Hi, Zattack.

Several things here "do not compute". :(

First, as gls858 said, you can't use Disk Management to merge partitions.
DM can delete a partition and create a new one, or multiple smaller ones, in
that space. But DM can't shrink a partition or enlarge one or merge two.
And it can't do much of anything with the System Partition (almost always
Drive C or the Boot Volume (often also Drive C.

Went into drive management and
formatted d drive,

OK. You would have been formatting D:, the logical drive within the
extended partition. An extended partition doesn't get a drive letter and
can't be formatted, but you can create one or more logical drives within the
extended partition, assign them letters and format them. So I assume that
after this you had a primary partition (Drive C and an extended partition
with one freshly-formatted logical drive (Drive D. Drive C: was both the
System Partition and the Boot Volume.

Upon attmpt to make it merge back with c
drive, formatted it to also be primary drive. Didn't touch c drive,

WHOA! HOW did you attempt to merge Drive D: back with Drive C:?

Did you use any third-party tools, such as Partition Magic? Or only WinXP
and its built-in utilities, such as Disk Management? Or perhaps some
utility supplied by Sony? Disk Management won't touch Drive C:, normally.

upon restart laptop only displays one message: operating system not
found.

That could be awful - or not. Maybe it can't find the operating system
because it's looking in the wrong place - on Drive A: (the floppy), for
example, or Drive D:, where the system hasn't been installed. If you have
the retail WinXP CD-ROM, you might be able to boot it, then choose R to
enter the Recovery Console. From there, run FixBoot (and maybe FixMBR and
BootCFG) to repair your boot sector and restore your ability to boot into
WinXP. I don't know if the Sony CD has the FixBoot utility.

MAYBE all you need to do is point it back to Drive C:, but there's no way we
can tell that from here. The message could well mean that the operating
system has been erased from Drive C:. :(

I have Sony recovery disks but they simply prompt me to totally reformat
and
start installation of system. Have I lost my data and is there any way to

I've never had a Sony, but "recovery disks" often take the drastic step of
returning your computer to the state it was in when it left the factory. In
other words, everything you've added will be gone and you will be starting
over. If Drive C: has, in fact, been reformatted, this might be your only
good option. I don't know whether you will have a chance to change the size
of Drive C:.

For future reference (probably too late to do any good now), there is a
program on the full retail WinXP CD-ROM called DiskPart, a part of the
Recovery Console. (This is not the same as DiskPart.exe, which can be run
from WinXP.) Whether this is on the Sony recovery disk, I don't know.
DiskPart has an /extend parameter that will "grow" a partition, if several
requirements are met. Search the Help and Support file for details, but it
probably would not have helped you in this case, anyhow.

It's not clear to me just how you reformatted D:, or whether C: is
untouched. If C: is intact, and if you can take out that HD and move it
into another computer, you should be able to recover all your data into the
other computer, then move it back into this one later.

Only you know how much the "lost" data is worth to you. If it is valuable
enough to you, and if Drive C: has not actually been reformatted, you might
buy a full retail copy of WinXP (either Home or Pro). Then boot from that
retail WinXP CD-ROM and do an in-place upgrade, as described he
How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;q315341

This will reinstall WinXP itself but, so long as your Registry is intact on
Drive C:, it will preserve your existing applications and data. It will not
give you an opportunity to increase the size of your existing partition,
though, so you will not be better off than you were "before the issues". To
make a larger Drive C:, you really have only two options:
backup/repartition/reformat/restore, or use a third-party solution.

Many of us have had the problem of too-full Drive C:, so you will find many
threads here with tips on how to keep as much as possible in other volumes.
If you must repartition and reformat, try to make Drive C: at least 5 GB; 10
is better, and many people (including Microsoft) recommend having only a
single partition using all the space on the hard disk. (I like to separate
the few System Files into a minimal primary partition Drive C:, the
operating system itself into logical Drive D:, and applications and data
into one or more other logical drives, but that is a topic for another
thread.)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP

"Zattack" wrote in message
...
I may be too late but... Have sony vaio laptop with XP home. Had drive
partitioned to a c primary and d extended. Ran into issues as the c drive
was full and nothing was going to d. Went into drive management and
formatted d drive, as only data stored there was copies of program files
that also existed in c drive. Upon attmpt to make it merge back with c
drive, formatted it to also be primary drive. Didn't touch c drive, but
upon restart laptop only displays one message: operating system not
found.

I have Sony recovery disks but they simply prompt me to totally reformat
and
start installation of system. Have I lost my data and is there any way to
get the laptop to boot correctly to for now at least get back to where I
was
before the issues?