Partitions: want to delete D: and expand C: -MiniTool PartitionWizard?

lhgarrett · 16 Aug 2017

I have a new system with 2TB harddrive that arrived partitioned with C: drive 223.2 GB; D: drive approx. 1.8 TB. I attempted to delete the D: drive partition, and wanted to move the unallocated space to expand C:

Partitions: want to delete D: and expand C: -MiniTool PartitionWizard?-screenshot-2-.png

Can I do this, and if so, how? I attempted to use MiniTool Partition Wizard, and don't know if it's possible with the Drive1, Drive2 situation in attached screenshot. If not possible, what is the procedure for recovering D: (I do not want to reinstall windows).

Berton · 16 Aug 2017

You got a problem or two doing as you wish. Looks like Disk 2 with the OS is an SSD drive while Disk 1 is a conventional HDD, or in other words you have 2 drives and for some reason RAID appears to be involved. Personally, in the interest of sanity I wouldn't tamper with things.

Samuria · 16 Aug 2017

Welcome to the forum. You have two actual disks you have 90 gig free on c so why do you want to expand it? The photos doesnt give us all the info it seems the disk are set as raid but what sort it doesnt say. You could try any free software that is parition recovery to try and get the d drive back.

Do you have any software for raid on the pc or is there any in the bios which will tell us what type of raid you have

Spikeypup · 16 Aug 2017

I would be advised just as mentioned by the other folks, since it is in a RAID config, this may be tricky if things go wrong, not saying they will, but they could. Either way, you may run into issues if the space is fragmented and non-contiguous. The issue is that with one being an SSD I wouldn't recommend a defrag as it will kill a bit of your lifetime on the drive, not much, but it will. You should be able to do an expand or grow on that partition without an issue, but if windows reports that you cannot because there is not enough empty free space, then you will have to defrag it. I recommend using Ultr@defrag to accomplish this, and do a full optimization which will move the data to the back of the partition or the front, depending on where things are, this will allow you to expand it in one direction or the other without trouble. Again though please note that this will be intensive depending on your drives fragmentation and the size of the files being moved and it WILL do some lifetime takeaway on the SSD, it won't be massive and will probably only equate to a few days or weeks of lifetime, but again, I don't know the structure of the filesystem in terms of fragmentation. So just be aware, and of course your mileage may vary and this operation is solely your responsibility and liability, although it should not be an issue, AND should only be done if the software or windows is unable to resize the partition due to files in the area necessary of movement, if windows or the software doesn't report an issue, then you should be OK, I just wanted you to know this in case you ran into the problem and got stuck. Please let us know how it goes should you decide to proceed. Thanks!

Ultr@defrag site: UltraDefrag - An Open Source Defragmenter

Download Direct Link for Windows 64 bit Installer: http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ult....bin.amd64.exe
Download Direct Link For Portable Edition 64-Bit (Does not Install, simply run from extracted folder): http://downloads.sourceforge.net/ult....bin.amd64.zip

Good luck and Cheers!

Spikeypup

lhgarrett · 16 Aug 2017

I appreciate Berton's naming the challenge clearly. I feel a bit foolish as I read his query about my drives. I'm used to a single conventional drive on an old laptop partitioned only as C:, and I'm new to thinking about SSDs and multiple drives. I was imagining a 2TB "C: drive" like in my old days ;-)

My packing slip from the manufacturer says I have:
256GB M. 2PCIe x4 SSD
2TB (conventional) harddrive

Please let me know how to use MiniTool Partition Wizard to recover D: that I ignorantly removed on the conventional drive ;-)

Berton · 16 Aug 2017

You might right-click the Start button, click Disk Management and look at the large drive, if the partition is gone you can recreate it there and format it.

lhgarrett · 16 Aug 2017

I deleted the partition yesterday via Disk Management, so it's gone. I'd appreciate it if specific steps I should take were written here for me to follow to recreate and format it (even if they are basic). I want to do the process correctly, and I appreciate the expertise and guidance from the community here ;-)

lhgarrett · 16 Aug 2017

cereberus · 16 Aug 2017

Moreover, on ssd, I cannot tell exactly due to image quality, a large vendor recovery partition. You could delete this and move partitions with minitool, and gain that space for c drive.

lhgarrett · 17 Aug 2017

I found instructions for partition recovery in a video posted at:
Recover lost partition on Windows with MiniTool Partition Wizard - YouTube

The recovery process worked using MiniTool Partition Wizard to restore the original partition on the conventional drive D:

The free version of the tool did not have the functionality, but the paid "Pro" version did.

Partitions: want to delete D: and expand C: -MiniTool PartitionWizard?

Partitions: want to delete D: and expand C: -MiniTool PartitionWizard?

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