Help with allocating hard drive space in XP.

[Wojcigitty]

Hello,

A while back I decided to try and create a backup on the virtual drive ( D: ) of my hard drive. To do this I clicked on "create backup" in a little utility that came with my computer called "Tech-in-a-box." The computer rebooted and started repartitioning the D and C drives. About 95 % of the way to the finish line a very vague message box came up saying something like "FAT file error." The attempted backup failed and the D drive remained at 5 gigs while the C drive was changed from around 52 gigs (60 gig hard drive) to about 31.5 gigs. So now I effectively have a 37 gig hard drive with a non-working backup. When I check the properties of the hard drive, it says that there is about 18 gigs of unallocated space. However, I can not figure out how to reallocate this back to either the C or D drive. Can anyone help me?

Also, Windows XP is supposed to be a NTFS file system, but the properties box of both the C and D drive says that they are both FAT 32. Does anyone know why this is, and does anyone know how to change it?

Thanks,
Cody

 

[wolluf]

Never heard of that app - but it sounds like it must be a partitioning tool. If its no good, you'll need another one (like Partition Magic) to restructure your partitions without having to completely reinstall XP (unless you're using dynamic disks - which is unlikely).

XP can install on FAT32 as well as NTFS filestore. Your figure of 31.5GB is interesting, as max size FAT32 partition XP can create is 32GB (it can happily use bigger ones, but can only create that size with its own partitioning tools - one reason NTFS is recommended for larger partitions).

XP does have a utility to convert fat32 to ntfs (called convert - type convert /? at command prompt for details) - but Partition Magic can also do this (if you decide to buy a copy).

 

[Wojcigitty]

I got a copy of Partition Magic, which worked great for allocating the space to my main drive, C:. However, whenever I tried to allocate any space to the D: (Backup) drive, I got error #2003, "file size does not match FAT allocation for file." This is interesting, as it says that the drive is FAT32 and not FAT. The backup utility is Powerquest Drive Image. I need some help.

 

[wolluf]

Drive image creates images of partitions/drives - which you need to store somewhere in order to be able to restore from them. That somewhere could be another drive, or partition or CD for example.

I'm still not sure what you've done with the partitioning of your drive or why you get that error message (unless you're trying to extend the D: (fat32 drive) by including a area which has a file > 4Gb (eg, drive image backup file?), as 4GB is max file size on fat32. Try making everything NTFS? (btw, utilities often refer to FAT allocations - when they mean Fat16 or Fat32)

If you run PM or XP's disk management, what does it show in terms of existing partitions?