[Bastiat]

I have a Compaq/HP computer with multiple partitions (it came that way). The operating system and all other files are located on the C drive leaving the other partitions empty. Does XP have the ability to remove these partitions or am I going to have to buy third-party partitioning software?

[edhicks]

http://www.pctools.com/disk-suite/?g...FQRgswodBDEHkw

A quick google of partition software shows the above link as a source of "free" partition manager. Other are also available. Hope this points you in the right direction. Keep us informed

[Bastiat]

Originally Posted by edhicks

http://www.pctools.com/disk-suite/?g...FQRgswodBDEHkw

A quick google of partition software shows the above link as a source of "free" partition manager. Other are also available. Hope this points you in the right direction. Keep us informed

Thank you I will take a look. But I'm still curious as to whether such a utility is built into XP.

[Bastiat]

Found the answer to my question:

Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management:

Steps to follow from Help file:

To delete a partition or logical drive
Using the Windows interface

Open Computer Management (Local).
In the console tree, click Disk Management.
Where?

Computer Management (Local)
Storage
Disk Management

Right-click the partition, logical drive, or volume you want to delete, and then click Delete Partition.
Important

When you delete a partition, all data on that deleted partition or logical drive is lost.
You cannot recover deleted partitions or logical drives.
Notes

To open Computer Management, click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.
You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings might also prevent you from completing this procedure.
You cannot delete the system volume, boot volume, or any volume that contains the active paging file or crash dump (memory dump).
You cannot delete an extended partition unless the extended partition is empty.
All the logical drives in an extended partition be deleted before you can delete the extended partition.

[Wanderer2]

OK so you delete that partition. XP does not have the ability to expand the existing OS partition into that free space. Only 3rd party software can do that.

[WhitPhil]

The other "watch out for" would be that one of those partitions could be a "recovery" partition that you really don't want to delete.