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General discussion

merge C:\ partition with 7.8 mb of free unallocated space

Mar 21, 2005 6:07AM PST

I want to merge C:\ partition with 7.8 of free unallcated space all on Disk 0. I am using Partition Magic but everytime I get to the apply change, I get a error message. Please help. Thank you

Discussion is locked

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And the error message is?
Mar 21, 2005 6:15AM PST

Don't mind me if I ask for that last bit of information...

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Reply to R. Proffitt
Mar 21, 2005 6:53AM PST

Error #38

Program is running from that partition. Either run from a floppy disk or another partition.

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(NT) (NT) And have you done this?
Mar 21, 2005 7:16AM PST
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Why merge it?
Mar 21, 2005 10:36AM PST

Whe the older versions of windows format the drive as FAT while installing, they always leave 7.8 MB of unpartitioned space. I have no idea why it was done, but I always leave it. Maybe it's necessary, maybe it isn't. 7.8MB is just so little space, doesn't make a difference anyway.

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I hope they typo'd. Imagine..
Mar 21, 2005 11:03AM PST

Imagine buying partition magic just to reclaim 7.8MB?

Bob

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Here's how I have dealt with this
Mar 21, 2005 8:21PM PST

and for no more cost. I have noticed that both XP and Win2K do not partition the entire drive. Perhaps the space has a purpose but I've never found it. I do not use Partition Magic but another utility developed by the same company (PowerQuest) called Drive Image. During an installation I capture my progress at intervals by creating images of the entire drive. At some point I just restore the entire image and resize the partition to use the space I desire. I have found imaging/ghosting utilities to be more useful than ones that must manipulate partitions.

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Acronis explanation of the 7.8MB unallocated space
Mar 18, 2011 1:21AM PDT

The makers of Acronis Disk Director Suite have this to say about this issue:

Description

There are two situations in which partitioning software (e.g. Acronis Disk Director Server 10.0, Acronis Disk Director Suite 10.0, Acronis Disk Director Lite) can detect an area of unallocated space of up to 7.8 MB in size that was not created there manually:

1. Up to 7.8 MB (minimum of 1MB) of unallocated space resides at the end of the hard disk. This area is reserved by Windows operating systems for the purpose of creation of Dynamic Disk structures. This unallocated space area is not shown in Windows Disk Management; however Acronis Disk Director is able to merge it with an adjacent partition. Therefore, after doing that there can be problems with creating Dynamic Disk structures.

2. Exactly 7.8 MB of unallocated space reside at the beginning of the hard disk. Normally this means that there are no Primary partitions on the hard drive and the hard drive contains an Extended partition only. In such cases Windows reserves the minimal amount needed for creating a partition (7.8 MB) in order to be able to handle the only Extended partition properly. It is not recommended to remove this area. Even though technically it is possible to merge it with the Extended partition, this may result in the data on it becoming inaccessible.

More information

It is not recommended to remove the 7.8 MB space area.

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Exactly
Mar 19, 2011 7:37PM PDT

Stop the attempts to remove that unallocated space. It is required by the system or you will loss the data.