help fixin moms comp

[thursday22dp]

Ok i couldnt figure out this out. Ok so i dont know the specs on this comp as my friends mom gave her this laptop.

Ok the HD looks like its partitioned into 2 parts, one as 4gb and the other as 10gb(i think). The 4gb one that my mom is using has winxp on NTFS. The problem is that it is running low on space somehow and has ~100MB left. The other partition is FAT32 and no OS(pretty sure). I tryed using partition magic and other program to unpartition the FAT32 one and then combine them. Nothing ive tried has worked and I dont really think I can reformat it. Since the other one is very low on space im afraid it will crash etc and get all f'ed up.

thanks

 

[thursday22dp]

no1?

 

[swatoke]

You didn't say what operating system is installed or what you want to install. If you are going to install Windows XP or 2000 you can boot from CD. You may have to enter the BIOS and change the boot order. When you boot from CD you will get an option to delete partion, so go ahead and delete both partitions and then install windows.

Good luck

 

[thursday22dp]

1. Its XP on it and i just wanted to add the space onto the other partition so i wouldnt crash if thats possible
2. Losing data is a extremly last resort because my mom has a lot of important work stuff on there and no cd burner

 

[swatoke]

I think Partition Magic will work to increase the size of a partition but since one is NTFS and the other FAT32 you may have a problem. You could use a USB flash drive to save her important files over to another computer. That is all I could think of maybe somebody else will have a better suggestion.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Yeah, it might be a good idea to just save all the stuff you want to keep on it, then make sure you have all the drivers, then partition the drive over and format it to NTFS and then do a fresh install + transfer the files back.

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, I haven't done it with NFTS, but have with Fat 32 using Partition Magic 8. It's a pain. I think I managed by deleting the second partition, reformating it and then adding it to the first one. Been awhile. Not sure. I am pretty sure you will have to convert the second part to NTFS first. Jim