topic Re: Merging partitions in PCs & Accessories

Merging partitions

djwoody — Thu, 18 May 2006 06:56:40 GMT

When I bought my notebook the drive was partitioned into 2.

Is there anyway of merging these 2?

I have tried partition magic but this came up with an error when trying to merge it.

Hope you can help.

Chris

Re: Merging partitions

Thalamus. — Thu, 18 May 2006 08:25:03 GMT

Hi Chris,

What model vaio do you have and does it have a Hard Disk Rocovery system?

Re: Merging partitions

kee-lo_ — Thu, 18 May 2006 15:00:02 GMT

Probably because it's a hidden partition.

I'd personally back up everything that is important to you and do an advanced recovery

Re: Merging partitions

Stephanie1 — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:25:45 GMT

OK, what about doing this on a VGN-FE21B?

Have already tried using Norton Partition Magic 8.0 and this hasn't worked; Sony have done something weird with the configuration of the partitions which causes Partition Magic to see the drive as containing errors and thus refuses to merge the two partitions.

Why split the hard drive into two (excluding the recovery partition) in the first place?

Re: Merging partitions

Blencogo — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:56:23 GMT

Why split the hard drive into two (excluding the recovery partition) in the first place?

It is a good idea to partition your drives for quicker access times. The idea is to keep your personal data and files together. This tends to keep your Vaio working faster as there is less need to defragment the drives. This helps with backups as you only have to back up your files and data. Perhaps most importantly, if you have a system failure and have to recover your Vaio, you can choose to recover just Drive C: - this will keep your files and data intact and you wont loose them.

I would use the Vaio Recovery Discs to re-partition your drive - choose advanced recovery as Kee-Lo suggested earlier in this post.

Re: Merging partitions

Stephanie1 — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 23:36:25 GMT

But surely there's no need to safeguard your data like that if you've already got a backup on a different physical drive anyway, which anyone with any sense would do?

After all, if your hard drive fails, it doesn't matter which partition you kep your stuff in - it's gone, unless you're willing to fork out loads to have the platters of your hard drive phtographed and any retrievable data extracted that way (at vast expense).

Moreover, volume fragmentation occurs on all hard drives regardless of partition configuration - it is a necessity to defragment every so often.

Right now it's like having a partition wall straight down the middle of your bedroom, and you're trying to fit in some large bits of furniture which would go in fine if it wasn't for the darn wall!

So, how to get rid of this partition?

Re: Merging partitions

Blencogo — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:17:21 GMT

So, how to get rid of this partition?

Put your Recovery Disc in your drive and reboot your Vaio.

In the Recovery Wizard choose 'Recover My Computer'. At the options screen choose "Change Partition Size and Recover" and follow the on-screen instructions.

You can choose the size of drive C: - if you allocate it all the available space then 😧 will not be created.

You will, of course lose everything on your Vaio and it will be returned to the setup when you first bought it. You will have to load all your software and carry out all updates again.

The above will keep your Recovery Partition of about 7 GB and you can allocate the rest to drive C:

If you want to remove the Recovery Partition as well choose "Default System Drive Recovery". Make a couple of eatra sets of the Recovery Discs if you are going to use this option. After recovery you will be able to use Partition Magic or other software to change partition sizes.

Re: Merging partitions

Stephanie1 — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 09:20:40 GMT

You legend!

I'm doing it now; I wish Acer's eRecovery software was as flexible as this - I always have to use Partition Magic to merge the main partitions, delete the recovery partition after creating rescue disks and then converting it all to NTFS, as, believe it or not, all four Acer laptops I've bought over the past 18 months have come formatted in FAT 32.

Oh, and the VAIO recovery software even gave me the option, when configuring partitions, to have the recovery partition removed from the start, as both recovery DVDs have now been created.

And no, my real name is not Stephanie, that's the owner of this VAIO on whose behalf I am posting to sort this little problem out!

Thanks for your help; this may be the last you hear from me.

Re: Merging partitions

kee-lo_ — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 11:29:42 GMT

I'm doing it now; I wish Acer's eRecovery software was as flexible as this - I always have to use Partition Magic to merge the main partitions, delete the recovery partition after creating rescue disks and then converting it all to NTFS, as, believe it or not, all four Acer laptops I've bought over the past 18 months have come formatted in FAT 32.

Really? That's odd my mother's Acer is NTFS.

Re: Merging partitions

Blencogo — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:15:14 GMT

Glad it worked for you. There are some things Sony have really thought out very well.

Pop back and see us again sometime!!

:smileygrin: