# Solved: Can't Allocate Unallocated Space



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

I recently upgraded from XP to Vista Ultimate. At the time I decided to keep the XP recovery partition (D drive, 6gb). As I no longer wanted the XP recovery partition I formatted that drive. As I have no need for a second partition I wanted to merge it into my C drive so I would only have the one drive. But for some reason I am finding this very difficult to do.

Using Acronis Disk Director Suite I've tried merging the two drives without success, deleting the D drive which converts it to unallocated space then resizing the C drive with that space without success.

The Windows Disk Management graphical view shows 6gb unallocated space & (C) 143.05gb. I've tried right clicking on the C drive to try & 'Extend Volume' but find that greyed out.

So as it stands now I have 6gb of unallocated space that I can't seem to do anything with. I'm obviously missing something so any suggestions on how I can merge/allocate the space to the C drive or as to what I'm missing/doing wrong?


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

bump


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Are you sure it is GB and not MB?

Can you post a pic of Disk Management?


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Have you tried the Vista resize .. and see if it can absorb the unallocated space.
I'm surprised ADD couldn't do it ... Got the latest version ??

Did you backup with ATI first ??
I horsed around with Vista resize several times .. and after a while .. It quit working.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Thanks for the reply Elvandil
Yes. Pretty sure it is 6 gigabytes or 5,999mb. Will have to wait until I get home to post pic of DM.

I was doing some research on this & I think it may have something to do with 'basic' & 'dynamic' disks. That was getting a little above my knowledge of computers. Needs to be explained to me in laymans terms if you know anything about it.

I also tried moving the unallocated space with Acronis Disc Director as I also read that the space needs to be behind the volume you wish to extend however had no luck with that either.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Hello Noyb

No haven't tried the Vista re-size. Didn't know it was there or is that part of the disk management? Yes got the latest ADD, only purchased a couple of days ago. Got it specifically for this task & was a little disappointed it couldn't do it.

I have ATI but as yet have not used it. Thinking about it, probably should have before messing around with the drives.


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

Not trying to be a wise guy. But sometimes a small amount of space is left for partition management during some operations, but it is typically 8 MB and not 6.

The recovery partition is usually an EISA partition that diskpart.exe may not be able to delete. If it labels it as unallocated, however, I would think it was really gone.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

jmw3's Compaq came with XP Home ... and HP/Compaq's have a recovery Partition.
They're usually about a 6Gig Partition formatted fat32.
Yes .. it's wasted space with a Vista upgrade.

jmw3 ... Sure hope you have your XP recovery DVDs ..


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Yep. That 8mb was there & I absorbed that into the C drive using 'Extend Volume' right clicking on the drive while in DM. At the time the graphical view in DM showed, 6gb unallocated space - C drive 143.05gb - 7.85mb unallocated space. When I right clicked on on the C drive then Extend Volume i was hoping to absorb both the 6gb & the 8mb of unallocated space but in only took the 8mb. The Extend Volume is now greyed out.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Yes. Have the xp recovery discs.....???


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Can you attach a screen shot of your Disc Management screen.
I'm curious if the Recovery Partition is left or right of the System C: partition.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Will post a pic of the DM screen when I get home, currently at work. But can tell you the the unallocated space (formerly the recovery partition) is to the left of system C: partition.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

I'm not familiar with Vista ... and I think it works different.

But in XP .. the boot.ini file points to the operating System by it's position number.
Which in your case would be partition #2 ... Recovery #1.
Remove the Recovery Partition (#1) .. then the system becomes #1 .. and the computer won't boot ... because it's looking for an OS in #2 which is missing.

Just a wild guess .. maybe Vista's stopping you from making a mistake.


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

In another thread, a poster was unable to remove the EISA recovery partition with Windows tools. But using a third-party partitioner from a boot CD did remove it.

Partitioning Tools-->

Free:

Gparted LiveCD
Parted Magic

If it appears to the partitioner that the partition is already gone, I'd create a new partition in that space, reboot, and then delete that, just for good measure.

Though both of those partitioners can expand NTFS partitions, doing that is the one time when they tend to have problems. You should use Vista if possible. If you can't do it while Vista is running, do it offline by booting from the Vista DVD and running diskpart.exe from a command prompt.

But if you really want to use those other tools, be sure that you run chkdsk and repair all errors before even trying to partition since minor errors can lead to disaster (This should be done before using *any* partitioner.). And then thoroughly defragment the Vista partition before expanding it. Those steps usually allow GParted to expand an NTFS partition without problems.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Elvandil said:


> If it appears to the partitioner that the partition is already gone, I'd create a new partition in that space, reboot, and then delete that, just for good measure.


Tried that with both ADD & DM thinking that creating a new partition with the unallocated space might let me merge it into the C drive, no luck.

I did also try DiskPart from a command prompt after coming across a possible fix from Microsoft but that didn't work either, though i didn't use the Vista DVD for that. Will try that again with the DVD. Just on that, I'm new to Vista myself, so using the dvd I should be able to 'play around' with the partition without having to re-install Vista??


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

If you don't ruin the partition, you'll be fine. It's the same tool Disk Management uses, only without Vista running.

It would have been better to remove that partition before installing Vista. There was a non-standard MBR present for accessing the recovery partition, and I suspect that is part of the problem.

Though I doubt it, you could try VistabootPro or 
EasyBCD to be sure that there are no references to that partition in the BCD store.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Ok. Here's a pic of my DM










Also this is what Diskpart.exe is telling me, thought this might help.

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\John & Kylie>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.0.6000
Copyright (C) 1999-2007 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: DESKTOP

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 149 GB 6143 MB
Disk 1 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 3 No Media 0 B 0 B
Disk 4 No Media 0 B 0 B

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> list partition

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Primary 143 GB 6143 MB

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 I Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 1 C NTFS Partition 143 GB Healthy System
Volume 2 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 3 G Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 4 H Removable 0 B No Media
Volume 5 J Removable 0 B No Media

DISKPART>


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Just did some Googling ... And it looks like Vista doesn't have a boot.ini.
I don't know what will happen if you remove the unallocated space ... if you can.
I assume you used a Vista UPGRADE to upgrade your XP system .. and it left the previous XP Compaq Recovery partition.

Unless a Vista expert drops by with a better idea .. I'd try ...
Make an Acronis True Image file of the Vista C: Partition in one of my externals.
Then I'd tell Acronis to prepare the HD .. (make a new HD) ..
Then recover the C: Partition from my True image backup in my external
At this time, you should be able to tell Acronis what size you want the C: partition ... if you want to partition the drive.

When I was messing with Vista .. I had a couple of occasions where it wouldn't boot after cloning ... Maybe recovering ??
I inserted my Vista Upgrade disc .. and told it to fix it .. (Repair install)
Hope you're doing this work on a spare HD and still have your original XP HD.

Do you have Acroins True Image and an External HD ??

If you only have the Vista upgrade version and you ever have to Install again ... 
The Acroins recovery image will save you from having to install XP first ... then upgrade it.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Hello Noyb

Have the full version of Vista so no dramas there. Also have Acronis True Image & an external HD. So I'll give your suggestion a try. As for the spare HD & original xp hd... did a clean install of vista on the one & only hd that was in the machine. At the time I thought I would hang on to the xp recovery partition in case I didn't like vista or thing went pear shaped. I vaguely remember then when I was given the partitioning options that the D drive was not accessible so even if I wanted to get rid of it I don't think I could have. Is that normal with a pre-loaded OS?


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

jmw3 said:


> ... Is that normal with a pre-loaded OS?


Got me .. I would have thought the full Vista install would have written a whole new drive.
Did you pass by an option to format the drive ??

Your old D: Recovery would not have worked since you couldn't get to HP/Compaq's tools in XP .. Once you put in Vista.

You do realize, that by installing M$ Vista .. You have lost the Compaq's supplied OEM applications such as Sonic's CD/DVD burning, maybe some DVD software, some drivers .. etc ..

I cheated .. And put Vista on a spare (play) HD ... Didn't like it, so I still have XP MCE.

Removing the D: Recovery from your XP will be tricky .. since it's partition #1.
Maybe some wizards know how to fix this ... 
But I edited the Boot.ini so it points to Partition #1 ..
cloned the C: to a new drive ..
Then restored the Boot.ini back to pointing to Partition #2.
So far .. The cloned HD worked every time.
The missing recovery options are still available from the recovery DVDs.

My newer HP XP MCE's put the recovery in Partition #2 .. So there's no problem just deleting it.

Did you think to make a Acronis Image of XP ... First ??


----------



## tex0gen (Jun 10, 2007)

I had a prblem simillar to this as my external hdd kepy comming up as a partition (EISA)

I have no clue how i did it.. [search around.] but i managed to unlock it back to how it was using the CMD and issuing commands through that. [all in computer, no downloaded crap]


----------



## tex0gen (Jun 10, 2007)

ooops, sorry did not see the guy above doing what i did.. [dskpart] lol


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

jmw3 said:


> DISKPART> list partition
> 
> Partition ### Type Size Offset
> ------------- ---------------- ------- -------
> ...


OK. That looks normal enough. But what happens here when you try to expand?


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Ok. Managed to solve this one.










First off I tried a possible fix I came across using Diskpart.exe, however that failed, then I tried Diskpart booting from the Vista dvd, no luck there either. So I went back to Acronis Disk Director, created the bootable CD & booted from that. Went through the motions of resizing the C: partition with the unallocated space & SUCCESS. Should have tried that in the first place. Oh well,live & learn...

Thanks to everyone for their input, got me pointed in the right direction.:up:

Though the question remains why it takes a third party partitioner to do something the M$ OS should easily do!!!


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

jmw3 said:


> Though the question remains why it takes a third party partitioner to do something the M$ OS should easily do!!!


Recovery partitions messed you up   ... you really gotta love them  
Now .. make an Acronis copy.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

If you plan on having many gig of stored data loaded ....
You may want to store this data elsewhere besides your C: partition.
Vista should be able to shrink the C: down to something like 50 gig ...
Then you can create a new partition for all your stored data.
When partitioning .. always make an Acronis copy first.

Something like this ...


----------



## Elvandil (Aug 1, 2003)

jmw3 said:


> Ok. Managed to solve this one.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I still think you may have been right when you suggested that the empty space being before the Vista partition instead of after was why diskpart didn't like it. Vista has more than one way to boot, and an offset recorded to the EFI partition by some systems may not be accessible or updated by most partitioning tools. For systems that load BIOS instead of EFI and then access the MBR, it should not have been a problem.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Since the law suit against HP for using a recovery partition...
They started putting it after the C: Partition.

This does make removing (deleting) it a lot easier...
But you still have to Resize and/or Partition to make it useful.

My portion of the Class Action suit was a $50 certificate at HP shopping.com .. What a deal !

At least Vista can resize ... that's about the only thing I've found in Vista's favor.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Noyb said:


> My portion of the Class Action suit was a $50 certificate at HP shopping.com .. What a deal !


Hope you spent that wisely Noyb

I was actually thinking of creating a partition for data, however we store most of our files, photos, music etc. on our external hard disc. I'll have think about that one..

And yes I will defintiely be making a copy.


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

My Data partitions are my first order backup ... I really have two internals.
I can replace the C: partition using Acronis and not worry about my Data.
A smaller C: is easier to maintain and backup ... It all depends on how much DATA you'll have.

The only thing that worries me is why are some Vista C: partitions so large with nothing in them.

I'm gonna frame it after 6 more days.


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

I can see your point about maintenance on a smaller C: & 126gb of space with nothing on it is a bit of waste... yeah, I think I'll look a bit closer on the Data partition... definitely makes sense. Or I could always mess around with the Vista 64bit OS on a separate partition.... could be interesting.

Will have to wait till I get home to look at the pics of your set up as my work computer is blocking access to attachments from this site!


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Putting different OS's on one HD makes me nervous.
Don't understand what I read here at TSG ... But I think Vista Causes problems with this.
Can't remove one ??? .. without major surgery and a doctors degree ??


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

You feel like this yet


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

LOL... I'm actually one of those weirdos who likes Vista, but don't hold that against me!!!!

How did you do that?


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Photoshop ... Did you forget who made your Avatar  
I won't hold that against you 

Do you know what they call a Boomerang that won't come back


----------



## jmw3 (Jul 23, 2007)

Ah Photoshop... that's my wife's domain. Well done & no I hadn't forgotten where I got it & who offered it. Thanks again & much appreciated. When I saw it I knew that was me. Where I live you're dodging those things every five minutes on the roads. Right pain in the proverbial.

I don't know.... a stick


----------



## Noyb (May 25, 2005)

Import the gif to Image ready .. switch to PS .. change it with the animation window .. and save for web.

A stick it is :up:


----------

