not sure whom to ask or what forum for questions on disk partitiion

I recently suffered thru a system crash. windows 7. I purchased a new power supply and also a new 1TB SSD drive onto which I installed Windows 10 Pro.

In disk management the drive shows as two sections. I read a piece on which drive should be active and although the system boots up fine - the larger part of the drive is not the active one.

I also purchased a 3TB spin drive (hitachi) that I formatted but formatted as MBR I can only see part of the drive. the balance is unallocated. I tried formatting it as GPT and the whole drive seems to be formatted, but in the 'This PC" it doesn't show up. that now has backups on it from various drives. I'd like to use the whole drive but not sure if I can at this point. I have EaseUs partition 14, but not sure how to use it or even if I can.

sorry if this post is in the wrong forum. I didn't know where to start. photos attached on my disk management once I figure out how to do that. I think I uploaded the file but not sure

thank you for helping.

Your disk 1 is exactly the way it should be for an MBR partitioned drive booting in Legacy BIOS mode. the System Reserved partition is marked as Active which is the partitoin boots from. Contrary to the prior post, there is no need to re-install Windows.

If disk 0 is not GPT, it needs to be converted to GPT. Then extend the existing partition on it to fill the entire drive. Contrary to the prior post, there is no need to delete any partitions nor re-install anything.

so I need to back up all my software and documents? ( or just on the main drive)

A clean install would remove everything? I may need to get another drive in order to do that. I currently don't have much on the main drive, so by reinstalling windows there I guess I wouldn't lose too much.

Is Windows 10 Product key attached to a system? I don't have the disk. I bought the product key. downloaded and installed it that way. as long as I have the product key I should be OK?

windows 10 Pro. 64 bit. PC

No. You don't need to re-install anything. Disk 1 is perfect, the exact way that Windows 10 sets it up as a drive booting in Legacy BIOS.

NavyLCDR said:

Your disk 1 is exactly the way it should be for an MBR partitioned drive booting in Legacy BIOS mode. the System Reserved partition is marked as Active which is the partitoin boots from. Contrary to the prior post, there is no need to re-install Windows.

If disk 0 is not GPT, it needs to be converted to GPT. Then extend the existing partition on it to fill the entire drive. Contrary to the prior post, there is no need to delete any partitions nor re-install anything.

will I lose any data on it by doing that or should I back up all that first. I have only had this system up and running for 2 days and finally got my software installed.........but if I convert it at this point, can I just do it? the 3TB drive is just for storage. but that one can't be converted. Disk 0 is not the main drive. Disk 1 is the one with the system on it. the only option I have for that is to convert to Dynamic Disk and I don't know what that is.

I had used a dock to put info on the Disk0 before I installed it. I had Win10 up and running - then added it. I didn't remember if with the new SATA drive connections you had to put certain drives in a certain order.

these are probably no brainer questions for you out there, but my computer knowledge dates back to the 70's where you had to use jumpers on devices to signify the order. I just haven't done much in the past few years , so I don't remember. I put this system together years ago..........I know just enough to really screw myself up. I think I'm getting a little paranoid about losing my data. I lost a lot when the SSD drive tanked due to the PS failing and probably overheating.

I'm just now finding some of my backup thumb drives with data on it which is critical to my small business.

You do not need to do ANYTHING to disk 1. It is set up exactly the way that Windows 10 sets it up. Using a program like AEOMI Partition Assistant or MiniTool Partition Wizard, you SHOULD be able to convert disk 0 to GPT, without data loss. Then extend the existing partition containting D: drive to fill the rest of the drive, again without data loss. There is always the chance something will fail and you will lose the data, however. So it's your choice whether or not to back it up.

NavyLCDR said:

You do not need to do ANYTHING to disk 1. It is set up exactly the way that Windows 10 sets it up. Using a program like AEOMI Partition Assistant or MiniTool Partition Wizard, you SHOULD be able to convert disk 0 to GPT, without data loss. Then extend the existing partition containting D: drive to fill the rest of the drive, again without data loss. There is always the chance something will fail and you will lose the data, however. So it's your choice whether or not to back it up.

would you recommend I extend the partition on the 'D' drive. I thought I'd had a good plan to buy that large drive and just start collecting all the misc old hard drives and putting info on that. it probably isn't large enough to hold 20 years of data that I'd collected, but it was a start........... so was kinda frustrated when I formatted and then wasn't able to see it on the main PC window.

If I extend it as GPT should I be able to see it? not sure why it didn't show up the first time and that's why I ended up formatting as MBR.

It didn't show up the first time partitioned as GPT simply because you didn't assign it a drive letter, more than likely.

NavyLCDR said:

It didn't show up the first time partitioned as GPT simply because you didn't assign it a drive letter, more than likely.

I thin at the time I wanted to give it a name and didn't know it required a drive letter, but I thought I gave it drive "X". but did that when I formatted it as MBR.

thank you. I never knew assigning a drive letter was necessary. I thought it would assign one as you used it.