Unable to delete logical drive in extended DOS Partition

[Jim Richards]

Using XP Prof with SP2 installed. When I run FDISK and try to delete the
logical drive in the Extended DOS Partition it says there is not one there.
But when I try to delete the Extended DOS Partition is says it cannot delete
it while there is a logical drive. When I display the partitions it does not
show a logical drive in the extended DOS Partition. I am stuck and do not
know what to do to be able to re-format my C: & D: drives which are on one
physical harddrive.

In Windows Explorer I can navigate to the Drive D: which IS the logical
drive in the extended DOS partition and perform all the normal activities
here like copy, make directory, delete a file etc...

Can anyone help with this please. Thanks in advance, Jim.

[DL]

FDisk is not part of / included with winnt based systems

Assuming C & D are one of the drives winxp is installed on and your aim is
to clean install then use the winxp cd
http://michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

"Jim Richards" > wrote in message
...
> Using XP Prof with SP2 installed. When I run FDISK and try to delete the
> logical drive in the Extended DOS Partition it says there is not one
there.
> But when I try to delete the Extended DOS Partition is says it cannot
delete
> it while there is a logical drive. When I display the partitions it does
not
> show a logical drive in the extended DOS Partition. I am stuck and do not
> know what to do to be able to re-format my C: & D: drives which are on one
> physical harddrive.
>
> In Windows Explorer I can navigate to the Drive D: which IS the logical
> drive in the extended DOS partition and perform all the normal activities
> here like copy, make directory, delete a file etc...
>
> Can anyone help with this please. Thanks in advance, Jim.
>
>

[Anna]

"Jim Richards" > wrote in message
...
> Using XP Prof with SP2 installed. When I run FDISK and try to delete the
> logical drive in the Extended DOS Partition it says there is not one
> there. But when I try to delete the Extended DOS Partition is says it
> cannot delete it while there is a logical drive. When I display the
> partitions it does not show a logical drive in the extended DOS Partition.
> I am stuck and do not know what to do to be able to re-format my C: & D:
> drives which are on one physical harddrive.
>
> In Windows Explorer I can navigate to the Drive D: which IS the logical
> drive in the extended DOS partition and perform all the normal activities
> here like copy, make directory, delete a file etc...
>
> Can anyone help with this please. Thanks in advance, Jim.


Jim:
Is there any reason you're not using XP's Disk Management utility to delete
that partition? Would that not be the most straightforward way to accomplish
the task rather than using the DOS FDISK command?

I'm assuming that logical drive in the extended partition has been formatted
NTFS. If that be the case FDISK will not detect, i.e., not recognize the
existence of that partition. Only if the partition is formatted FAT32 will
it be detected by FDISK if it is a logical drive in the extended partition.
You could use the DOS delpart.exe command to delete the partition but why
not use the integrated XP Disk Management utility?
Anna

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

"Jim Richards" > wrote in message
...
> Using XP Prof with SP2 installed. When I run FDISK and try to delete the
> logical drive in the Extended DOS Partition it says there is not one
there.
> But when I try to delete the Extended DOS Partition is says it cannot
delete
> it while there is a logical drive. When I display the partitions it does
not
> show a logical drive in the extended DOS Partition. I am stuck and do not
> know what to do to be able to re-format my C: & D: drives which are on one
> physical harddrive.
>
> In Windows Explorer I can navigate to the Drive D: which IS the logical
> drive in the extended DOS partition and perform all the normal activities
> here like copy, make directory, delete a file etc...
>
> Can anyone help with this please. Thanks in advance, Jim.
>
>

fdisk.exe was never able to delete logical NTFS partitions.
As others have said, you should use the facilities built into
WinXP to delete this partition, or if you insist in doing it from
DOS, use the third-party tool delpart.exe
(http://www.russelltexas.com/delpart.htm).