[begud4me]

Hello, i have a pc running XP with an AMD athlon 3.2 I have a Hitachi 250 gig HDD installed which is holding the operating system. The only problem is that its only being read in partitions one is 120 gig and the other is a 50 gig partition. i was wondering if there is a way to gain access to the remaining 80 gigs. (this is like having money and not being able to use it) i have been looking into converting it to a dynamic disk but am not sure if this is the answer. I am also trying to avoid having to buy a third party piece of software to do this. Any insight on dynamic disks and ways to access this remaining space would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Triple6]

Don't convert to Dynamic disks. In Disk Management do you have any unallocated space? If so create a new partition from that area.

However, if you want to merge the partitions into one large one then you'll need to buy some extra software like Partition Magic.

 

[begud4me]

im not sure how to tell if i have unallocated space...i know that the full size of the disk does not show up under disk management. Also i am unsure how to create a new partition...is there a tutorial you can link me to that would explain this process??

 

[Triple6]

Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management?

 

[begud4me]

i wont be able to till later...i am at work...sorry.

 

[Triple6]

...because if the full size of the drive is not recognized then you have a bigger problem - or not a 250GB drive. But be aware that the actually capacity of a 250 GB drive is around 232 GB.

 

[begud4me]

oh mann the dreaded words "you have a bigger problem" so what should i be looking for to tell if its recognizing the drive?? I am positive that its a 250...i used everest home edition this morning to get a hardware profile and looked up the drive on google just to be sure. and by "bigger problem"...am i going to have to fdisk or something?

 

[Triple6]

Well lets see the screen shot of Disk Management first.