Trying to partition WIndows XP, but it won't let me. Help!

[Phokus]

Ok, i'm logged in the administrator account in windows xp on my brand new notebook computer. I'm in computer management -> disk management and it won't let me add a new partition the primary hard drive, wtf? I've done this under windows 2000 before using the same program, but xp won't let me do it for some reason.

I'm using NTFS, does this have anything to do with it?

 

[mikecel79]

What is the error message you are getting? If it's a brand new laptop are you sure there is space on the drive to add a new partition?

 

[Phokus]

Originally posted by: mikecel79
What is the error message you are getting? If it's a brand new laptop are you sure there is space on the drive to add a new partition?

i'm not getting any error message, when i try to right click my hard drive in 'disk management', it doesn't have the option to 'create new partition' like it did in windows 2000. And i should have space with this brand new hard drive, i haven't installed anything on it yet! (34 gigabytes free!)

 

[mikecel79]

Originally posted by: Phokus

Originally posted by: mikecel79
What is the error message you are getting? If it's a brand new laptop are you sure there is space on the drive to add a new partition?

i'm not getting any error message, when i try to right click my hard drive in 'disk management', it doesn't have the option to 'create new partition' like it did in windows 2000. And i should have space with this brand new hard drive, i haven't installed anything on it yet! (34 gigabytes free!)

You answered your own question. You can't partition the drive because there is no free space to partition. All your free space has been allocated to the primary partition already. You can only partition a drive if there is unallocated space.

 

[Crusty]

:wine::gift:

 

[tiap]

Use a bootable partition manager. then you can juggle partitions around. You probably have a hidden recovery partition as well, which should show. Be carefull, or image it.

 

[pitupepito2000]

I would recommend you do a reinstall, and create only one partition for windows maybe 10G for Windows, and then leave the rest as free space, during the installation process. Then when you boot into your fressh install of windows it should show some free space, thta you can use to create a partition.

Note: You care confusing free space within a partition and free space unallocated in a hard drive. The first one is actually occupied because you created a parition and a filesystem in it. The second is the one that you can use to create as many paritions as you want to.

good luck,
pitupepito

 

[tiap]

Don't reinstall. Totally unecessary.
Use a partition manager (ie. PartitionExpert by Acronis)
You will be done in 10 minutes with as many partioins as you want. I use it several times every week to do just that.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: tiap
Don't reinstall. Totally unecessary.
Use a partition manager (ie. PartitionExpert by Acronis)
You will be done in 10 minutes with as many partioins as you want. I use it several times every week to do just that.

Sounds like a wasted 10 minutes. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

 

[Gamingphreek]

Are there any free versions of any these apps because i too need to resize my partition.

-Kevin

 

[Sianath]

It's common with laptops to ship with the entire disk partitioned for you. As Mike posted above, you need unallocated space to create a partition from.

Your option if you really want multiple partitions would be to boot from your XP CD and format/reinstall. Of course, this is assuming you have a true XP CD and not an OEM Recovery CD. Those tend to format/reinstall automatically with the same partition layout the laptop shipped with.