# [SOLVED] How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?



## bwz (Nov 30, 2010)

Hi.

How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?


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## BCCOMP (Jul 9, 2007)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

Is this a primary HDD or slaved?

Have you gone to Disk Management?
Start>Right click on My Computer>Manage
A window will open
Select Disk Management

A screen shot of Disk Management may help us "see" what you have for hard drives


Bill


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## bwz (Nov 30, 2010)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

BCCOMP,
hi, thanks.


BCCOMP said:


> Is this a primary HDD or slaved?


I assume it is a primary HDD, because -


it is the only hard disk drive in the computer
STANDARD CMOS SETUP is :

 Pri Master : User
Pri Slave : CDROM
Sec Master : Not Installed
Sec Slave : Not Installed.

QUESTION 1 : Does the above mean it is a primary HDD?



BCCOMP said:


> Have you gone to Disk Management?


No, I haven't - not until you guided me there. Thanks.



BCCOMP said:


> Select Disk Management


Disk Management
Volume : (C
Layout : Partition
Type : Basic
File System : NTFS
Status : Healthy (System)
Capacity : 37.25 GB
Free Space : 22.89 GB
% Free : 61 %
Fault Tolerance : no
Overhead : 0%

QUESTION 2 : What must I look for under Disk Management?

There is a blue stripe next to the "Disk 0" window, on top of the "(C" window - the blue stripe is marked "Primary Partition".



BCCOMP said:


> A screen shot of Disk Management may help us "see" what you have for hard drives


QUESTION 3 : What do you mean by "a screen shot"?


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## BCCOMP (Jul 9, 2007)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

From the info you posted it sounds like you have a 40GB Primary HDD with a single partition.

You have 61% of free space left


To confirm please post a screen shot
http://www.techsupportforum.com/f215/how-to-post-a-screenshot-184291.html

Bill


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## bwz (Nov 30, 2010)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

BCCOMP,
Hey, thanks!

My drop-down window did not give me an option to select .JPEG, so I saved the screen shot as a Bitmap image.
View attachment screen shot.bmp


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## BCCOMP (Jul 9, 2007)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

Just as I thought

One primary partition on a 40GB HDD (rounded off)

You have 61% (22.89GB free space) left

Do you want to make this drive into 2 partitions?

You could but I think this drive (primary) is to small, but want to know what you are using the computer for?

What reason do you have to split this hard drive into 2 partitions?

Bill


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## bwz (Nov 30, 2010)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

Yay! Thanks.

I discovered the existence of Linux a few days ago. I'd like to try it out (which may take me a while), so I wondered whether I could have two operating systems on the same hard disk drive or not, and that made me wonder about partitioning the HDD to install Linux to one partition, and have my Microsoft OS on the other, and then I wondered whether my HDD was partitioned or not.


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## bwz (Nov 30, 2010)

*Re: How do I determine whether my hard disk drive is partitioned or not?*

BCCOMP,

Thanks.
You solved this thread. :wave:


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## BCCOMP (Jul 9, 2007)

If you wish to try a linux OS without installing you could run a linux live CD.

It will load from the CD-rom and not install on the hard drive.

Bill


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## bwz (Nov 30, 2010)

Thanks Bill. 
uttahere


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