I have a 500gb H/D in an external carrier, it is showing Local Disk (E) - (F) - (G) I guess these are all partitions so how do I get rid and open all the drive into one open for storage. Thanks in advance Diane. 

You need to reformat the master drive as one partition erasing the E, F & G 'nested' drives.

 

Are you using Windows??

 

What make is the H/D and do you have any installation or disk or disk utility programs that came with it???

If you're using Windows, then just use the Disk Management tool to firstly delete each drive and then format afterwards.

Windows 8 have formatted the 3 separate sections okay, where do I find disk management. H/D is westerndigital ( I think ) no information disk

do I convert to dynamic disk

I haven't got Win8 so don't really know if there's anything better than what I suggested.

 

However, to find that (if it is actually there), just type in the search bar and it should find it.

Remember that any data on the partitions will be lost.

 

Unless you use a 3rd party partition tool that allows you to merge the partitions - I used to have one, but the name escapes me........

converted 2 into one and given new name, but the part that possibly had the windows on won't change, (recovery partition) Volume Z now shows but not the Healthy recovery partition. Do I have to search for a program to do the operation Thanks

Right click on the my computer icon, select manage, when the console opens, disk management is listed there

think I need to go into the BIOS to remove the MBR partition,

I foresee problems about to occur!

 

Can't Chris help?

think I need to go into the BIOS to remove the MBR partition,

 

Bios is not the place to do this, it may not even see the USB disk, its all done from disk administrator.

think I need to go into the BIOS to remove the MBR partition,

 

As above, don't bugger with the BIOS. (it's alliterative if it ******s on me)

 

Try to see the drive and partitions like "Kentphil1" suggested. I have a feeling it might not be quite as straight forward as it could be. I guess that drive lived in a computer at some point?

Can you still use fdisk ;-)

 

I think John999Boy had the answer.

 

If you need to merge partitions without losing data then you'll probably need to buy a tool or at least copy everything off the disk before you repartition.

 

Should be no need to fart around with the BIOS. Messing with the MBR is a bit like doing brain surgery with a mallet.

Can you still use fdisk ;-)

 

I think John999Boy had the answer.

 

If you need to merge partitions without losing data then you'll probably need to buy a tool or at least copy everything off the disk before you repartition.

 

Should be no need to fart around with the BIOS. Messing with the MBR is a bit like doing brain surgery with a mallet.

 

Absolutely. If you must alter the partitions and have data you want to keep try something like paragon disc manager or partition magic if it is still available. The recovery partition bit is starting to worry me a bit, are you absolutely sure you are looking at the external drive rather than the local internal drive?.

PARTITION MAGIC !!

 

Thx for the memory jog.

 

Yes, unless the drive has been used inside a PC at some point, there shouldnt be a recovery partition.

 

The above named program (if still available), will show ALL your hard drives and their partitions, so you can easily see what is what.

 

BTW, DONT try to format with 4k clusters, it kills the hard drive.

http://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-express/download.html

 

Never tried it.

Darik’s Boot and Nuke might help! on Hiren BootCD

 

download burn to disc pop it in the drive boot from cd and you can do all sorts of jiggery pokery

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiren's_BootCD

 

I have used this in the past for successfully deleting protected partitions. Be careful though certain options

will kill the drive and even the best data thief wont be able to recover things.

Chris now, right the H/D was in a laptop so has partitions for windows, recovery and free space. Two partitions are now merged into one, but its still the first one that I cannot merge. I gave the H/D a new number because it wasn't being recognised. I have done these two with Disc Management, but the first one just comes out as (help). This is definitely the spare drive in the carrier. I will pop it round to my mate over the weekend and let him have a look at it. I just wanted to open it up so I could use all the drive for storage. 

I do not need to keep the data, it has all gone. Now I'm thinking is it because the language is different for the (recovery partition) the other section comes in as NFTS, also going to device manager and look it up in there, NO WORRY not changing anything YET :-)

I dont think you can stop the modern OS's including a 100MB "spare" partition, in the old days the drives firmware used to do it anyway, you would never know or see the missing MB; and TBH 100MB is nothing these days (reminisces about his first 20MB MFM HDD)

If there is no data, using disk administrator keep right clicking on each drive letter and selecting delete until they are all gone and the whole drive shows as free space. The recovery partition will have to be done last as it will not let you delete it with others there.

Then right click, select new simple volume and keep clicking next and finally finish.

Will try this later, but think the NFTS part is clear, no data, I can open this up as Z drive and add data