How-To Geek Forums / Windows 7

MBR is a boot sector and located at the very beginning of the computer’s hard disk. When it gets damaged, the USB drive probably won't be recognized suddenly. In such case, you can rebuild MBR via AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the USB drive and select “Rebuild MBR”. Choose a proper MBR type for your current operating system.

I hope someone can help me with this problem.

Recently I bought a laptop HP g6 Windows Home Basic 64bit for my son. I am having problems with making new partitions. I'm using the Windows Disk Management option.

I reduced the size of the C Drive without any problems but cannot format a new partition. I got the following:

“The Operation you selected will convert the selected basic disk(s) to dynamic disk(s). If you convert the disk to dynamic, you will not be able to start installed operating systems from any volume on the disk(s). (except the current boot volume.) Are you sure you want to continue?”
Yes/ No

I chose yes and then I got this message:

“Dynamic Disks are not supported by this operating system or server configuration. Dynamic disks are not supported are not supported on clusters.”

I searched your site but could not find anything on this matter.

I have the Hp g7 with Home Premium -64bit and did not experience any problems increasing or reducing the sizes of the partition.

Thanks in advance.

Home Basic is limited in what it can do. Give this a try,
http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html
This is the download you want, as well,
http://www.partitionwizard.com/partition-wizard-bootable-cd.html

You will have to boot your computer from the CD you burned.

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/tipstricks/ht/bootcddvd.htm

MiniGeek

MiniGeek, not quite true, but useful to have both options available in the event of a system crash.

Ah, were you intending him to run it inside Windows or as the boot disk?

For what he needs at the moment, run it from inside Windows. But in case of emergency in the future, have the CD handy.

Thanks for your help.

One question for Lighthouse - to run the wizard from within Windows I need to use the 1st link you posted right.

How many partitions are currently on the disk? If 4 then you have reached the limit for that disk without having to reinstall windows from a disk.
HP will sometimes have it formated with 3-4 partitions (System , OS , Recovery) the fourth is usually just there for seperate storage.
It would help to show us a picture too like this one.

Sometime the Windows Disk Manager does not like formating the space that you made if it is between two partitions, for reasons unkown to me, thus you have to use a thrid party program like those suggested above.

Windows allows four 'Primary' partitions on a single hard drive.

However, one of those could be an 'Extended' partition, and you can create as many 'Logical Partitions' inside the 'Extended' partition as there are letters of the alphabet!! So figure C is used, and D for your CD-Rom, that leaves you E through Z, or 22 'Logical Partitions'.

So you can create three 'Primary' partitions plus 20 'Logical' partitions.

From here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52291-partition-hard-drive-windows-7-install.html
Suggest you use the PW utility Lightouse suggested. You can use within windows or use the boot disk to run outside of windows.

While thats true, OEMs dont like using extended, it depends on the OP's current setup. So I need more input ;)

OEM's do use Extended. But I think not the Basic/Starter versions.
Simple experiment. Create 4 partitions on a clean drive. They will all format as Primary. Delete one, and create a new simple volume in it's place. It will arrive as Extended. (this is in Disk Management). Windows seems to have a problem there, in that it doesn't remove the old Primary from it's list.
Thus you need PW.

Curious, what vendors have you seen use extended? I see alot of cunsumer systesm on a daily basis and not one had an extended.

They don't come with Extended, it's only when you start messing around with partitions. (with DM)

generally OEM create a Recovery partition then the small System Reserved and then rest is OS partition.
Kelen is right, No extended needed there

don't get me started on that MS abomination dynamic disk(s). Lost a lot doing that

Windows 10 Disk Management Gpt Or Mbr

I think we maybe confusing the OP a bit. Suffice to say, he can't go wrong with PW.

No Free Mbr Slot Son Disc Harrow

Sorry for not coming back sooner, I had connection problems.

You are correct Lighthouse all of the above is very confusing. :)

I will go with the partlition wizard, I watched the video and it seems quite easy to do.

Failing which, my husband can take get a geek to sort out the partition.

Thanks for your help

Sorry for not coming back sooner. We did not have any luck using the partition wizard. My husband had it done by someone with more knowledge than us.

We kept getting a reading 'There are no free MBR slots'

I thought it would be a good idea to post our attempt.. maybe it will be useful to someone.

Thanks once again for all comments and help.

All th OP's slots were used up

On my HP laptop (year old), ALL partitions were primary...Boot...System...Recovery...Tools. I made the recovery disk and got rid of recovery partition...not the best way in hindsight but it doesn't matter to me as I use a W7 disk now not HP. Recovery.

What would be the best way to deal with that scenario for a non-geek if they wanted another partition like the OP...get rid of Tools?

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