Help with an old hard drive

General Topics
21

It will still keep two partitions… is there what he wants?

22

Tech, if he uses Easus to delete 1 partition and resizes the other to take the empty space how does this make 2 partitions?

23

There is a G: Scott partition at the end of the disk or am I wrong?

24

:-[ missed that tech.sorry

If I understand what scott wanted originally was 1 (one) partition, then he needs to delete the smaller one and resize the other.

25
EDIT:Ok so I formatted both partitions and in both there is a hidden folder called 'System Volume Information', Why?? It can't be deleted or accessed 
              Any ideas about the BIOS thing or is this not possible?</blockquote>

What I gathered, perhaps wrongly, was that Scott was unable to make a clean deletion on disk 2 so that he would be left with 80GB of unallocated space that he could do what he liked with. Instead he was left with hidden folders (remnant allocations) ‘System Volume Information’. This why I suggested using a bootdisk and working in DOS. I recall doing something similar a while ago when I simlpy could not wipe a hard drive clean until I reverted to DOS. In this case the NTFS partitions on disk 2 would be deleted in DOS as non-DOS partitions.

However, I would expect Easeus to clean the disk easily enough - that is if Scott does just want to have with 80GB unallocated on disk 2 and partition / format as he likes.

Disk 1
I didn’t see his set up on disk 1 until I saw the screenshot this morning. That HDD looks like the dual boot set up that was once popular and if Scott wanted to try the *: drive as active he might find an OS is still currently available - probably 98SE or XP(FAT32). Some people were unwilling to abandon FAT after being subjected to Windows 2000 which was basically NT4 carried a step further.

26

Windows creates a ‘System Volume Information’ folder in every partition, it is where system restore creates restore points, so as such it is a system folder and by default hidden.

27

Of course. Thanks DavidR.

28

You’re welcome.

29

You’re welcome, Scott, but I’m sorry it wasn’t more incouraging for you.

30

Scott, after all, what did you do? Do you need further help?

31

Hi all,

First of all, I haven’t had an internet connection (no xbox live :'() until now so I couldn’t even look at the topic (This is what happens when you don’t organise an overlap when changing ISPs, oh well wasn’t me :))
I suppose this was a good thing with exams and all :slight_smile:

Possibly…since I couldn’t look at the topic I haven’t touched the computer, let alone the hard drive :wink:

I may not have been clear about this, what I meant was to delete the smaller partition with Easeus and resize the bigger one to fill, or should I just delete them both and make a new one?

As for Disk 1.
As you asked this is the HD of the PC in my signiture (the only PC I own, besides my dead laptop where I took the other HD from, now in a USB enclosure)
From the reactions I am not really sure if I should be worried…
I thought it was just a normal drive…
I’d prefer to leave it alone if thats possible, for I wouldn’t want to mess things up.
What do you think?

Thanks,

-Scott-

32

Hi Scott

If your disk 1 is going okay then that is fine. Exactly what you want.

Is your disk 2 the old laptop drive in an USB enclosure? And if so, is that it?

33

Thats good to hear about Disk 1, all is well :slight_smile:

Yes, Disk 2 is the laptop hard drive in a USB enclosure

-Scott-

34

Disk 2 does not appear to have the operating system from the old laptop on it. But there are some files on two of the partitions - I think about 60mb on one and about 40mb on G: if I recall correctly.

If you wanted to save those files on Disk 2 across to Disk 1 then that would leave you free to do whatever you want on Disk 2. First make Folders for them on Disk 1 and then save or copy them across.

Once done, then you should be able to format Disk 2.

Plug it in, then open up local disk C:\ and right-click the icon for disk 2 and choose format. The format should clean the disk leaving one partition and disk 2 ready to go as an external hard drive. Alternatively you can do your formatting (and partitioning if you want) in Disk Management in the MMC Computer Management in Administrative Tools.

The point about copying files off and cleaning out Disk 2 is that it leaves you with all the options. You can try different things out - just reformat and start again, try other things - reformat, start again, and so on until you find an arrangement that you want, or just keep trying other things out on it. As long as you’ve got Disk 1 taking care of things at system core, and you’ve still got sufficient space for storage there, you can treat Disk 2 as your playground.

If you have any difficulties or have something else in mind dont hesitate to reply post.

35

Disk 2 has nothing on it because I have already formatted it.
I just wanted to use it for backup really, and just wanted a single partition

I don’t know what the 60 and 40MB file(s) are, there’s only the empty, hidden system restore folder.

-Scott-

36

Oh that’s right I remember now. Sorry about delay, I’m mucking around with some old hard drives of my own.

So the first format option I mentioned doesn’t clean those partitions to single?
Do you have to delete the partitions, but they wont delete?

37

I just wanted to know the easiest way to do it with easeus

I may have made this into more of an issue than it is, sorry

I haven’t actually done anything with the partitions yet, but format them in through ‘My Computer’

-Scott-

38

Right click the partitions, click ‘Delete’.
When there is no partition, just free space.
Right click it and create a new primary partition and choose the system file (NTFS, for instance).
If you want, you can right click the partition and format it again.
You can choose a label for it also.

39

Thanks Tech I will have a go at that

-Scott-

40

You’re always welcome :wink: