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☖ Forums → Discussion Forum → unused unformatted space on HDD
unused unformatted space on HDD
2007-05-13, 8:44 AM #1
i have a partitioned HDD in this comp. it's 50% of the drive space and it's unformatted. is there any way in xp home to format and merge the two without losing anything or using third party software?
if not, is there free third party software that will do this for me?

please and thanks.
2007-05-13, 9:38 AM #2
Whenever I want to screw around with partitions, I boot up with my Knoppix Live! CD and use QTparted to resize/delete/format partitions.
the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot - LC Tusken
2007-05-13, 9:57 AM #3
why not just create another partition on the unused space?
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2007-05-13, 10:48 AM #4
using qtparted or partition magic you risk losing your data. just keep that in mind
gbk is 50 probably

MB IS FAT
2007-05-13, 10:49 AM #5
Defrag before you do anything.
2007-05-13, 12:46 PM #6
defrag won't matter if you are making the partition bigger, only if you are shrinking it. won't hurt though.
gbk is 50 probably

MB IS FAT
2007-05-13, 2:56 PM #7
I've had TERRIBLE luck resizing NTFS partitions. (once I do, it always becomes unbootable for some reason)
2007-05-13, 2:57 PM #8
That's probably because you used QTParted.
Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.
2007-05-13, 4:32 PM #9
does gparted work any better?
2007-05-13, 4:49 PM #10
Nothing works 100%. That's why I always recommend avoiding it completely.
2007-05-13, 5:45 PM #11
Partition Magic always worked for me.
Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.
2007-05-13, 6:02 PM #12
i've never had trouble with partition magic but i can't find my copy of it anywhere.
the drive doesn't need to be merged with the unused space but one day it might need to be.

thanks for your help.
2007-05-14, 4:58 PM #13
Gparted always works for me when it comes to resizing and creating partitions (mostly NTFS), I've never had a problem. Backup before you do anything. :)
2007-05-14, 5:17 PM #14
Originally posted by Emon:
That's probably because you used QTParted.

Actually, Ive had extremely good luck with qtparted, even (especially) with resizing NTFS paritions (thats pretty much all I use it for).

A disk cloning system I built a the office some years ago uses qtparted as the final step. The disk image is of a 5 gig partition, which is then blown onto a 180gb drive and scaled up with qtparted on Knoppix. Ive produced some 200 identical systems over the years with that setup. Works like a charm every time.
And when the moment is right, I'm gonna fly a kite.
2007-05-15, 8:16 AM #15
When I wanted to do that with my old HD, I tried qtparted and gparted and neither of them worked. Partition Magic worked for me and it has worked every time I need to resize or do stuff with partitions.
A computer's worst nightmare:
0010111010011110210011010001

HazTeam Website-=HT=
2007-05-15, 8:41 AM #16
BootIt NG is pretty cool. It isn't free, but the shareware version can resize NTFS partitions. I use it at work all the time.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/bootitng.html

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