Windows 7: Combining C: drive and D: drive?

Hi,
As I recently bought a new computer, I am interested in combining my old computers C: and D: drives. Yes, I do know it is there for security/backup/whatever reasons but I'd like to do it anyway. Oh, and if there is software involved, I'd definitely prefer freeware.

Thanks,
Jaidyn

You might be able to do that with Windows Disk Management, but more details are needed.

If I understand you, you have 2 completely separate PCs, old and new. The old PC has a hard drive that has only 2 partitions (C and D) and you would like to combine those 2 partitions.

Is that correct?

Is there anything on the C and D partitions that you need to keep?

Download and install Partition Wizard Home Edition v5.2. It is free, and it works wonderfully. You can install it on both your new and old PC's.

Also download and burn their ISO image for their standalone bootable CD, for performing functions on your hard drives that cannot be performed while booted to the OS on either PC.

Now you can do whatever you want with partitioning your hard drives, on either your new or old PC. Partition Wizard is intuitive and easy to use, but if you have questions ask further here.

You may or may not need to boot to the standalone bootable CD to combine your C and D partitions on your old PC. It does involve the OS C-partition, but this particular function may still be do-able while booted to the OS.

Or, PW may tell you it needs to restart to complete the task... in which case it will kick in at pre-boot time to finish whatever needs to be done, and then will continue on with the normal boot process. When you are back in Windows you will have the work to your hard drive that you'd previously specified now completed.

But using the standalone boot CD is probably the most straightforward and understandable approach when C is involved on either PC. You just won't see the expected Windows-assigned drive letters for your partitions, which you WILL see when running the program under Windows itself.


Anyway, you could probably use Run -> DISKMGMT.MSC under Windows, to use the OS's disk management functionality to accomplish this as well.

But I suggest you use the truly easy-to-use, intuitive, graphically appealing, and 100% reliable and free Partition Wizard product... and forget about DISKMGMT.MSC.

And besides, PW can do a number of things that DISKMGMT.MSC simply cannot do.

@The above poster...
Thanks, I'll try that.

Yes, the new computer has nothing to do with this though. And yes again, I would like to combine the two partitions. And I'd like to keep everything on my C: drive if it's possible. I actually have no idea how to back up. :/

Dsperber has it right--assuming you want to keep the stuff now on D.

Use the Partition Wizard boot disc.

You can't do it with Windows disk management unless you can temporarily move everything off D to some other drive. Move everything on D to an E drive, then delete D, then expand C, then move the stuff from E back to the new C.

If you don't care about anything on the D drive, then you CAN do it with Windows disk management. You would simply delete the D partition, which would leave a bunch of unallocated space. Then you would expand the C partition into the unallocated space, leaving you with one big C partition.

Ignatzatsonic is correct. Use Microsoft Synctoy. copy everything from 'D' to another location, deleteD, expand C, then setup Synctoy to move the info back. I've done that several times with no problems.

Partition merging is not a part of the free Partition Wizard.
If you have enough space on either C: or D: you have to do a round about procedure involving - Copy (D: data), Move/Resize.
It can also take quite a long time!

Depending what is on D: you may be better
- moving it to an external drive
- Deleting D:
- Resize C:
- Replace D: data on the new sized C:

Yes, it does. I did this with Partition Wizard just a few days ago. I had a 640 gig drive with a C of 60 and a D of 580. I wanted to convert it all to a single D drive containing everything on the 580 gig partition.

It took close to 4 hours, but it's about the only game in town if you do not have another drive on which to temporarily store the D files.

I could have moved the D files to an E drive I had and not use PW, but I wanted to find out if PW could do it. It succeeded and it saved me a bit of time---instead of copying to E and then moving back (2 operations), I did it in a single copy operation with PW.

Turns out you're absolutely right here. I didn't know that. I thought the "merge partition" function was part of the product, because it's shown as an available operation on the left side.

But when I click on it I do get the popup message stating it's not available in this version of the product (which for me is the free Home Edition).





You're right.

My apologies for mistakenly suggesting that "merge partition" could be used... as it can, but not with the FREE version of Partition Wizard.

I guess I wasn't thinking that the OP wanted to possibly preserve what was on D, in which case "merge" or one of the operational workarounds involving copying to another drive, etc., is needed.

If all that is needed is to flush what's on D, delete the partition, and then resize C to include the space now available from the former D, well the PW is perfectly acceptable... including the free Home Edition.

Sorry for the confusion. And also for this new fact, which I'd never seen before because I've never actually needed to "merge" two partitions.

NOTE: the "Professional" version is only $29, which is not an outlandish price for this fine product... including "merge".

Indeed. And it includes the automatic dynamic to basic disk conversion which isn't in the current free version.