External drive

I have a Western Digital Mybook which, historically, was important for security backup purposes. However I no longer feel the need to use it in that way.

It is set up in two partitions, let's say K; for the WD software, and L; where I used to drop in my data backups. Access is password protected.

I'd now like to use the whole drive for other purposes, but am finding it difficult to get rid of the WD stuff (which I never rated highly anyway). Perhaps one of you helpful experts can reveal the best way to go about this? Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I'm a newbie to Windows 8.1.

My solution would be to delete the partition with the WD software on it, then expand the other partition to fill the whole disc.

To do this call up Windows Explorer
Right Click on This PC (may be My computer).
From the context menu select Manage computer.

A window will pop up divided into a left and right section.
In the left section select Storage/Disc Management

After a pause while the computer looks at the discs, the right hand window will display a list of your discs and their partitions. Be very careful at this point NOT to mess around with the main disk, which will probably have partitions call C: and Recovery.

Select the western digital drive by clicking on it.
Right click the volume that you want to remove
From the menu select Delete.

You will probably have to confirm

Right click the other volume
select extend

Probably select all the available space, not sure as I do not have a disc to try it on.

Thanks Philip.

Just tried the procedure you suggested but, unfortunately, when I got to the menu for the WD volume I found that delete, shrink etc were greyed out. Probably something sneaky that WD have done? Read only?

I know there is some way of doing this because years ago I recall reading posts by punters who didn't want to use the WD software and managed to convert the drive back to bog standard.

Cheers.

Using WD Quick Formatter to format external drives

Once the WD Quick Formatter is finished reformatting the drive, the drive will only have one partition.

Sadly, Mick, it didn't do the biz.

Step 5 listed only the L: drive/partition (the data), although K: (smartdrive software) is on the same physical drive. I ran it anyway and, yes, it reformatted L: (renaming it as F: ) but leaving K: untouched.

But thank you anyway for your attention.

Post deleted by IanBB

Without having a similar drive to experiment with it is a little difficult to tell.

Another possible solution, but rather long and draw out, is to download a live cd of linux with gparted on it, then repartition the disc.

I think that there is a version call the ultimate boot disc which will do this. One the computer is booted into this though, it will not call your drives by the same names, so you have to be doubly careful not to partition the wrong one. It is long and drawn out because you have to download the ISO then create the CD. Easy if you already know how, difficult to explain.

How about one of Hirem's Boot CD utilities, perhaps Partition Wizard Home Edition 7.0

Hey-ho. It looks as if I just have to live with the WD stuff. It does, I suppose, have the benefit of password protecting the data - the corollary being that you can't get at it directly.

Cheers all.

Try this

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clea...