and the other NTFS...

 

[imported_Bunter]

Is there a particular reason you want it to be FAT32? No problem mixing them, but like everyone else has said, NTFS is preferable.

 

[CraigRT]

use NTFS

 

[thorin]

Grab a copy of Partition Magic and extend the partition to the size of the entire drive.

Thorin

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

Is there a way I can changed the 10 gigabyte FAT32 partion and change it into a NTFS one. What's better in NTFS? I'm just a bit edgy about having two different types of formats.

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

Also how can I reinstall WIndows XP perfectly? like not have one sing bit of data on the hard drive so it's like as good as new? I heard that sometimes duplicates of files happen so I want to know how to delete everything.

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

bump

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

bump

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

Anyone?

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

Plz?

 

[Confusednewbie1552]

C'mon plz i really need to know!!!

 

[w0ss]

Originally posted by: Confusednewbie1552
C'mon plz i really need to know!!!

Originally posted by: Matthias99
When you get to the partitioning step (where you can choose which drive to install XP on), delete the existing partition (you'll probably have to verify this step, since it's a system drive), then create a new partition that takes up the whole disk and install onto that.

 

[thorin]

Wow you did half hour bumps all night, while your view count was obviously going up. If people aren't replying that's because they don't have any ideas for you. Did the thread even get close to leaving the front page?

 

[kaizersose]

you just need to start over with XP. do what matthias99 said when it prompts you to select the drive to install XP on. to simplify:

-delete the existing 10Gb partition (you will lose all data on the drive). it should list a 10Gb partition (cand 64GB unpartitioned space

-create a new partition in the unpartitioned space. by default it should be the maximum available space (which is listed below). if it isnt, type in the max space available

-once it is completed, install XP on the new partition.

*you may want to think about partitioning your drive into a couple of large blocks. one for the OS and one for software/media.