Shared drives query

[ianess]

I've had to change my clapped-out pc but now find that on my newer version the C drive has been split into two....C and F.
What is the reason for this and is it a simple matter to re-unite them? I'm having all sorts of problems not being able to access everything I previously had and may still have [hopefully].
Any advice much appreciated.

[Catso]

No straightforward answer to this, I feel.

When you say 'change', what do you mean? A completely new PC? With software pre-installed? In which case it should be working, so go back to the supplier and complain.

An upgrade someone did for you? And helpfully copied all your old stuff onto the new one? If so, they didn't do a proper job, complain to them and get them to do it right.

To answer the questions: on a new operating system it's done largely as a matter of personal preference; it could have bene just a C: or a C: & and F: or a C:, F: & G: etc. Normal convention would have been to just have a C:, though. Each one of these 'letters' is called a logical drive, and your disk may have one or more partitions containing these logical drives.

Simple to fix: no, complexity could range from straightforward, if tedious, to a right complicated hassle. You would (probably) need a 3rd party program, like Partition Magic in order to achieve it (if you don't have another PC, network or disk drive and all the disks to reinstall your software).

My advice is let whoever did it put it right.

[j2buttonsw]

I am guessing that the fix was putting a new drive in (C:) and the old drive is now F:. Another guess is you have 2 CD/DVD/CD burner drives called D: and E:. It could be that the new installation has created 2 partitions on the original hard drive and the muppet has called them C: and F: As you can see, from the information you have given it is all guess work. What actually is on F:? and what problems are you having with access? As Catso rightly says, it can be resolved but how easily depends.

[DiggerDoo]

Your new hard drive has been split into two partitions which is quite common these days :F: is probably where your install copy of XP is stored, I operate 2 x 200gb drives split into 6 partitions on each using each partition as individual huge folders for storing music and movies by genre, so partitionong can be useful. If you want to change the partition size or reduce your drive to one partition you need a piece of software called Partition Magic ( not free ).

This will allow you to manipulate the drive in any fashion you want without losing any info on the drive, beware of freeware that says it will do this for you ( I speak from experience believe me). Partition Magic is a superb peice of software and is very very simple to use.

Regards
Ray

[Catso]

Please correct if I'm wrong, diggerdoo, but I wouldn't want ianess to spend dosh under a misapprension...

Yes, Partition Magic can manipulate partitions and logical drives but wouldn't it be true to say that if ianess wanted to combine his C: & F: into a single C: drive, he'd lose any data on F:, although C: should remain intact

ianess, I'd second what diggerdoo says: don't use freeware, or some dodgy downloaded software, it's too risky. PM isn't expensive.

[rojash]

What's nice about Partition Magic is that you can combine two or more partitions WITHOUT losing any data