How do I add unallocated space to existing drive in XP?

[many a good man]

I finally upgraded my old motherboard and added a big new 300GB hard drive. I left the old 20GB disk in place as the C: drive and installed XP Pro on the new drive (F).

The BIOS autodetected it properly at 300GB. The Windows set up only reported 128GB so I had no choice but to proceed. (Is this a limitation on Windows sys partition size or something?)

In diskman it shows Disk 1 with 128GB on F: and 151.47 GB unallocated. My question is: How can allocate that space to the F: drive?

Diskman gives me the option to make it a Primary partition or Extended partition. I click thru the wizard for Extended and it never asks me for a drive letter. I'm wary of doing anything that I can't undo later. Am I stuck with having to add this space as a new drive letter?


Follow up question: After I move all my old data off of C:, is there any way in the world I can change the f: drive to c:? Or would that totally whack all my registry settings? I think I know the answer but thought I'd ask any way.

[WhollyHeretic]

1. Have you updated your XP? Originally it had drive size limit

of 128GB but it supports much more than that now. Since you've already created the drive you could create a mounted volume to increase the size. (you might be able to use a program like partition magic but I've never used that) To create a mounted volume you first create a empty folder somewhere on the drive you want to expand then right click My Computer click on Manage and click on Disk Management (under Storage) right click the unpartitioned space and choose New Partition and go through the partition wizard. When you get to the Assign Drive Letter or Path choose Mount in the Following Empty NTFS Folder and choose the new folder you made. Once you finish you can save things in the folder that is mounted on the drive.

[bvar22]

2. I use Partition Magic.

Very versitile. Will do much more than you are asking.
I've seen it for sale on the Net for as little as $18.00.
It is available for download at some sites.

http://www.softwareoutlets.com/122/partition_magic_8.0_oem.htm?campaign=google

[many a good man]

3. PM is nice

I used it about 5 years ago. Guess I was hoping Windows would have a similar utility built in by now. $18 isn't too bad.

By "more than you are asking", do you mean could it make my F drive a C drive and clean up the registry?

[democracyindanger]

4. It can change the drive letter under XP

Weird. I just used PM 10 minutes ago to partition a new drive.

[many a good man]

5. XP's disk manager can change a drive letter

But I doubt it'll update the registry. For example, if I have a program under "f:\program files\.." and change f: to c: will it never be able to launch it? I wonder if PM is nice enough to scan the registry and change everything from f: to c: ? Anybody ever try this?

[bvar22]

6. You can reassign drive letters in XP

Go To:
Control Panel
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Storage
Disk Management

click on the partition
(Drop down Menu)Action
All Tasks
Change Drive Letters and Paths
(click)Change Choose New Letter


Partition Magic offers a "Drive Mapping" feature that will search for all references to a drive that has had the drive letter reassigned, and change all pointers to the new drive letter. XP may also do this. I've never used it.

PMagic does offer a feature that partitions and formats for Linux installations. I have used this many times for experimenting with different flavors of Linux in Dual Boot setups with XP. As long as you put the Linux Partitions at the end of your hard drive, there is no confusion with Drive Letter changes. Works great.

PMagic 8 comes with a utility called "PQBOOT" that is fun.
PQBoot allows multiple installations of Win/Dos OSes WITHOUT using a boot manager.
It sets up "hidden" partitions for each OS and allows the user to select which partition to "Unhide" and set to "active" for booting. Put each OS in a small partition with only those files and utilities that directly affect the particular OS. Put everything else (3rd party software) in other common partitions that are accessible to all OSes.
Since the other OSes are "hidden", drive letter assignment stays the same no matter which OS you boot to.
I still keep a small hidden partition with WinMe because I like having access to the more powerful command line Dos utilities that XP discontinued.
A serious gamer could "strip down" a hot rodded installation of XP that only loads services and drivers necessary for games, but keep a more functional "multipurpose" XP which could be booted to for stuff other than games.


The above arrangement does not work with Dual Boot Linux/XP, though the Linux bootloader is superb.

Partition Magic 8 has been problem free for me. It is one of the few pieces of software I REALLY like. It is the first thing I install on a new HardDrive (after the OS).

Cheers

[many a good man]

7. Value added

Partition Magic's changing of pointers is the magical part. I'm pretty sure Windows won't do that for you.

Its too bad PQboot doesn't do Linux. That's the only other OS I would consider installing.