Axing A Partition--Can I Do This?

The history:

I have an oldish computer that I am going to give to my 12-year-old in the fall (after Win 7 comes out and I buy a new machine for myself). Therefore, don't want to throw money at the oldish machine.

Oldish computer has 80 GB hard drive.

This fall I partitioned it, left 30 GB for the C:\ drive, which I thought would be ample at the time. Then I created a 50 GB partition for Mandriva, which I use just for fun and games, i.e. nothing essential is stored on the second partition.

For Christmas I received a 120 GB Zune. Kaboom! Suddenly, I have only about 4 GB of space left on my C:\ drive, and I'm barely warming up. I want more space for my tunes!

Here are my options as I see them.

(1) Gut it out until I buy a new machine. 30 GB of music is a lot of music.
(2) Buy an external hard drive and transfer my tunes to it. I'm not sure how this works with the Zune software--do I have to make it a slave drive or something fancy, or just move the music folder over?
(3) Somehow undo the partition that has Mandriva on it, since Mandriva is easily replaceable, and merge the empty space back into my C:\ partition *without wiping out the contents of my C:\ drive* (hmm, where's that backup?).

Is (3) technically feasible by someone only moderately techy? I have Gparted, not anything fancy like Partition Magic.

Clearly I need at least a 1 TB HDD on my new machine. :cool

 

NOTE : Make sure you do not delete your active or windows partition otherwise you can crash the whole enchillada
( make sure you write or make changes permanent after each step)
Delete the 50gb partition
Make a new windows partition--In the old 50gb space (does not need to be bootable as this is your extra storage)
Reboot and windows should automatically see the new space

 

I was going to say Easeus might be simpler. Delete the 50gb then resize C: using the unallocated space.

 

Successfully deleted the second partition and resized the first partition.

Now getting the not totally unexpected GRUB error 22 when I try to boot--my bootloader was apparently not in the C:/ partition.

The contents of my c:/ appear to be safe and sound and I am using Mandriva Live One to run the machine while I mull over my next step. My motto with computers is always "If it ain't broke, fix it 'til it is."

 

You have to overwrite the existing MBR to get rid of the GRUB reference.

If you have an XP CD and can get into recovery console then bootcfg /rebuild should give you the option of selecting which Windows installations to add to the boot list. Just select your only Win partition and it should rebuild the MBR eliminating any references to the old Linux partiton.

 

Can I use any XP CD? I got this machine used and it did not have install disks. I did open up a terminal from my live install of Mandriva and tryed a few GRUB commands. They didn't seem to do any harm, but they didn't accomplish anything other than making me feel brave (or stupid).

 

Yes, you can use any XP CD to enter Recovery Console. Just select R (repair) that will get you into recovery console.

I haven't messed with GRUB commands in a couple of years so I'm no help there.

I'm not sure if just editing C:\boot.ini would make the necessary changes in the MBR. Below is my initial thought on the matter but I think recovery console might be a more thorough choice.

There is a way to get grub up and working from the Linux live CD but I don't know how to do it any more.

 

I believe I actually had it up and working, but my knowledge of grub commands is pretty rudimentary, and I ran out of knowledge before I ran out of problems.

We have a lot of XP machines in the office, so I'm going to scout around to see if I can find any disks before I go home. More to follow on this subject, no doubt.

 

Thanks Plodr.

Since Plodr just used SuperGrubBootDisk for a similar problem I would go with that recommendation. I've been thinking about the bootcfg command and know it would rewrite the boot.ini but am not certain that it would write necessary information to the MBR. (I didn't want to recommend fixmbr because I've read varying degrees of success with it, but that was my backup if bootcfg didn't rewrite the MBR).

 

I found the instructions about how to install SuperGrub on a jump drive to be fairly impenetrable, but that may have been because I was watching the Super Bowl at the time. rolleyes

ETA: D'oh. I can burn an ISO file onto a CD. I wonder why I didn't do that from my lappy last night. Blame it on the Steelers.

I have found a Windows XP disk so I now have recovery console at my disposal.

 

Fixmbr is also available from Recovery Console which would eliminate getting Grub Boot disk.

Reading more on the matter I believe fixmbr is the command you should use not bootcfg (bootcfg will probably not rewrite the MBR). If you get a warning about your partition table DO NOT complete the rewrite.

 

Well, that was about as much fun as I've ever had with my clothes on. Super Grub Boot Disk worked like a charm. Never had to touch the Windows disk.

XP is booting again and I have 50 GB more space to fill up with more tunes.

I enjoyed playing with Mandriva so much when I was forced to...maybe I'll make a smaller new partition and start dual booting again....It's a sickness....

Thanks to both of you for the help.