delivi 0 Report post Posted June 27, 2006 I own a Win XP PC with 160GB Hard Disk. I've 3 Primary Partitions and 3 Logical Partitions. I want to combine the 2 Primary partions with the extended drive so that I can increase the size of the partition.Please kindly tell me How to convert Primary Partition into Logical Partition in Win XP using the windows Storage Manager in the Computer Management utlity present in Administrative tools.I also get recurring scandisk check each time i boot my system, help me to get rid of this too. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Galahad 0 Report post Posted June 28, 2006 You have 3 primary partitions and 3 logical? How can you have 3 primary partitions on the same drive? If you have them spread over 3 drives, you can't merge them... What you can do, is delete 2 primary partitions you don't need, and have them as extended partition, so you can make logical drives on it...Best is using Partition Magic for this, as it preserves data... If you want to save your data, use Partition magic, if you don't have any data, you can freely delete partitions from Disk Management console, and change them into logical drives...If you wanted to combine two or three drives into one extended (logical) drive, then you're out of luck - windows doesn't have that function yet... Linux does have virtual spanning over multiple drives, where you access them as a same drive, but not windows...As for constant ScanDisk scans... Convert to NTFS, and you won't have them anymore + it's much more reliable than FAT32... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
delivi 0 Report post Posted June 28, 2006 Is there any free alternative for Partition Magic. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
uiop 0 Report post Posted June 28, 2006 There's the GParted LiveCD, but I wouldn't trust it as much as Partition Magic. I have personally used Partition Magic and highly recommend it (I've never had a problem with it). If you still want a free alternative to Partition Magic then GParted LiveCD can be found at http://gparted.sourceforge.net/livecd.php. Note: I'm not responsible for any damage caused to your computer(s)/network via your use of any of the above recommended utilities/programs. Use the above utilities/programs at your own discretion. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kdr_98 0 Report post Posted July 1, 2006 Most of the recovery boot cd's have a partition tool on it.Most know are - ultimate boot cd, hires boot cd, ...On the Ultimate boot cd there are also some partition tools .But I think the best for You is make a backup on DVD of the last partitions.Erease the partitions and recreate them like you want.The place the data back from DVD.The ultimateboot CD have I only used to recover some data, never for the job you want to do.I have a spare hard disk for such jobs.Link to the boot disk : http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/Another tool for changing partitions is Acronis Disk Director but this one also not free , but has a trial version.What you can do with the trial version , I don't know.The best is always make a backup, because sometimes even with Partition Magic ther goes something wrong and you have lost everything on that drive or partition. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
delivi 0 Report post Posted July 4, 2006 Can I perform the partioning with the Disk Management in Windows XP Professional. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
kdr_98 0 Report post Posted July 5, 2006 With the Diskmanagement in Windows XP ypu can only remove partitions and create empty partitions.So your problem can't be solved with the (built-in) Diskmanagement of Windows XP. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iGuest 3 Report post Posted April 26, 2008 How to make a extended partition a primary partition How To Convert Primary Partition Into Logical Partition In Win Xp I need to make this operation for to install Fedora 8 in a drive that it has already WXP. I supposed this Fedora would make it automatically, but I was wrong. Thanks. Roberto Elier English is not my mother tongue. Please read me between lines for understand my problem. Thanks. -reply by Roberto Elier Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iGuest 3 Report post Posted November 21, 2008 How to change my primary drives into logical in win vistaHow To Convert Primary Partition Into Logical Partition In Win XpOn the first windows installation on my new laptop, all partitions have been set primary by mistake. Now would you please kindly let me know how I can change them into logical? -question by khalil Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iGuest 3 Report post Posted May 24, 2009 Excess Primary Partitions on one DiskHow To Convert Primary Partition Into Logical Partition In Win XpRather unfortunately the formatting tool that comes with the installation of windows XP and Vista can create extra partitions on your HDD - I myself had (on a fool's whim) decided to use Vista's install to create 2 partitions on my primary HDD. - It made both partitions primary without a choice for a logical partition. -reply by James Bone Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iGuest 3 Report post Posted November 22, 2009 How to use PartionsHow To Convert Primary Partition Into Logical Partition In Win Xp I have just installed a second OS on the 2nd Partition (the1st Partition is the operating system I was using before I partition. Both OS's are XP Pro. I restored an image of the 1st Partition -- it was created right after I'd finished installing XP and the programs I wanted in that partition. I was succesful and the new, dual-boot system is working great. I am not PC Wizard and I do not understand very much about PCs. Now that it's finally ready to use, I 'm not ready to use it. I've looked all over the Net for info about using partitions, but all I can find are mostly about installing, creating partitions and so on. I didn't spot anything here that might help me learn how to copy files and move them, or answers to questions like can you copy a section of an image that has a different OS, and is stored on a partition of my external drive -- can I install these files in either of the Primary partitions on my internal drive? Any help appreciated. I'm not necessarily looking for someone to teach me these things, but I do need to find a guide or something like that to help me. HELP!. utripp Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
iGuest 3 Report post Posted June 26, 2010 since i have installed win7 i recognized that one of my partitions labled (G) missed whearas my last OS was vista and had no problem with. after lookingup my partitions i found that my current os(win7)installed on logical drive and missed partition(G) is on primary partition now i wanna know if there is a method to convert my primary partition(contains missed partition G) into logical and viceversa, or not please help me Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
k_nitin_r 8 Report post Posted November 11, 2011 @deliviIn Windows XP, go to the Control Panel. Open the Computer Management console and go to the Disk Management section. You should see your drives listed here.Now, using Windows Explorer, copy all your files across to another disk drive or partition. Then, using disk management, delete the two primary partitions that you want to combine and create a new extended partition in its place. Then, within the extended partition, create a logical partition. Then, copy your files back from the other disk or partition that you copied them to and you have the end result.The scandisk error typically occurs when you do not shut down your PC correctly thus leading to a scandisk check on starting up your computer. You can skip the disk check by pressing any key (usually, they do not mean just about "any" key *giggle*) but then you may have the same prompt upon your next reboot for scanning the hard disk partition. I would suggest you run a complete scandisk so that the utility can search for bad sectors, errors, or inconsistencies in the file system and drive and then reboot to check if the scandisk message still appears.@GalahadIt is possible to have multiple primary partitions - hence the three primary partitions on the same drive. The OP mentioned that he/she has a single hard disk drive, which is the 160GB hard disk drive that he/she referred to. If you do want to combine multiple disk drives to appear as a single partition, Microsoft Windows versions from Windows 2000 onward have this capability although this is limited to only the server and workstation versions of the software. Windows XP Professional may have the capability to create a partition that spans across multiple hard disk drives but Windows XP Home Edition would not.I do concur on your choice of Partition Magic. It helps avoid the need to copy the data, delete the partitions, and re-create the partitions, because it attempts to preserve the data as it converts the filesystems and partitions. You may not, however, be able to get a single partition across multiple hard disk drives using Partition Magic (though they may have added in the capability in later versions of the software, which I am unaware of). Partition Magic is commercial software and requires the purchase of a license. You should backup your data before you use Partition Magic because errors are bound to occur at any time, from a hanged operation due to the inability of the hard disk drive to read a sector to problems originating from the hardware or even power cuts. Having a backup is rather cheap because of the availability of DVD-Rs and cheap external hard disk drives. A free alternative to Partition Magic is the Linux-based gParted.BTW, I would like to add that the conversion to the NTFS file system that you have suggested can be performed using Disk Management in the Computer Management console without having any data loss (or so they claim; I haven't had any data loss using their file system conversion utility so far and if I do, may my backups save me). I cannot attest to the increased reliability of NTFS over the FAT32 file system but Microsoft does claim that the NTFS file system supports journaling which means a greater reliability when writing to the disk drive.@uiopgParted is free and Linux based so I would believe that it supports more file systems than Disk Management in the Computer Management console but Partition Magic supports a lot of partition types. I wouldn't really know if Partition Magic is based on entirely proprietary code or if they used an open-source BSD project to build it, but in either case they have lots of source code to build upon that has been extensively tried and tested so it is unlikely that you will have a problem with Partition Magic.@Robert ElierThe Fedora Linux installer does have a partition manager for you to be able to remove primary partitions and create extended and logical partitions on your hard disk drive. When you are running the Fedora installer, look for the prompt that asks you if you want to erase the entire disk and use the whole disk for Linux, create custom partitions, or use existing partitions. I have used the Fedora and the old Red Hat Linux distribution installers and that haven't failed me yet when used as intended. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Quatrux 4 Report post Posted November 11, 2011 To add my two cents I can add an alternative to Partition Magic I've found and started using a really good tool for playing with partitions, it's called EASEUS Partition Master. It can almost do anything you want and it their page they have quite good tutorials how to achieve a desired result. I've done some things and didn't need to do any recovery and didn't have any problems. For example, I had on one computer C and D disks, C was 10 GB and D was ~250 GB, due to I was out of space on C disk, and because it was a C partition on which windows is installed, I couldn't do a lot with windows disk management and etc. but with EASEUS Partition Master for free I could extend my C drive without moving the files and I only needed to reboot once as I remember or maybe I rebooted because I wanted to. To do that, I needed to defragment both C and D drivers, scan them for bad blocks and whole, the program later did everything itself, I've made my C disk 60 GB by taking that space from D disk and no files were lost It has moved D drive files to the end of the D disk and took the space from the D disk from the start and added it to the disk C, what I later have one is I defragmented both drives again. So it's really a powerful tool for FREE! If doing it the old way, I guess I would need to delete D disk and if possible extend C disk, I didn't find any program for free I could trust though, but EASUS worked and I am really happy about it, due to I was thinking of doing a complete format of that system to rearrange the partitions. You can download it from file hippo: http://filehippo.com/download_easeus_partition_master_home/ Here is a quote about it: As Partition Magic alternative, EASEUS Partition Master Home Edition is a FREE ALL-IN-ONE partition solution and disk management utility. It allows you to extend partition (especially for system drive), manage disk space easily, settle low disk space problem on MBR and GUID partition table (GPT) disk. Resize/Move partition Extend system drive Copy disk & partition Merge partition Split partition Redistribute free space Convert dynamic disk Recover partition I thought it would be good to add a list of partitioning software to this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_partitioning_software Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
