Merge 3 partitions on exVista recovered Hard Disk - for storage only

I recently recovered the "Samsung" Hard Disk (HD) from my old Vista Laptop [RIP ], and want to use it as a general "Temporary Admin/Work Folder", that is, NOT for archival purposes.

The HD is currently sitting in a "Winstars Communicator D3" USB 3.0 HD Docking Station, after having just completed a series of Formats to "clean" all files from the 3 partitions on the HD (and yes, I did recover the files I wanted to keep first).

This is how the three Alpha assigned partitions appear now (* note that the Recovery Partition/Volume also seems to be available for this merger exercise - see below)



I want to merge all three HD Partions - (J: ) (K: ) and (L: ) into a single partition, with one main "Temporary Work" Folder, and with its own assigned Drive letter.

Advice please - how to achieve a merger of the 3 partitions?*

I'm curious to know if there are any valid reasons why I cannot/should not include the Recovery Partition volume (about 20GB) in the merge, to finish up with a *merger of all 4 partitions?

Cheers,
Tony (yes, I am still in the land of the living - soon to be in Somerset too, I hope )

sassofalco said:

...just completed a series of Formats to "clean" all files from the 3 partitions on the HD (and yes, I did recover the files I wanted to keep first)...
I want to merge all three HD Partions - (J: ) (K: ) and (L: ) into a single partition... any valid reasons why I cannot/should not include the Recovery Partition volume (about 20GB) in the merge, to finish up with a *merger of all 4 partitions?

As there's nothing you want to keep, wouldn't it be simpler to just delete all the partitions and create what you want as a new partition?

Mate...

I was completely unaware of such a simple solution.

Is this something I achieve through Disk Management?

Sand shoes ..

sassofalco said:

Is this something I achieve through Disk Management?

In theory, yes. 'Delete volume' is one of the options if you right-click on a partition. Disk Management may not allow you to delete the Recovery partition though. If that's the case, you can use Diskpart from the command line in a Command Prompt (Admin) to remove all partition information from the disk.

Be very careful to select the right disk number before cleaning it! Use the LIST command first to find out the correct number to use. Once cleaned you'll have a blank disk and can create whatever partition(s) you require in Disk Management. In this example my Disk 2 is a 16GB USB drive.

Code:

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.15063]
(c) 2017 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>DISKPART
Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.15063.0
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: TOSHIBA

DISKPART> LIST DISK

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          465 GB      0 B
  Disk 1    Online          931 GB      0 B
  Disk 2    Online           14 GB      0 B

DISKPART> SELECT DISK 2
Disk 2 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> CLEAN
DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> EXIT
Leaving DiskPart...

C:\WINDOWS\system32>

Thanks Bree for your clear, concise and easy to follow advice and instructions.

All sorted without too much difficulty, and "post-operative" testing has confirmed that my old Vista HD will once more serve a useful purpose, rather that sit around looking like a spare paperweight in a paperless office.

I followed your instructions to a tee ....


... and have the following "new" HD



Thanks for your help - much appreciated.

Cheers, Tony

Glad to have helped.