I have a dual boot system on a 35gb hard drive: drive boot c=win98, drive boot d=XP. Drive c was set up accidentally several months ago. I never use c. I want to get rid of drive c and allot the drive c space to drive d(XP), and then transfer drive d to a larger drive disk, changing its name to drive c on the way. I would end up with one drive c with XP on a much larger single partition on a new hard drive. Is there software I can use for this? reb286

there are several reasons why what you propose will not work. Firstly, the bootfiles for your XP operating system are located on the C drive. If you delete your C partition you lose those bootfiles. Secondly, since your XP operating system is installed on a D drive, all the registry pointers in it are configured as a D drive. You cannot copy that into a C partition. It is a cardinal rule of windows operating systems that you cannot change the System partition drive letter. You can ( at some risk) delete the C/windows folders etc and leave only the bootfiles in that partition, then use a third party prog such as Partition Magic to reduce the C partition to a minimal size, then expand the D partition into the free space, and then clone the entire disk onto your new larger drive. Finally you could again expand the D partition to use as much of the vacant space on the new drive as you like or simply create another partition for storage purposes. Every step in this process carries the risk that you will lose your entire operating system and all files. My recommendation would be to do a clean instal of XP on your new large drive and use the files/settings transfer function. I used to have a signature but it disappeared and I just couldn't be bothered writing another so please feel free to ingore this.

That fresh install on the new larger drive would definately be the way to go ! In The Matters Of Style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, Stand Like A Rock "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."

Richard59, Thank your for your response. I am inclined to take your advice. I have screwed this process up in past years and had to reformat, etc. etc. and start the new drive from scratch several times. I was trying to avoid doing that again to install a larger drive. However, I have attached an external drive of the same size as the internal drive via usb and I use it to store my application setups in case of a serious crash. I guess I could install a new drive, install XP on it, and then transfer the applications from the usb external drive to the new drive. This might be the simpliest way to get to a larger single drive. Would this work, and what should I be particularly careful of? Thank you so much for you help on this. Ron reb286

You cannot transfer applications from one drive to another and have them work. It's the same problem as mentioned above by Richard. All the entries in the Registry would be wrong. A few games might work, but most applications would have to be reinstalled.