I have read some threads other info about shrinking the c drive where the os is,but none have ever said that it cannot be shrunken using the windows provided disk management but seems to talk around it?
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I just bought a new SSD and did a fresh install of windows going from Windows 7 to 8.1.
I simply took out my old SSD and put in the new one, and installed windows 8.1 pro from a USB stick onto the new ssd.
2 existing HDDs were left on there, I'm also replacing them but I want to format them first to remove all data.
Disk 1 is the new SSD that windows was installed on. It is "Healthy (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Drump, Primary Partition)"
Disk 2 is the drive I want to reformat and replace, it is "Health (System, Primary Partition)"
How do I make the C drive (Disk 1) the System disk?
I have backed up all the files I want to keep onto an external hdd.
Have 2 hard drives (SSDs).
Drive 1 : OS Win 8.1 for general web, office and junk running
Drive 2 : OS Win 8.1 for tweaked hobby work; Audio recording etc
Whilst I wish to not physically disconnect the drives on each boot. I would like to have the alternative drive hidden and not impacted when the other drive is running for the OS.Boot up from Drive 1 this currently shows as Drive C: and the secondary drive with the OS installed as D:
Boot up from Drive 2 this currently shows as Drive C: and the secondary drive with the OS installed as D:
End aim
Boot up from Drive 1 this currently shows as Drive C: and the secondary drive with the OS installed not running or showing on the system and vice versa. Is the online offline function what I need to use or is this going to put the drive offline for the system as a whole.
I have a Western Digital external hard drive. Model WD5000C032 500GB. It's an older device that was working just fine on my Mac (I don't know what OS it was running and do not have access to it any longer). I have brought this HD with me and am now trying to use it on my Windows 8.1 lap top. When I plug it in, the device is not assigned a letter. I can search for it in disk management, but it is uninitialized. I have right clicked on the drive to initialize, and receive an error message "the specific disk is not convertible because the size is less than the minimum size required for GPT disks." I searched and suggestion is downloading and using Partition Wizard. I downloaded the program and opened the wizard, but it does not see my hard drive. The screen shot will display as far as I've gotten.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI was going to reinstalling windows on my computer and i thought put 200gb for windows 8 and and 1300gb can be for windows 7(for gaming), So i install windows 8 and shrink the hard drive size so windows 8 has 200gb. And use windows 7 for gaming but my pc is a bit s#*t and a dont do gaming any more. (only on the ps3).
So can i unshrink or something so i have 1.5tb together for windows 8?
[URL] .....
The program Acronis True Image failed when attempting to clone win 8.1 C drive. The destination disk is now hidden in File Explorer but is present in Disk Management (and in Device Manager). The Disk Management command "Change Drive Letter ..." is grayed out. How can I unhide the drive?
The drive in question appears in attached screen shots as Disk 6 but is missing from Explorer.
Over the last couple days, I built a new PC and installed windows 8.1. Initially I had some issues installing windows, so I unplugged all my drives except the SSD and DVD. I installed windows to my SSD.
Everything works great!
Now I started adding my drives back in 1 at a time. When I plugged my 2nd SSD in, it showed up in BIOS, but not in Disk Management or Device Manager. So I booted back into the install CD, it showed up in the disk manager there. Since this was also a blank SSD, I partitioned and formated the drive from the install CD, then exited the installer and booted back to my windows drive.
I have 2 SSD drives working great!
Now to add my 2TB HDD... Same issue, it shows up in BIOS and the install disc, but not in Disk Management or Device Manager. This drive does not have a boot partition on it, however, it does have two existing data partitions. They were made from my previous windows 7 system and the option to delete these partitions is grayed out in the install disc menu. I also have some data that I would like to keep on it. I have a USB dock that I can use to read the contents of the disk just fine. Everything is there and in working order.
What is different about Windows 8.1 that is preventing my hard drives from showing up in windows proper? I am reading things about UEFI online, but nothing seems to fit my exact scenario. I will try and post some screen shots when I get back at it.
System:
Mobo- Asrock Fatal1ty Killer z87
CPU- i3 4330
GPU- Gigabyte 660 OC
SSDs - Kingston V300 120GB
Windows 8.1 64bit
I got an old computer, and my sister still is using it, it had XP but since support ended I decided to go for another system, unfortunetly there were no drivers for Vista and up, so I went for a USB boot - Linux Mint Maya 13 installation. The PC ended up being even slower and a friend just recently showed me how to install the drivers for Windows 8. I decided to go with a USB installation but when I restart and boot from the USB to install Windows 8 Pro, it says: Disk Read Error. I tested the USB on my new PC that I use and it did boot, but it won't boot from the old one.
View 2 Replies View Related I have a Sony vaio VGX-TP20E. I put the win 8 disk into the computer and setup up the startup to boot from optical drive. But it skips it and starts up win 7 like it normally does. How can I install windows 8?
The first time I did that win7 had some kind of virus in it so I went to the recovery partition and restored the computer to factory settings.
So my other question is if I do somehow get it to work, do I have to delete the recovery partition or do I leave it alone. Logically it would only be able to recover for windows 7 right?
Unable to start Disk Management. I tried the following without success:
- Check file integrity
- Repair with DISM
- Start the Virtual Disk Service and Volume SHadoy Copy manually and set them to Automatic and Manual (it starts, but Disk Management cannot connect to it)
- Disable Firewall and Antivirus
- Verified that my system is malware free
- Tried opening it in Safe Mode
Is it still possible to bring a disk offline using Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) in Windows 8 the same way it was possible in Windows 7 or is using Diskpart.exe the only way?
View 5 Replies View RelatedI originally built my computer with two 1 TB hdd as RAID1 with Windows 8 Pro 64 Bit as the OS.
The boot files eventually became corrupted. I could not reinstall Windows 8 on the RAID 1 array. So I then purchased two 2 TB HDD and created a new RAID 1 array which Windows 8 readily loaded onto.
I then added the two original 1 TB HDD to the computed to use for photography and media storage. They also showed when booting my computer as a separate RAID 1 array, but were listed as "repair." I went into the RAID BIOS and separated the array. I connected only one of the 1 TB HDD, and the drive was the "E" Drive in my computer, but I was unable to access it. "E: is not accessible. Access is denied." Disk Management showed the drive as DISK 1, but as two partitions: System Reserved 350 MB NTFS Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) and 931.17 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition). I used Diskpart to create a Primary partition and format the disk. That HDD now works fine. Unfortunately I did not backup the data on that HDD, which I would like to have.
I did try the second mirrowed 1 TB HDD on the computer before formatting the first and was able to access all of the data on the HDD.
Now after formatting the first 1 TB HDD, I added the second 1 TB HDD from the original RAID 1 array back onto the computer, wanting to retrieve the data on it. This HDD does not show on My computer and is not assigned a drive letter. However the HDD is listed in Disk Management as DISK 2 and partitioned into System Reserved 350 MB NTFS Healthy ( active, Primary Partition) and 931.17 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition). Looking for retrieving the data on this disk, copying it to another HDD, and then creating one partition on this HDD? How to assign the HDD a drive letter. I would like to format this HDD after copying the data, and have my computer assign it a drive letter so that I can use it.
After installing Windows 8 my computer had four partitions; I thought they'd be fine but want to change it to have two big ones, one for Media and one for typical C: usage. I moved everything out of D: to delete the volume so I would have free space to the right of C:, which I've read is what you need to do in order to extend partitions using Disk Management. However, the option is still greyed-out when right-clicking C: as shown:
I did this because I've read mixed things about using 3rd-party software to extend partitions; some that don't truly extend it and just trick your computer into merging the two... I like doing things the purest way possible and would like to truly combine C: with the free space to the right of it. Why the option is not available?
The disk management tool on my windows doesn't move on and hangs at "connecting to virtual disk service" forever:
My HP desktop is new, windows 8.1, hard drive having ample space. I searched the web and tried, but to no avail. Or where can I download a free windows disk management tool to fix the issue?
I have a win2012 server with many users on it and some jerk likes to delete drives, so I need to disable disk managmeant for everyone but myself.
View 3 Replies View RelatedHow to post a screen capture of a full screen Disk Management window as I've done many times before. He said none were marked as Active.
I opened Disk Management (full screen) on my Windows 8.1.1 Pro X64 EFI/GPT system so I could post a screen capture showing him where it would show up.
I was very surprised when there was no Active flag shown anywhere. I know it used to show up.
What happened and when did this change occur. Must have been a Windows Update that screwed it up.
It's still there under Windows 7 on a different computer (BIOS/MBR):
HP 15-d005TU
-3rd Generation Intel Core i3-3110M Processor (2.4 GHz)
-500GB Hard Drive Toshiba MQ01ABF050
-4096MB DDR3 SDRAM
-DVD Optical drive hp DVDRAM GU90N
-Windows 8.1 64bit
On delivery it had 9 Windows updates installed ( 8, dated Nov 13 and the last one dated 07 Mar 2014, perhaps just before it left the factory). My first priority was to update Windows. A total of 78 updates including the last major Windows 8.1 update 1 akin to a Service Pack - KB2919335 and all this took a lot of time. All updates went on well with no problems.
Now I find that Windows Disk Management lists two OEM recovery partitions D: ( What it was earlier, I did not notice but I presume it was showing one correctly since any abnormality would have caught my attention.)
Diskpart lists all the partitions correctly. And so also bootice. Now what is causing this and how do I fix it?
I find there is a Intel Manageability Firmware Recovery Agent - [URL] .... My own guess is some Intel driver/firmware may be causing it. As I said it is only a guess. I tried the update with it but so far Intel servers could not be reached though my internet connection is OK.
I have a laptop with Windows 8 installed in a 256Gb SSD. There's a 32Gb recovery partition whose purpose is to recover the drive to factory install. Since I already imaged this recovery partition to an external drive I would like to delete it and merge it to the main C partition to increase capacity. I know I can do this easily with 3rd party solutions (Easus, etc), but I'd like to do it using the Windows 8 built in Disk Management. I tried but when I right click on the 32Gb recovery partition the only option that shows up is "Help", it does not show any other option that shows for the other partitions (Shrink, etc).
View 9 Replies View RelatedCan I delete / merge the Recovery Partition into the EFI System Partition?
View 2 Replies View RelatedSo I've been playing around with FreeNAS on another rig, you install the server on a USB drive and run the server form the flash drive. I've decided to go another rout and not use free nas so I went to format the 2 flash drives I was messing with and there are some partitions I can't remove with disk management, and space missing.
disk 1.jpg
Disk 3 should be 4GB large but I can only find the 943 MB
disk 2.jpg
disk 3.jpg
It doesn't give me any options to change the volumes on Disk 4.
disk management won't allow me to extend empty 46GB volume.
Do I need to do an Fdisk ? or use a third party program to do this ?
Before I do this I must create a windows setup disk because I do not have one at the moment , all I have is a Dell usb Restore.
deleting the D:volume partition is easy but then Im left with empty partiton , I want to extend this to c: so that my c:418 goes back to 464gig.
Disk management won't allow me to extend empty 46GB volume. The windows disk management will not allow me to delete any partitions. Do I need to do an Fdisk ? or use a third party program to do this ?
Before I do this I must create a windows setup disk because I do not have one at the moment , all I have is a Dell usb Restore. would be good if there was a video clip of how to delete the partition.
[URL] ....
Here is the screen shot :
I've long been an XP user, just purchased a new desktop with 8.1 and a 2TB HDD this week.
I was partitioning some drives to organize things, and i am stuck.
On a 2TB drive, i have so far allocated 900GB over 4 drives for files, etc. [100,200,300,300]
I have 946.42GB left on my C, and i was hoping to get at least 2-3 more 200/300GB drives before leaving the remainder to C, but when i attempt to shrink my C drive, Disk Management tells me ive only got 20835MB/20GB available space to shrink. Wtf? I have literally added nothing to the computer except uTorrent, ive used Disk Optimizer to defrag the C drive 3 times, and still all of this space is unavailable? The OS has unmovable files scattered that loosely??
I partitioned my hard disk into a 150GB (C) and 500GB (D) and upgraded from Win7 to Windows 8 (and subsequently Windows 8.1 after the recent updates). The OS is installed onto the C Drive.
Performed a Clean Installation of Windows 8 on my C Drive. Under the Choose What To Keep Option, I selected Nothing.
Technically speaking my C Drive would have been wiped clean but after the Windows 8 installation, my C Drive only has 5GB of space left (145GB is being used). The Windows 8 OS is not detecting any of the old programs in my C Drive and the automated Disk Clean up feature only offers removal of temporary internet files. Which brings me to one possible assumption...
The Clean Installation Failed. Windows 8 simply installed itself again on my C Drive and the remaining disk space (containing my previous Windows 8.1 OS and programs) is locked down somewhere. I suspect this had something to do with changing my HD format 3 years ago when I wiped clean my pre-loaded ASUS laptop Win7 and partitioned it to install my Windows 8.
How to remove my previous OS?
Is it possible not to have the partition "recovery"?
Because if you look at the two tutorials:
- UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Forums
- UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 8 with
In the tutorial to install Windows 7 in UEFI, there is not that damn partition recovery, while in the tutorial for Windows 8, we can see it.
When I install Windows 7 (MBR mode), I avoid this partition "recovery" by creating a partition with a name before installation. I install the OS on it and everything is fine, no partition "recovery" But here, since one must delete all partitions, If I create a GPT disk with a partitioning tool before installing, is that it might be appropriate?
Before, my PC was setup like this:
- disk0: windows xp
- disk1: windows 7
Bios boot priority set to disk1.
So no boot loaders, when I (rarely) need xp, I would switch via bios
Now I wanted to try Windows 8, so I've
- download 'Windows 8.1 Enterprise Evaluation' and burnt on a dvd
- bought and connected a new disk (disk2)
- boot from dvd, installed choosing the new disk2
Now, everything works fine, Windows 8 got installed on disk2. But the strange thing is this:
- if, from bios, I choose disk2, it says the disk is not bootable
- choosing disk1, a boot loader shows up, letting me choose between win7 and Windows 8.1
(- choosing disk0, nothing has changed, xp starts like before)
So, I'm confused. I was expecting Windows 8 booting from the new disk2.
- why disk2 doesn't boot?
- would have been better physically disconnecting disk0 and disk1 before installing?
Laptop: ASUS UX31A-DB71, latest BIOS: 218
Originally my laptop came with Windows 7 and when i looked at disk management my disks were formatted with UEFI schema. One of my friend gave me a UEFI bootable USB drive loaded with Windows 8. So, i thought why not give it a try. So, I created a backup of my OEM Windows 7 and saved the iso files in a seperate external HD (created twice just to be sure . Now, i decided to load the Windows 8. Booted into the BIOS and there is an option to select the USB drive along with the UEFI option for that USB drive. I selected the UEFI option but some reason it does not boot into UEFI.
So I decided to select the standard USB install and this option let me install windows 8. In the process of installing i formatted the partitions and made a single partition and installed Windows 8 on it. I am guessing now the drive is not GPT but MBR. I also noticed that his installation USB disk had an option to select either 32bit or 64bit of Windows 8... Would Microsoft create a same iso file with both versions? I am guessing he created the USB from a illegitimate source.
I am planning on purchasing Windows 8 Pro version as an iso but wanted to be confident that it would work with UEFI architecture.
Questions:
1. Why would the system NOT boot from UEFI?
2. If I download the legitimate iso from Microsoft and wanted to install Window8 Pro via UEFI, I am sure i would have to format my SSD to GPT and how would i go about formatting it during installation?
3. How would i create a recoverable USB for my iso image i created for Windows 7 via ASUS AI Recovery. Do I need to follow the same procedure as stated in creating bootable USB disk (i.e. FAT32 system) via diskpart utility?
the hard disk of a Samsung Ultra 5 crashed. I have got a new hard disk. How do i restore windows 8 and Samsung drivers to the new hard disk? My friend has an exact notebook. How do i copy the recovery partition from his pc and use it on mine?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have a Toshiba Laptop System Model: Satellite L875D-S7332 Part Number: PSKFQU-008003 Pre Installed with Windows 8 x64. I want to create a Windows 8 x64 Install Disk.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI am trying to do a clean install of windows 8 on my laptop (Elitebook 8770W) from a USB stick with original MS Windows OEM iso. Once I boot from usb stick, at the setup screen I enter the product key and then choose advanced to do a clean install. I then choose my hard disk partition to install windows but I get stuck here with this error:
"Windows cannot be installed to disk 0 partition 1"
I deleted the partition and choose to install on the unallocated space (150GIG) But still get the same error and when I click on the error this is what I get:
"Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's Bios"
In bios I have my disk set as Raid and I also have a m-sata Flash cache. If I change raid to AHCI I will be able then to install windows. But if I turn it back to raid after install I will no longer be able to boot I have to be in raid mode to use my m-sat as cache drive.
So here I am stuck not being able to install windows I even downloaded latest intel rapid storage technology drivers and put them on the usb stick with windows setup files. When i got the error I choose to load driver. But even after that I was getting same error and windows would not install on my HDD.
What's the right way to install in this condition (raid)?
I have a copy of Windows 8.1pro 64 bit which I run on my main computer, I have an old laptop which is about 7-8 years old, I'd like to install a copy of Win 8 for test purposes and mess around with for a few months.
The laptop is so old it won't let me install 64 bit, is there a 32 bit version on the disk hidden away I could install or are they totally separate disks?
Is it possible to download a copy which would work for 30 days without entering a serial number or even an old beta copy.
