Merge Partition & get Windows back on initial drive

I have an HP M7330N with Windows XP Media centre. After tons of problems with rebooting on its own, taking it to a tech for repair twice with it still having the same "rebooting on its own issue" I put in the HP recovery cd and decided to wipe it clean and start from scratch and restore it to its "factory condition". This went well, however,now windows is installed on the secondary hard drive that I had had installed months after purchasing the pc, rather than the primary hard drive that came with the pc.And now both hard drives are partitioned.One partition contains the "HP RECOVERY" files, and the other partion is empty. What I would like to do is get windows back onto the drive that came with the pc and off of the one I had later installed for storage. I also want to merge the partition that the reinstalling of windows created on that same secondary drive. How do I go about merging the 8.5 GB partition back with the original 250GB, without having to use Partition Magic but using either a free utility or Windows Disk Management? Or even a command prompt? Will simply reformatting the drive do this? I do not care about saving any data or files as right now it is at a state where nothing has been added to it except windows updates. And, after, if I can manage to merge the partition back to that the drive has its original size, how do I get windows back onto the primary/initial drive? Should I disconnect the secondary drive,then install windows all over again? If I reconnect the drive again after a reinstallation, will I need to change anyhting so that it ensures to boot from the primary drive? Will I need to change any drive letters or ID's? I have downloaded a free program called "Drive Image XML" which is supposed to help me clone all files from one drive to another. I thought I could clone the windows files from the secondary back to the primary drive, but it would not do so because it stated the destination drive has to be the same size or larger than the source drive. If I could get rid of the partion and regain that space, it would be bigger! Am I making any sense here? I am a beginner at all of this, and truly am frustrated. I want to do this myself if I can without having to pay another dime just to have my PC malfunction after I was told it was fixed. Thanks in advance for any advice, or instructions that anyone can give me.

I am not clear of your current configuration.

What is connected to the motherboard's Primary IDE connector? What is on the cable's Master connector? What is on the Slave? If hard drives, how are they partitioned?

What is connected to the motherboard's Secondary IDE connector? What is on the cable's Master connector? What is on the Slave? If hard drives, how are they partitioned?

How do I go about merging the 8.5 GB partition back with the original 250GB, without having to use Partition Magic

I don't know of any free solution, outside of starting over with a fresh install of Windows. Since you already indicated you don't care about your data, setting up the partitions the way you want them is best done during the OS install. It is no simple task to repartition drives and preserve the files and mapping of the stored data. I don't know of any free program that I would trust, considering even Partition Magic, or its closest competitor, Acronis True Image, are not foolproof.

So if you don't care about the data, I would not worry about resizing your current partitions, and instead, re-install Windows again. You might want to temporarily disconnect any other hard drives to ensure there is only one. And if possible, during the install process, delete the old partitions, recreate new partitions of the size you want, then install Windows. Unfortunately, you said you have a "Recovery" CD instead of a full Windows installation CD. You may not have any choice in the partitions, or their sizes.

To clear up some possible confusion - formatting really has nothing to do with partitions. Partitions are just chunks of hard disk space that are sectioned off, or partitioned out, for future use - like dividing a conference room into two rooms by pulling a curtain across the middle. How each new room is used will depend on how the space in each room is arranged (formatted). The partition can be left empty, never formatted, and therefore, not immediately available for use - but remain unaffected by what is happening in the adjacent partition. So when you asked, "Will simply reformatting the drive do this?", the answer is "no". A format will only setup that particular partition on that drive. You can reformat over and over again, using different file systems (FAT32, NTFS, etc), and it will not affect the partitions.

As SATA gains dominence, EIDE fades away. So the latest motherboards have several SATA connectors, and only 1 EIDE (AKA: PATA, ATA, EIDE, or Ultra ATA). But most motherboards in use today, still have two EIDE connectors, so I will use that as an example.

The motherboard's EIDE drive controller supports two EIDE connectors. They will (should) be labled Pri (or 0 or 1) and Sec (or 1 or 2). To clarify that a bit, if the primary is labeled "0", the secondary will be "1", and if the primary is "1", the secondary will be "2".

Each connector supports two EIDE devices, typically hard drives and opticals. One is the primary or Master device, the other is secondary or Slave. The Master/Slave assignment is determined by the cable connection. Opposite the motherboard connection is the Master, and the Slave is in the middle (offset towards the Master end). Jumpers must be properly configure for EVERY device attached to an EIDE cable. You have two choices:

1. Both (if more than one) devices will be set to Cable Select (CS) and the controller will determine Master/Slave by drives location on the cable, or
2. The first device will be set to Master and connected to the Master connector, and second (if present) device set to Slave and attached to Slave.

The key point, if using CS, both devices will be set to CS. If using Master/Slave, both devices will be properly set to Master or Slave. You cannot mix CS and MA/SL on the same cable.

With only two devices, you can install both on one cable, or use both motherboard IDE connections (as Master or CS).

Drive letter assignments, by default, will make the first partition on the Master drive connected to the primary controller connector, C drive, the boot drive. If there is more than one partition on that drive, they will be assigned the next letters available. If you add or remove partitions, all succeeding drives and partitions will be assigned new letters - and this can really mess up Windows and installed programs.

What I always do, to avoid letter shifts, is I assign Q to my CD/R drive and V to my DVD/R drive. Then, if I add a drive or partition, the shift won't affect my opticals. I avoid changing hard drive letter assignments.