drive partitioning

I hope I'm not screwed but i recently built my brother a computer and he wanted to partition his 80 gig drive so when installing windows i created a 20 gig partition and to my surprise ( never partitioned before) drive c was 20 gig but there was nothing else. long story short how do i get the rest of the 60 gigs partitioned? is it too late?

Simply make another partition

Adding another partition from empty space won't affect the first partition. I've got an 80Gig in this machine setup the same way. 20Gig for Drive C: (Windows, software, etc.) 60Gig for Drive D: (downloads, images, work, games, etc.).

thanks axe but i need to know how to make the new partition

With fdisk

Just get to a dos prompt, load fdisk, and read what it says on the screen. You need to create an extended partition, and you create your drive inside that.

if u find that very hard and time consuming u can use the software magic partion, u can download it. very simple and powerful software.

thats what i use...
good luck.

Wouldn't installing another piece of software to do the same job be even more time consuming? By the time you've installed Partition Magic, you could've already done with fdisk (that is probably already installed as part of your OS and doesn't cost more money, heh).

It doesn't take more than a coupla minutes to create a new partition with fdisk.

more info on fdisk please what is it were can i get it how to use

This gentleman seems to have a nice, easy to follow tutorial.
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~mrscary/fdisk.htm
The fdisk.exe should be on your setup boot floppy.
Make sure to print up the tute on the computer you're now using for the times that you're near the other machine.

You've already created the primaray DOS partition - C:\
You now need to create an extended DOS partition with one or more Logical DOS Drives in that Extended DOS Partition.

It'll basically look like this...

Primary -
C:\
Extended -
Logical drive D:\
Logical drive E:\
Logical drive F:\

And so on if you wish multiple, separate partitions.

I currently have the following partitions
OS and apps on C:\
family pics and work files on D:\
Downloads and storage for burning on E:\

There's enough storage on E:\ so that I can use Norton Ghost to image the entire D:\ partition for copying to CD when I need backing up.



Cheers...


C.C.

A note to those trying to help, remember fdisk doesn't read partitions made in NTFS format. So if you want to fill up the extra space, you can use Partition Magic.

IMO it's much nicer to use NTFS, only because of the added security.

Hope it helps!

yeah the comp im trying to partition is winxp system and only reason im not suinf fdsik is the NTFS compatibility im going to use partition magic if any one knowsa better way all extra help is apreciated

I'm not sure if its included in home edition, but if you're running xp pro then you can right click my computer, manage, and disk management. This gets you an easy view of your partitions.
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you can create extended partitions there. It's an easy to use graphical interface if you're uncomfortable with the command prompt-like Fdisk.

get "partition magic". It is a great software. I think there is a free trial not sure. It is easy to use and it will help you install 2nd operating system and you dont gotta format. Hope this helps

as i have recommended this software before, its very good and safety.
and on the other hand most people with not enough knowledge are scared of using dos(fdisk)
they prefer working with software.

Okay I have done something stupid and need to know if I can fix it. What I have done is while in the process of fresh installing win xp pro on my computer I got to the point where I can delete and format and partition my drives well at the time i noticed I had to drives so I pressed to delete both and then before formatting I noticed that my USB external drive was still connected. So I didn't format that drive! now when I start windows the external drive was recognized and installed by win xp, but when i go to start>right click my computer>manage>storage devices>disk management... it shows that I have my c: drive, my cd drive and then a disk1 which says unallocated. My question is if I go through the process of partitioning this disk will I lose allllll my important files that I have stored on my external drive? And is there any other way to retrieve all my files that are on that external drive? thanks!!
KP

If you format any HDD you will lose all the information on it.

Matt