Allocating disk space to a partition

[RedMage]

So, I got my new Acer notebook, and the first order of business was to delete the unwanted partitions. Unfortunately, now that I've disposed of them, the space they had is listed as "unallocated."

Does anyone know how to allocate this space to the remaining partition, absorb it (so to speak)?

[RedMage]

So. To extend a partition to encompass more disc space, it has to be on a dynamic disk (as opposed to a basic one).

I have a basic disk.

You can convert a basic disk to a dynamic one, unless you're on a portable computer. Portables don't support the dynamic disk system.

Guess what my notebook is? A portable computer. (No, really, ya think?)

So the 54GB of space from the factory-installed partition I deleted will remain forever unallocated.

That would seem to be the situation at the moment, anyway.

So unless I'm content with using my notebook with half the available disk space I paid for, it looks like I'll be taking advantage of Newegg's refund policy.

I knew those factory partitions would kick me in the butt one way or another.

[Kaligraphic]

You ought to be able to do it with a tool such as PartitionMagic. Alternately, you could simply use it as a second partition. Finally, if you do a clean install of Windows, you can do your own partitioning.

I would probably favour the "second Windows partition" or the "dual-boot with Linux" options, myself. I use three partitions on my own laptop.

There's more to working with partitions than just what you can do in the disk management snap-in.

[RedMage]

Yeah, I recreated the second partition and assigned all the unallocated disk space to it, so I now have all the disk space I'm supposed to, albeit divided into halves for no good reason.

Yep, there's a lot more, but I nevr wanted to work with them at all, Acer made that decision for me. Thanks, Acer.

I couldn't do a clean install of Windows if I wanted to, Acer doesn't include OS backup disks. Thanks again, Acer. Honestly, from a specifiations standpoint, it's a great notebook, but I couldn't recommend it to anyone else unless they're prepared to deal with this foolishness.

I'm looking at Partition Magic now. I wouldn't mind having a partition to store my important stuff on, but not one that's half the disk. I don't have that much important data to back up, I'm not that interesting.