Help with basic disk partitioning in Win10

JonathanRyan

JonathanRyan

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So I have a new computer and because I installed Win10 myself I need to sort the drives out. Here is a picture of what Drive Management sees.

disk drives.jpg

C is the boot NVME. The other is supposed to be a 4TB storage drive but (1) there's half a TB of storage "reserved" and (2) I can't allocate the 1678 Unallocated section. Help?

I've tried the obvious stuff suggested by Google - I can't extend the D partition. D is currently empty so I can afford to reformat if that helps.

Also, not C has Win10 on it, can I still partition it? I wanted a scratch drive section but my keyboard didn't work until I'd installed Windoze.....
 
Was the 4TB drive already in place when you installed Windows? Does is contain the boot manager for your current Windows installation on the other drive - i.e., does Windows fail to boot if the 4TB drive is disconnected or switched off in the BIOS?

https://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-is-the-system-reserved-partition-and-can-you-delete-it/

Edit: If this is the case, you may need either to move the reserved partition to the system drive, or get Windows to 'repair' the system partition by adding the boot files. There are various guides to these methods online, but I haven't tried them. Re-installing Windows with just the system drive in place would be another option, of course. You should then be able to add the 4TB drive and do what you like with it.
 
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I haven't come across a windows install which spans more than one drive for the OS. I would be inclined to remove the 4TB drive as suggested (disconnect it) and see if windows still boots correctly.

If it does, as I think it will, you can then use a partitioning tool such as minitool or Paragon etc etc to clean the 4TB disk and then partition as you need.
 
Retune said:
Was the 4TB drive already in place when you installed Windows? Does is contain the boot manager for your current Windows installation on the other drive - i.e., does Windows fail to boot if the 4TB drive is disconnected or switched off in the BIOS?

https://www.howtogeek.com/192772/what-is-the-system-reserved-partition-and-can-you-delete-it/

Edit: If this is the case, you may need either to move the reserved partition to the system drive, or get Windows to 'repair' the system partition by adding the boot files. There are various guides to these methods online, but I haven't tried them. Re-installing Windows with just the system drive in place would be another option, of course. You should then be able to add the 4TB drive and do what you like with it.
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Thanks - in this case, it makes sense to put it on the 4TB because losing a chunk of storage on the NVME costs way more. I'm mildly vexed with the people who built the system. They are supposed to be system experts (which is why I paid them) and it seems odd that they would install the storage drive in a way that I can't use a lot of it.

As for removing the hard drive....I feel a bit foolish but I can't actually find it :) Here's the inside of the machine. Spot a 4TB drive anywehere?

pretty computer.jpg
 
What's that at the top of your image, about 2/5ths in from the left?
 
Find the SATA sockets on the motherboard and follow the cables, they will lead to the HDD
 
In the base?

But you should just be able to disable the drive temporarily in the BIOS.
 
broc said:
Find the SATA sockets on the motherboard and follow the cables, they will lead to the HDD
Click to expand...
Though that looks easier said than done:confused:
 
I always reinstall the O/S myself, on any PC I have bought or built. It's often the best way of getting rid of any bloatware. On a PC with an SSD & one or more HDD I would use the BIOS to disable all drives apart from the one I want to boot from.

There is always the 'nuclear' option of using DISKPART to sort out any awkward partitioning issues, particularly when reusing disks formatted for non-Windows operating systems.

You do need to be very careful with DISKPART though.
 
JonathanRyan said:
So I have a new computer and because I installed Win10 myself I need to sort the drives out. Here is a picture of what Drive Management sees.

View attachment 262316

C is the boot NVME. The other is supposed to be a 4TB storage drive but (1) there's half a TB of storage "reserved" and (2) I can't allocate the 1678 Unallocated section. Help?

I've tried the obvious stuff suggested by Google - I can't extend the D partition. D is currently empty so I can afford to reformat if that helps.

Also, not C has Win10 on it, can I still partition it? I wanted a scratch drive section but my keyboard didn't work until I'd installed Windoze.....
Click to expand...

Firstly there is NOT half a TB of "reserved" storage - there is 579MB which is just over half a GIG!

Secondly that is NOT storage that is the UEFI partition which has replaced the usual boot partition and gives a much more extended boot partition rather than it being in the BIOS and if you managed to delete it you could not then boot into anything = so DON"T touch it until you are ready to re-install Win10.

Secondly you have, IMO, far too much assigned to the C drive - which is the actual Windows OS.

What I would do is delete the D drive and then put your Win10 disc in and start the re-install process but from that delete ALL the partitions on ALL the drives.

Then exit the re-install process and take out the disc and switch off the computer, and, as already suggested, find and disconnect the 4TB drive.

Then put the disc back in and from that once you get to the part where you get to choose the disc you install Win 10 to, use the NEW option to partition a PART of the 1TB NVME to say 250GB and then install Win 10 to that.

I would also recommend a clean install.

This will give you the OS on 250GB, the UEFI boot partition, and about 700GB free which can then be used as a scratchpad.

Hope this helps.
 
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petersmart said:
Firstly there is NOT half a TB of "reserved" storage - there is 579MB which is just over half a GIG!
Click to expand...

D'oH! - of course. I was confused by big numbers and then added the others together and thought "that's nowhere near 4TB....."

Thanks for the other advice too. It's probably worth explaining how I got here...…

I asked CCL to build me a machine but to save £100 I said I'd install Win10 myself. The machine was delivered tested and working but with no O/S. I booted from a USB ISO and installed. I wanted to boot from the NVME and partition it but couldn't get my fancy Logitech Craft keyboard working before I installed Windows so went with vanilla install.

From what you say, my guess is that CCL installed Windows on the 4TB drive for testing and then left it in a bit of a mess.

I have a second NVME to fit (because they forgot to do so - yes, really.....) so will do that and then look at reinstalling from scratch. I think you are right - 250GB for Windows, rest for scratchpad, quick access files on the other NVME and get the 4TB formatted as 1 big drive for long term/slow storage.

Just need to find a way to do that without having to redownload the game I used for "testing". On my shaky 4G it took about a day to get here.....
 
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petersmart said:
I would also recommend a clean install.

This will give you the OS on 250GB, the UEFI boot partition, and about 700GB free which can then be used as a scratchpad.

Hope this helps.
Click to expand...

OK - finally found some time to look at this....

Went into the BIOS and disabled the SATA ports. Booted the machine and I got a "no boot drive" sort of message. Enabled it and everything works. Does that suggest that it's using the 4TB drive to boot? And that this partition essentially tells it to go look on the NVME for the OS?

If so, I guess I need to reinstall Windows. Is there any way to do that without having to redownload a couple of games (one Ubi and one Epic)? It's not a deal breaker but on my 4G they take literally days to d/l. Can I just copy their folder to another drive?
 
JonathanRyan said:
OK - finally found some time to look at this....

Went into the BIOS and disabled the SATA ports. Booted the machine and I got a "no boot drive" sort of message. Enabled it and everything works. Does that suggest that it's using the 4TB drive to boot? And that this partition essentially tells it to go look on the NVME for the OS?

If so, I guess I need to reinstall Windows. Is there any way to do that without having to redownload a couple of games (one Ubi and one Epic)? It's not a deal breaker but on my 4G they take literally days to d/l. Can I just copy their folder to another drive?
Click to expand...

When you disabled the SATA ports you disabled the UEFI partition which tells it (as you said) to look on the NVME for the OS.

If you have the full games in a folder (usually the download folder) then you should definitely back the folder up to an external drive to save them before attempting to re-install Win 10.

Failing that copy them to the 4TB drive then (preferably) disconnect the SATA cable to it or failing that disable it in the BIOS.

The re-install WIN 10 to the NVME, partitioning it as suggested before.

BUT WIN 10 may still see the 4TB HDD unless you have disconnected the SATA cable - so be careful.
 
I know it is of no help but I hate to say this Jonathan but you should have stuck with the Mac. I'm sure you will get it sorted with the help of the forum members but this and many other problems is one of the reasons i'll stick with Apple, it might be a bit more expensive but in the long run I find Macs much more productive and a damn site easier to use.
 
Nikon f1.8 said:
I know it is of no help but I hate to say this Jonathan but you should have stuck with the Mac. I'm sure you will get it sorted with the help of the forum members but this and many other problems is one of the reasons i'll stick with Apple, it might be a bit more expensive but in the long run I find Macs much more productive and a damn site easier to use.
Click to expand...
Yes, Macs have always been much easier for this sort of thing. At least Windows has improved in the partitioning etc department than it used to be,
 
Nikon f1.8 said:
I know it is of no help but I hate to say this Jonathan but you should have stuck with the Mac. I'm sure you will get it sorted with the help of the forum members but this and many other problems is one of the reasons i'll stick with Apple, it might be a bit more expensive but in the long run I find Macs much more productive and a damn site easier to use.
Click to expand...

You're right - it's no help at all :)

It will be a couple of days of fiddling with stuff to get it how I want and then I will forget all about the hassle. But I'll still have an extra £2K in the bank.
 
tbh i don't think its a windows vs mac issue at all anyway, it's just a simple mistake when you first installed windows by having the other drives connected up. Easily done and really not a reason to kick windows in this instance. If you haven't already put stuff on the 4tb drive i would personally just unplug it and any other drives that aren't intended to be the system disk, then reinstall windows on the nvme and just reformat the 4tb one deleting any additional partitions on that drive when when you plug it back in. Should fix it
 
keeweeman said:
tbh i don't think its a windows vs mac issue at all anyway, it's just a simple mistake when you first installed windows by having the other drives connected up. Easily done and really not a reason to kick windows in this instance. If you haven't already put stuff on the 4tb drive i would personally just unplug it and any other drives that aren't intended to be the system disk, then reinstall windows on the nvme and just reformat the 4tb one deleting any additional partitions on that drive when when you plug it back in. Should fix it
Click to expand...
I don’t think anyone‘s trying to pick a fight. Jonathan did write “Wow - Windows don't make things easy, do they....?” way back in #3 which maybe sparked the comments.
Sometimes Macs handle multiple disks too well such as when you may have copies of applications on external disks and your Mac will happily run them from there and you then find yourself using an older version.
 
K.

I've found the hard drive. It's accessed via the opposite side of the case. Disconnected it and reinstalling now.

If I understand the problem correctly, CV then Microsoft have actually done something spectacularly stupid. It looks like no matter how many drives I have, no matter how many backups, if I don't have the drive with this spooky partition on then the machine won't boot. It did I get that wrong?

Btw, once I have access to a keyboard again, I'll be happy to list done of the stupider things Apple have done.....
 
JonathanRyan said:
K.

I've found the hard drive. It's accessed via the opposite side of the case. Disconnected it and reinstalling now.

If I understand the problem correctly, CV then Microsoft have actually done something spectacularly stupid. It looks like no matter how many drives I have, no matter how many backups, if I don't have the drive with this spooky partition on then the machine won't boot. It did I get that wrong?

Btw, once I have access to a keyboard again, I'll be happy to list done of the stupider things Apple have done.....
Click to expand...

it is a strange one tbh because i have never managed to change the boot sector of a windows install to a different disk during the install process so i don't think its something that has just happened if that makes sense? I have however installed windows on completely the wrong hard drive writing over things i didn't want to lose (photos, docs etc) due to not unplugging my storage disk before install and then picking the wrong disk to use. That's the reason i now don't leave any other drives plugged in when formatting a pc. Not a mistake i wish to repeat that one...
 
JonathanRyan said:
K.

I've found the hard drive. It's accessed via the opposite side of the case. Disconnected it and reinstalling now.

If I understand the problem correctly, CV then Microsoft have actually done something spectacularly stupid. It looks like no matter how many drives I have, no matter how many backups, if I don't have the drive with this spooky partition on then the machine won't boot. It did I get that wrong?

Btw, once I have access to a keyboard again, I'll be happy to list done of the stupider things Apple have done.....
Click to expand...

You can create a recovery USB.

https://uk.pcmag.com/how-to/116253/how-to-revive-windows-10-with-a-recovery-drive

Agreed, Apple isnt all roses all the time.
 
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keeweeman said:
it is a strange one tbh because i have never managed to change the boot sector of a windows install to a different disk during the install process so i don't think its something that has just happened if that makes sense? I have however installed windows on completely the wrong hard drive writing over things i didn't want to lose (photos, docs etc) due to not unplugging my storage disk before install and then picking the wrong disk to use. That's the reason i now don't leave any other drives plugged in when formatting a pc. Not a mistake i wish to repeat that one...
Click to expand...

I think @JonathanRyan tried installing windows a couple times, perhaps that could be the issue.
 
It's not just Windows which uses the UEFI partition - all new machines now use this approach which makes things like Safe Boot possible.

Which is one reason why it is becoming more difficult to install Win 7 on new machines.

And while some older machines have a dual BIOS setup with both Legacy and UEFI setups possible I'm afraid we must accept the onward march of progress.

Even some Linux distros have now incorporated the UEFI partition into their latest outputs.

Of course if you still want to run WIN 7 you can use a VM like VirtualBox which runs on virtually any OS.
 
petersmart said:
It's not just Windows which uses the UEFI partition - all new machines now use this approach which makes things like Safe Boot possible.
Click to expand...

I might have misunderstood how this works but it seems to be introducing a single point of failure. Also it presumably becomes awkward to change the hard drive. But then I've lived for 7 years with a machine where Apple told me I wasn't *allowed* to change the HD :)

So update: after much faffing, I did what @petersmart said in the first place :D Unplugged the 4TB and reinstalled. Despite taking copious backups, it looks like I'll have to redownload a lot of stuff (which is vexing over a 4G modem) but at least it means I can just forget about my attempts to install Docker without really knowing what I was doing....

I think everybody agrees I did something odd at the start which got me into this mess though I still find it odd that the machine was built with a drive that couldn't be accessed via Windows but like I said, in a day or two I'll have forgotten all about this :)
 
JonathanRyan said:
I might have misunderstood how this works but it seems to be introducing a single point of failure. Also it presumably becomes awkward to change the hard drive. But then I've lived for 7 years with a machine where Apple told me I wasn't *allowed* to change the HD :)

So update: after much faffing, I did what @petersmart said in the first place :D Unplugged the 4TB and reinstalled. Despite taking copious backups, it looks like I'll have to redownload a lot of stuff (which is vexing over a 4G modem) but at least it means I can just forget about my attempts to install Docker without really knowing what I was doing....

I think everybody agrees I did something odd at the start which got me into this mess though I still find it odd that the machine was built with a drive that couldn't be accessed via Windows but like I said, in a day or two I'll have forgotten all about this :)
Click to expand...

!. No it isn't awkward to change a HDD (But note: nowadays a HDD is taken to refer to a mechanical hard drive -and SSD to refer to a Solid State Drive) and it is better now to include the latest form of SSD - the NVME as that - so we have a HDD, SSD and NVME.

2. If you download a lot of stuff then it is definitely better to back up to an external drive which is only plugged in when required.

3. The UEFI partition, if it is installed on the partition used for the OS (as it usually is) then there is no failure point - Win 7 also had a boot partition of about 100MB which caused no problems.

4. The only way your 4TB drive couldn't be accessed via windows is if it was unallocated when it wouldn't show up until you formatted it.

5. If you weren't seeing the complete drive then the volume should be deleted in Disk Management then set to GPT and not MBR then re-formatted.

6. It's far easier to use VirtualBox instead of Docker - in fact I'm typing this on Win 7 inside my Virtual Machine used for all Photography applications and posts.

Hope this helps a bit.
 
@JonathanRyan glad you appear to have got things sorted even if you do now have the faff of re-downloading things to get it all as it should be. I think anyone who has ever messed with computer builds has done things that give themselves headaches so don't worry about this one as at least you haven't lost anything important in the process!
 
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