Purchased a new laptop . It has one large C 1T drive . I would like to create 4 primary partitions , one for programs, one for data , another for media , and the rest unallocated.
How to use built in disk manager ? Can I create several partitions at one go?
Is it easier to use a 3rd party partition software?
Why windows 7 and windows 8 introduced a limitation when using Disk Management, and is NOT possible to create more than 3 Primary Partitions? However, using DiskPart from command line it is VERY possible, no warnings or notices.
Code: C:Windowssystem32>diskpartMicrosoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.On computer: PAINKILLERDISKPART> listMicrosoft DiskPart version 6.3.9600DISK [code]....
As far as I know, there is a maximum of 4 Primary partitions on a hardisk, or 3 primary and one extended, and IN the extended partitions more that 4 logical drivers.However, from any disk utility like the old, deprecated, and buggy Partition Magic, acronis disk partition utility, gparted Linux, parted, cfdisk, fdisk, or even on the older Windows like Xp, nt, 2000, 98, me, ms-dos, freedos, I WAS ALWAYS BEEN ABLE TO CREATE 4 PRIMARY PARTITIONS, but with the new WINDOWS 7 and the new WINDOWS 8, it appears this limitation of only 3 PRIMARY PARTITIONS instead of 4. Don't know about Vista as I have skipped that version of windows on every PC that I have build or worked.
Or is working like this because of some hidden reason which I can't figure out by myself what could It be, and the only thing that I can observe is that while technology is evolving (hardware and software), we have limitations like this, to create only 3 primary instead of 4 primary while using Disk Management from administrative tools or right clicking on the computer and "manage" console.
Personally I am a little irritated/annoyed that now the disk management is having "handicap" and I can NOT find a serious reason for this idiocratic limitation. As we are "evolving" the normal path It would be more normal to be able to use more that 4 primary on a hardisk, from my point of view, not limiting to ONLY 3 Primary.
I would like to ask what is OEM, EFI and unallocated partitions?How can i merge unallocated partitions into primary one???Another question is when my alienware restart , I just see my alienware Logo, cant enter to BIOS ??Computer logins smoothly just cant seem to enter BIOS.I will attatch an image of my disk management.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI just bought a new laptop - an ASUS N550JV - with a single 1TB hard drive. I specifically sought a 1TB hard drive because I intend to store a lot of photos on the laptop and already have over 600GB of photo data to store.
When I got the laptop the first thing I did was to go through the windows update process to get everything up to date, then I upgraded to Windows 8.1 (the laptop came with Windows 8), then I ran the windows update again until everything was up to date.
It was only then that I opened up file explorer with the intention of setting up a basic folder structure for the files I planned to transfer to the laptop. I was dissapointed, at that point, to discover that instead of a single 1TB C: drive, I saw a 370+ GB C: drive and a 530GB + D drive. I confirmed with system information that there is indead just a single drive, and that it thus came partitioned into 2 primary volumes (which, btw, still don't add up to 1TB BTW!). This setup really doesn't work for me, because the "larger" volume is still too small for all my photos, and it would be illogical and inconvenient to have to split up the photos so that some were on the C drive and some on the D drive.
Could I somehow merge the two partitions back into one primary drive, or at least re-size them so that the D drive had at least, say, 750GB, and shrink the C drive accordingly. He pointed me to the Disk Management utility and directed me to delete the (still empty) D drive, which would make that storage space unallocated, then extend the C drive to use that unalocated space. I was able to delete the D drive, and confirmed that there was now 530+ GB of unallocated space. However, when I click on the C drive the option to extend is greyed out.
I did a bit of Googling at this point and discovered that you can can only extend to contiguous unallocated space, and the unallocated space was NOT contiguous - there is a 350MB "Recovery Partition" between the C and D (or unallocated) spaces. In fact, there were multiple recovery and other partitions. (From left to right: 100MB "EFI System Partition", 900MB "Recovery Partition", 370+GB "Primary" C Drive with Boot etc, 350MB "Recovery Partition", 530+GB "Primary" D drive, and 20+GB "Recovery Partition").
Of course I would be too scared to delete the recovery partition, but there's no option to do so anyway ...
I asked the family member again and he suggested creating a USB Recovery Drive and, in the process, wipe the recovery partition. So used the windows utility to create a recovery drive, and sure enough, at the end it asked if I wanted to delete the recovery partition and I said yes. The good news is that this removed the 20GB partition, and I was able to extend the D drive to use that newly unallocated space. The bad news is that the 350MB recovery partition still lies between the C and D drives, preventing me from merging the two.
Again through Googling I found that there are tools I could use to force delete the recovery partition, but I'm afraid to do so and kill my computer or recovery options all together. I also heard that this 350MB recovery partition was created when I upgraded to 8.1, and that rolling back to my factory setting won't remove the partition?
So the question is, what can I do? Is there an easy way to "move" the recovery partition to the end of the drive without breaking any functionality that it might have? What would happen to my computer if this recovery partition were to "break" or get removed? Is it best that I just "live with it" the way it is despite the inconvenience?
I need the steps for create partitions aligned in 1024.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI installed Windows 8/8.1 on a system with a Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H MB. When I look at the SSD where Windows is installed I have one partition. I also installed Windows 8/8.1 on an ASRock Z77 OC Formula MB. When I look at the SSD where Windows is installed I have three partitions - 300MB (Recovery Partition), 100MB (EFI System Partition) and 111.27GB (Boot,....Partition). Why did the Windows 8 installer create three partitions on the ASRock system? I think I understand the EFI partition since the ASRock BIOS has a "Load UEFI Defaults" option. The Gigabyte MB does not have this option in the BIOS? Is that because the ASRock MB has truly implemented EFI and uses the EFI System Partition to store boot information?
Why was the Recovery Partition created? I built this system from scratch so there is not any third party involvement. If I reinstall Windows 8 using a new - never used SSD will I get the three partitions? If I format the SSD with one partition prior to Installing Windows 8 what will I get?
I not concerned about the loss of 300MB,why I got different partition configurations on fresh installs of Windows 8 on two different MB's/Systems?
I am having problems installing UEFI & a Error 0x80004005 with Windows 8.1 OEM saying it can't create partitions for UEFI then creating 2 partitions for MBR installation instead. This using a 400 TB, hard drive, setup with a GPT system & nothing else & ready for Windows 8.1 to create the partitions.
The first time it happened I used MiniTool Partition Wizard Professional, to delete the partitions created by Windows 8.1 & convert the MBR to GPT, then used Wipe Disk function to erase all data and set all the bits to a 1.
The only thing that I can think is upsetting the installation is that I have left the other drives in the system including 1x3 TB drive, 1x2 TB drive and a second 4 TB drive.
The 2 TB drive has "Win 7 Ultimate" installed using MBR, the 3 TB drive is empty but ready to install Windows 8.1 setup with GPT, and the other 4 TB drive has a UEFI Windows 8.1 installed but broken.
I have also tried to install UEFI Win 8.1 on the 3 TB drive but it failed with the same error code as above.
This UEFI takes a lot to get ones head around dose't it, and me being much older than I once was makes it even harder. I have tried this installation at least 3 to 4 times now and doing these "Wipe Disk Functions" every time has so far lost me 3 whole days just in wasted time.
can set primary boot in bios(by for example press f2 when booting) but my question is that is it possible to set primary boot in windows(for example set to boot from USB FLash Drive) and then reset the windows and the windows will boot from USB?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have two keyboards loaded in Windows 8 Pro: US English , and US International. How do I make US International primary? The examples given always list English and Danish for instance, so you can move one up or down. But in my case, I always see one keyboard, even though both are active.
View 8 Replies View RelatedMy system was dual booting Windows 8 and Windows 7. I have deleted the Windows 7 option from the msconfig of Windows 8. Now the system boots automatically into Windows 8 with no problems. If I delete/ format the Windows 7 partition through Windows 8, will it cause any problems?
Also, I found that Windows 7 partition is marked as primary, while the Windows 8 is logical. I
Windows 8 is in C Drive (You can see that its logical)
Windows 7 was in E Drive
There is also a 2.50 GB Simple Basic FAT32 partition with status as - Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition) - What is this?
PS: I do have EasyBCD 2.2 and MiniTool Partition Wizard Server Edition Installed. The latter is not able to modify C drive and set it as primary.
I am a brand new Windows 8.1 user as of a couple of days ago. I have recently updated to Windows 8.1 and am enjoying it. I have been adjusting defaults to my liking easily enough. But I am having trouble with one small item in my dual monitor setup.
In the Taskbar and Navigation properties, I have unchecked the setting "Show Start on the display I'm using when I press the Windows logo key". This does what I want in regard to always displaying Start on my primary monitor regardless of which screen I am working on when I click the Windows logo key. But if I try using Win+S to open the Search bar (or one of the other search hotkeys as well) while a window on the secondary monitor is active it opens on the right side of that secondary screen instead. Any other time, the Search bar opens on the primary monitor as expected. Any way to make the Search bar always dock to the right side of my primary monitor as well, but I haven't found how yet.
I have 2 hard drives and 1 is a lot bigger than the main one. I was wondering if I changed them around would my computer run faster and how I would go about doing this, what I mean is make my larger hard drive my default disk C if possible? [URL] ....
View 1 Replies View RelatedI recently sold my Gateway laptop and the Windows 8 software was already installed with purchase. I want to remove my info and myself as the primary user in windows 8 so the new owner can set themselves up. I tried on my own to figure out and was only able to set up a separate "User" for the new owner until we can resolve.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI would just like to check and make sure I have this correct. I have the following HD and feel they should be setup like this.
Disk 0
C: - Primary
D: - Extended
Disk 1
F: - Extended
Now this is where I am not sure
Disk 2 - USB Portable Drive
G: - ? (I would think also Extended but I see it came out the box as a Primary)
When first I tried to install a fresh copy of windows 8, I deleted all the partitions including systems reserved etc
Now It shows 2 drives where both of the drives are now currently unallocated and are ready to create fresh partition:
Drive 0 - 500GB HDD <== This is where I want to install my windows
Drive 1 - 20GB SSD <== This is where the system is creating the system partition
When ever I create the partition in either drives the windows create the system partition (350MB) in ssd automatically. and when I install my windows on 500 HDD then windows wont work because the systems files are on other drive. Furthermore, I dont want to install my windows on ssd because of the limited space. So How can I install my windows in 500GB HDD so it creates the system partition also in the same drive i.e. drive 0 - 500GB HDD
NOTE: I have tried everything using diskpart and making the drive 0 active but still its not working. I dont want to send it to Samsung warranty because they are charging me like $100
I live in Sweden but I want to work in English. I purchased W7 Ultimate so that I would be able to use English. My question is if I purchase the "8 Pro upgrade DL will I be able to use English as my primary language? I also need to be able to use a Swedish keyboard.
View 3 Replies View RelatedI have a question. One related to hard drives, multiple windows os', and BIOS.
I have save data on my old hard drive (disk) that I need to retrieve that is in the Windows7 "My documents recognized by Windows 8.1 (Windows 8.1 is on my new SSD).
I am concerned that my plan to retrieve my data might cause an error in the bootloader if I perform this method
Reboot in Windows 8.1
When the computer gets to the BIOS splash screen, press F11 (boot options)
Select old harddrive (disk drive with Windows 7) to boot into
This will boot in Windows 7 Home Premium which is located on the disk drive
Log in and go into file explorer
retrieve data from documents menu
copy/paste data from Disk Drive to new folder in SSD
Reboot in Windows 7
When the computer gets to the BIOS splash screen, press F11 (boot options)
Select SSD (with Windows 8.1)
Move data to documents folder
(If computer auto reboots from SSD then skip steps 9 and 10)
WCP is just around the corner. Today I shrunk my drive and created 25 GB space for the same..But why is it marked as logical drive instead of primary partition?
View 9 Replies View RelatedOK, long story short. I did a clean install to Windows 8 Pro 64. Because of the System Reserved partition, it showed both Win 7 and Win 8 available and would prompt to do a dual boot. I cleaned it up by following the instructions on the below link.
Dual Boot - Delete a OS - Windows 7 Forums
It now no longer dual boots, and Windows 8 is fine. The only issue remaining is that my primary drive in drive management still has unallocated space. Disk 0 has 351MB Unallocated space, and 465GB of system boot, page file, etc...
In the instructions, it says to "Right click on the partition that contains the OS you want to delete and Delete Volume. Then right click on the deleted volume and Delete Partition. Now you should have "Freespace" where this partition originally was."
Well, I can't do that. When I right-click on the unallocated space, all I can do is: New Simple Volume, Properties. Everything else is greyed out. I also can't extend the other partition, the "extend" option is also greyed out.
I'm now on Win 8... How to put that 351MB onto the main partition?
I have a laptop that has an SSD with Win 8.1 + programs, and an HDD for projects. They are both formatted GPT. When I launch Macrium, for some reason my SSD is now GPT 1 and the second drive is now GPT 2. This is confusing because I'm used to imaging the top line of partitions which is usually my OS. Now that the GPT numbers are reversed, I have to be careful when doing my backups. How to change this assignment so that the SSD will be GPT1 again?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI want to create a second primary partition on my first harddisk(disk 0 look at picture)
from the free space there in the extended partition(view screenshot). Now my problem is that whenever I want to create a new partition by right clicking and selecting "New Simple Volume" and selecting the formatting etc, I get another logical drive in the extended partition(look at picture below).
Is is not what I want. I want to move that free space out from the extended partition and add the unallocated 9 MB to it and then create a second primary partition on disk 0.
Note: If its possible I want to do this without using any third party software, IF POSSIBLE.
This is my basic spread prime contains a win 7 installation(active) halo contains a win 8 installation(boot) and is a logical partition What I need to do is: format prime and combine it with halo , this will be my boot and active keep logic and halo as it is an my logical drives I cannot lose data in halo or logic. how do I go about doing this ..
View 2 Replies View RelatedOn my Desktop I have one 240GB HD (C:) with XP Home installed and various other programs. I also have 2 other IDE HD of 80GB (D:) and 40GB (E:) which I use to store my backups and other Utilities. I plan to buy Windows 8.1 and install it on this Desktop but I wonder which will be the best option. I would also like if possible to be able to dual boot between the OSs
One is to make an image of the XP Home and then re install it on the 80GB hard disk, then install the 8.1 on the SATA HD. Here I don't know when I install XP on the D: hard disk if the new image will make the changes to all programs from the C: to D:
The other option is to use GPARTED LiveCD and shrink the SATA hard disk to allow me to make 2 partitions. Here I don't know if it is a good idea to have two OS on the same HD but on different partitions.What is your opinion on the above and perhaps there are other better ways?
I try to add more than four partitions in win 8, but I couldn't then I install win xp as a dual with win 8, after that I add fifth partition through win xp. Next I log in to win 8 then I saw that there are only 4 partitions with the new one, and one of the old partitions which had a tera of files appeared as an unallocated partition.
View 9 Replies View RelatedLet me start off by posting a screenshot of my disk management section on control panel for reference latter on.
So the 1TB HDD (Disk 0) is were i'm having trouble, the 128GB SSD (Disk 1) is fine. As you can see, there are three different F partitions of various sizes that combine to form one single readable drive. Also, the disk is dynamic and all volumes have the yellow banner on them vs the blue like on the SSD.
Its kinda irrelevant how I got to this situation, but in a nutshell I (by mistake) put the system reserved on the HDD and on trying to remove it this happened. The third partition is a result of me trying to fix it. My wish is to get it to just one single basic partition that takes up the whole drive. Also, the drive is where I store all of my games so loosing its data is complete out of the question. I do have a external harddrive, but I doubt it could fit the contents of my games without crazy amounts of compression.
In CMD I did I found 4 Diskdrives, and I'm only aware I have 'C' and 'D' on my computer, is this possible malware?
Screenshot by Lightshot
So recently my windows 7's some system files got corrupt . won't start after windows logo (when the arrow shows up=>always bsod, even in safemode). so I decided to format C and install fresh windows 8.
Then I had four partitions C:windows(7) D:Softwares E:Games F:Mix Stuff.
My plan was to format C (of course for windows 8) and D (as C had only 20Gb space so I thought I would also format D 46Gb and give C 45Gb and D 20-21Gb as it was useless to me and contained only a bunch of crappy softwares ). Well, it FAILED here's how. after formatting C and D I deleted them thinking that boths unallocated space will merge. but it DID'NT.
After deleting I tried creating new partition on D but it FAILED "we cannot create create new partition" . Then I did same thing with C and it WORKED. I had to give it again 20Gb (maximum) - NO CHOICE. Then I installed Windows 8 on C. (thinking I will later format D on desktop)
Now here's the scenario : I DO NOT WANT TO FORMAT E: AND F: AS IT CONTAINS MY PRECIOUS DATA. After the startup config, 'Startup' came up I went to Desktop then Computer and then what????
WHERE THE HELL ARE OTHER PARTITIONS????????
Only C: I found there 7.67Gb free of 19.5GB.
Where are others gone .
I went to disk management and saw only (C:) other 138Gb (something) was unallocated space. Then I booted my pc from windows installation usb and on the drive screen I saw C 19.5-20Gb and Unallocated space 138Gb.
I bought a new 2 tb hard drive and I am going to transfer the windows 8 partitions to the new drive when I get it. How can I do this ? My soon to be old drive is 500 gb . What about using hard drive cloning softwares ? Do imaging softwares work ?
View 8 Replies View RelatedI've got a laptop with two NTFS partitions on it; one for Windows 8, and another for storage of random things. Both are NTFS-formatted, and they're on a basic disk.
The problem is: When I open the "Computer" window, it only shows me the C: drive that I'm running Windows from. Other things are there... the DVD-RW, network folders, other computers on the net, etc. But the H: drive (the other NTFS partition I use for random storage) isn't there. HOWEVER..... if I go up to the address bar and type in "H:" and hit <Enter>, it takes me to that drive, and the H: drive suddenly appears in the folder-pane on the left of the window.
It does the same thing for any USB drives I plug in. I can type their drive letters into the address bar, and then it'll take me to that drive and it's icon will show up in the left-hand folder pane. But then, when I navigate away from that drive, it disappears again.
It's like Windows is hiding them from me unless I know the address, kinda like how putting "$" at the end of a shared folder name does it with network shares.
recently my windows 7's some system files got corrupt . won't start after windows logo (when the arrow shows up=>always bsod, even in safemode). so I decided to format C and install fresh windows 8.
.
Then I had four partitions
C:windows(7)
D:Softwares
E:Games
F:Mix Stuff.
My plan was to format C (of course for windows 8) and D (as C had only 20Gb space so I thought I would also format D 46Gb and give C 45Gb and D 20-21Gb as it was useless to me and contained only a bunch of crappy softwares ). Well, it FAILED here's how. after formatting C and D I deleted them thinking that boths unallocated space will merge. but it DID'NT. After deleting I tried creating new partition on D but it FAILED "we cannot create create new partition" (search google 'cause others also sometimes have this ****** error many times). Then I did same thing with C and it WORKED. I had to give it again 20Gb (maximum) - NO CHOICE. Then I installed Windows 8 on C. (thinking I will later format D on desktop)
.
Now here's the scenario : I DO NOT WANT TO FORMAT E: AND F: AS IT CONTAINS MY PRECIOUS DATA.
After the startup config, 'Startup' came up I went to Desktop then Computer and then wow what?
Only C: I found there 7.67Gb free of 19.5GB. Where are others gone .
UPDATE :. I went to disk management and saw only (C:) other 138Gb (something) was unallocated space .Then just for checking I booted my pc from windows installation usb and on the drive screen I saw C 19.5-20Gb and same Unallocated space 138Gb.
how to combine two partitions in windows 8..
First Of all You Need To Open Control Panel Then Go to System Security-Administrative Tools Then Computer Management
In Second Step You need To Open Storage And Then Disk Management
In Third Step . Now you need a partition which will be added to the targeted one (E: drive will be added to D:). The drive which will be added to another, should be back-up before this major change on disk partitions.
So be Sure that You Done Backup Files Then Delete the Partition Then After Getting a Free Space Partition,Move To partition (D Drive) Which Will Be Extended and right-click on it. Select the Extend Volume and go Next.
Select Next From the Bottom Side And Then It will take a Few Minutes To Merge Two partition Into Single Drive.