Deleting partitions

[slatts]

Win 98SE. I have three partitions on my HD. Is there any way to delete the partitions without reformatting or losing data other than buying Partition Magic? I would like to delete the partitions without disturbing the data and end up with just the C drive.

Slatts

[Evil-Lab-Monkey]

I'm guessing what you want to do is merge 3 partitions together so that your C, D and E drives all become one? To do that you would need something like Partition Magic, FDisk isn't capable. It's well worth the price for PM, I use it all the time.

There is only 2 ways I can think of doing it:

1) Use the "merge partition" option in PM
2) Resize the C drive to use up all the free space, copy D: over, delete D, resize C again, copy E over, delete D and resize C once more. This would need Partition Magic for the resizing.

[Confused]

www.directdeals.com has Partition Magic 7.0 for $33.00 if you decide to go that route.
Chas

[TwoRails]

Hi slatts,

Just curious, since there are advantages to multipartitions, as to why you'd like to go to one??

TwoRails

[pillainp]

Hi slatts,
Try Ranish Partition Manager. It is free and should be able to do the job for you. But like TwoRails asks, why the single partition?

http://www.ranish.com/part/

NPP

[slatts]

Hello,

I am familiar with the theoretical reasons for having partitions but I see no real practical value in them. I have several computers and some of them have been partitioned by other people. The partitions are different on each computer so others in this house who use the computers are confused by all the partitions and what is on them. Since I have never liked partitions anyway, I'm going to combine everything into the "C" partition and eliminate the others. I have run both ways, with partitions and without partitions and I much prefer to have everything together in one place.

I'll look into Michael Ranish's program and if that won't do the trick, I'll buy Partition Magic from Direct Deals (very good price). Thank you all very much.

Slatts

[TwoRails]

Hi slatts,

Somehow I didn't say, "Welcome to PC Mechanic" in my last post ! So, Welcome to PC Mechanic!

Very interesting choice of works you used:

I am familiar with the theoretical reasons for having partitions but I see no real practical value in them

I don't think I could change you mind about using partitions, a.k.a. logical drives, but I would like to say that the reasons are factual, not theoretical. Here are a some examples:

1) using logical drives reduces cluster size, which increases the amount of data / files that saved. Depending on what you use the computer for, you can double, or more, the amount you can keep on you drives. The more smaller files, the bigger increase, the more larger files, the less increase.

2) scandisk and defrag times are greatly reduced. It can take minutes to do this maintence where on one drive, it could take an hour or more.

3) if you lose one logical drive, you don't lose them all. For example, if the Temp and Internet cache directories / folders are not keep on 'C' drive, and that drive has a problem, the system still works, you just have to fix only that drive and not reformat and reinstall you whole system.

4) you will increase drive performance by putting frequently used program near the front, like on drives 'D,' or 'E', and less used or programs that don't require much speed on drives like 'H' or 'I.'


TwoRails

[pillainp]

Hi slatts,

Like TwoRails says, the reasons for partitioning are factual than theoretical.

Besides, think what it would do to you if you had all your data on your system partition and it crashed. You would lose everything (Remember "All your eggs in one basket?).

Suggest you have at least two partitions, one for your data and one for the OS, if partitions bother you all that much. Much less confusing and lots safer.

Me, I have one partition each for every member of the family that uses the PC, and no one intrudes on another. Privacy ensured.

Think about it.

NPP

[TwoRails]

Thanks for mentioning one of the more important reason for partitions, pillainp. Not only for disaster protection, but it is so easy to have all you data on one or more logical drives for data backup. I use simple Batch files to dump a backup of my data to my CD burner.

TwoRails

[larry1135]

I have also heard that if you have a partitioned hard drive you can download things from the net to say a D: drive and that would keep your C: drive less fragmented. Do you folks agree with that? From what I have seen on my PC it works.

[TwoRails]

Originally posted by larry1135 I have also heard that if you have a partitioned hard drive you can download things from the net to say a D: drive and that would keep your C: drive less fragmented. Do you folks agree with that? From what I have seen on my PC it works.

Absolutly!!

I've got over 200,000 files on my system, and the only way I can reasonable keep track of them is in logical drives -- which act as large folders / directories. One drive is just for the Temp folder, Internet caches (Plural for multi browsers), email & news.

TwoRails

[reboot]

I'm a HUGE partition fan. With over 180 gig of storage, it's imperative I split things up. Thus I have drives C through N with CD-ROM being R and burner is W (for Reader and Writer).
Each partition is labelled with what it contains, which OS, downloads, MP3's, software, etc.
WAY easier to keep track of where things are, and to find them later. Also nice to keep a working complete backup/mirror of my main OS on another bootable partition/drive

[TwoRails]

I'm with you, reboot !!

I couldn't live without partitions. Like you, I have a games drive(s), digital (still) photograghy drive, movie edit drive, database drive, and so on. One "special" drive is my "scrap" drive for the 'temp' and 'tmp' folders, browser caches, etc. This drive, regardless of which system I've had over the years, is the one that always as had the problems that would have cost me major reinstallation headaches if it were on the 'C' drive.

TwoRails