All VAIO Z1 models, to my knowledge, ship with a large partition on the hard drive. A partition is a chunk of a hard drive that acts as an independent drive. Though this tutorial is directed towards Z1 owners, it is essentially the same process for any computer running XP.

Why is the Z1 partitioned?

The Z1s ship with this partition in place because of their digital video connectivity capabilities and the included DVGate Plus software. According to Sony, a large portion of the drive is dedicated to the DVGate software to prevent Z1 owners from over-filling their hard drive with video content, which may result in an inoperable drive.

If you're an experienced video user or don't import video on a regular basis, I personally advise removing this partition. Why? Well, after installing a couple of programs on your primary partition you're going to start receiving "drive full" error messages and the division of your hard drive is only going to cause you stress and confusion.

Can I remove this partition to make one, full-sized hard drive?

You can easily restore your hard drive to it's full capacity with no partitions using Windows XP administrative tools and command prompt. The process is fast and simple, but please be advised before starting this process...

»Now, if you didn't read the warning label above, please do so. VAIOZ.com cannot be responsible for damage caused by the user.

1. Determine if you have a partition -
Plain and simple, if you have two hard drive disks in "My Computer," one very large and one moderately sized, it's almost definite you have a partition since a laptop can only contain one hard drive. Make sure you are not seeing the 5GB partition dedicated to the recovery software (certain models, however generally hidden).

The moderately sized drive should be your primary drive which Windows XP boots from (usually drive "C" and somewhere around 10GB on a partitioned Z1, depending on total drive size).

2. Backup files you have on the partition -
If you've already used your partition make sure to back up the content of the partition, preferably to an external hard drive or other external back up method. Writeable CDs will suffice if you have only sparingly used the partition.

3. Remove the partition -
3a) To continue with this step, you will probably have to be logged into XP as an Administrator. Then go here: Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management.

When you open your Disk Management you will see something similar to the image below. My hard drive is already set to it's full 70GB (not exactly sure what that 55GB free space is) - we can pretend the 55GB is our large preset partition (which we want to get rid of!).

3b) To delete your partition, simply right click the block and click "Delete Partition..."

»So what did that do for you??
When you delete your large extra partition it is rendered "Unallocated Space." Next we will use Command Prompt to expand your primary drive into that Unallocated Space.

4. Extend your drive into the newly opened space...
4a) In the Start menu click "Run...", Type_ "diskpart" and click "OK." This opens a Command Prompt-based disk management.

4b) After clicking OK, you will see this:

4c) Type_ "list volume" and you will see a list of drives on your system.

4d) Find your primary hard drive (again, usually "C"/volume 1). Type_ "select volume #" - in my case, "select volume 1"

4e) When you successfully select your hard drive volume, Type_ "extend" to add the entire unallocated space to your primary drive. This restores your drive to it's full capacity (minus any recovery software).

*If you are an advanced user and would like to leave a certain amount of space unallocated, type "extend [size=MB]" - the number of megabytes specified in "size=" will be the amount of the unallocated space added to your selected volume.

5. Finished!
If you receive a successful message, congrats! Close diskpart and open "My Computer." Now instead of two largely different hard drives you should have a single, full sized hard drive. Replace any backed up data you may have removed from your partition before deleting.

Questions & Comments: maki@vaioz.com

*Remember, this site isn't responsible for damage or data loss! Follow tutorials at your own discretion. (formal disclaimer, forewarning at page top.)

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