I have Windows XP HOME, but the40GB are split into 4 drives I want to transfer all the drives into drive C.?

Question

My problem is that when it was installed, the 40GB was split into 4 drives of 10GB each. The default drive is C: and its nearly full.
I want to transfer the other 3 drives into drive C:. How do I do that? No one where I live seems to know!
CAN SOMEONE TELL ME HOW? In simple language please , i am not an expert, so no jargon please.
Please help, I've just bought Vista update (fool that I am) from Amazon, it will be delivered soon and I want to install it in driveC:.

Answer 1

If you only have a 40GB drive, are you sure your PC will handle Vista? Make sure it meets the system requirements (since you only have 40GB, I think the other hardware might be too old).

Anyway, you can use Partition Logic, it's a free program...just burn it to a CD and boot to it. If there is nothing else on the other partitions, you can just delete them (D, E and F...NOT C) and then resize C so that it takes up the rest of the drive.

Answer 2

I suspect that all your program files are installed on C: drive and you have only one physical drive (40GB) and it is a laptop (most of them have 30-40GB drives). As suggested you can use something like partition magic or, better, Acronis PartitionExpert to merge the logical drives into one. But if you do, your 40GB will probably be too small for Vista.
Instead, I would get an external drive (120+GB) and transfer the other nonC: drives to it and delete them from the laptop's drive. There is no need to merge them, really. Then I would expand the primary partition (C:) to fill all 40GB (back up first). This will also allow more room for Vista OS and programs (Iwould also cancel Vista from Amazon and stick with XP).

Answer 3

First off, I think you'll find that you'll struggle to get Vista running with just a 40GB HDD. It's far more resource hungry than XP, so the best bet maybe is to get another, larger HDD. You can get a decent 200GB drive for about £60, so it's not expensive.

That said, what you described your HDD to be is partitioned, though it's strange for it to be partitioned into so many drives with so little space on each. Anyway, you can recombine the drives, by repartitioning though as a drive needs to be formatted to make it usable after repartitioning, and formatting destroys all data on a drive, you cannot do this with the drive that Windows is currently on.

All in all, if your end goal is to get Vista up and running on your PC, you're going to need to get a larger HDD (and possibly more RAM - check the minimum requirements on the side of the box your copy of Vista comes in, or check on Microsoft's website). So best just get that new HDD, set it up as the master drive (C:)install Vista on it. Repartition your old drive into one HDD with 40GB and reformat it.

Obviously back up what you want to keep on your old HDD before doing anything.

Answer 4

Before a clean install, make sure you have backed up the data properly and also see if clean install deletes any partition or not (I haven't installed it so can't exactly say).

However, if you want to change partition or modify them, there are many software for the purpose that allow you to modify partition parameters without loosing the data. The software may or may not cost.

Please see http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0-1-0.html?qt=partition+manager&author=&titlename=&desc=&dlcount=&daysback=&swlink=&gfiletype=&os=&li=49&dlsize=&ca=
for a list of free partition managers.

In case you don't have any important data you may use default Windows setup for the purpose (for example in Windows XP, during setup it asks you about the partitions you want.

Hope that helps!

Answer 5

download a program called partion magic(now acquired by Norton). it can do all you want and more... you might get a free trial somewhere on the net... but if ur installing vista, go for a clean install.

Answer 6

if you cannot afford to do a clean install (always the best way) buy partition magic which will allow you to merge your individual partitions into a single big one.

Answer 7

when u get vista do a clean install.