Question about combining two partitions

TeamMM3 · 06 May 2015

I have a couple hard drives but the one in question is a terabyte hard drive I split into two partitions after I installed it, a 687 gig partition and 244 gig partition. I know it's possible to combine partitions but I just want to make sure before I do it that I won't lose everything. I am going to move all the things off the 244 partition to a separate drive and then just combine the empty partition with the 687 partition.

My question is, can I combine them without losing everything on the larger partition? Should I just move the files off both partitions to be safe? I just don't want to screw it up, it's pretty much my whole steam library (500+ gigs) and I'd rather not have to redownload it all if I can help it.

Boozad · 06 May 2015

No you don't need to move your stuff off your large partition, it will be fine. Back up your files on the smaller partition then delete it in Disk Management.

Partition or Volume - Delete

Now Extend the larger drive into the new free space.

Partition or Volume - Extend

Job done.

TeamMM3 · 06 May 2015

It seemed to work fine, only question is now the bar above them in disk management is yellow instead of blue. Does this signify anything?

Boozad · 07 May 2015

Do you now have more than four partitions on the drive? Please post a screenshot of disk management.

TeamMM3 · 07 May 2015

Here is the requested screenshot of my disk management

Boozad · 07 May 2015

Somehow you've managed to convert the disk to a Dynamic Disk, and both partitions have the same letter G:. First off assign the second partition on the drive a different letter then follow Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk to convert it back to a Basic Disk.

Warning

Be sure to read all of the linked tutorial to ensure you don't lose any of your data when converting the disk back to a Basic Disk

TeamMM3 · 07 May 2015

Shouldn't have bothered. Deleted the whole thing...ugh how frustrating

TeamMM3 · 07 May 2015

This is the absolute most frustrating thing in the world. I've got a gig of things to redownload now. A warning to everything thinking about doing this, don't bother. I assigned the second partition another letter, clicked on that partition, clicked delete partition, and it deleted the entire thing. Should have just kept it the way it was.

Boozad · 07 May 2015

I've no idea how you managed to convert it to Dynamic in the first place, it shouldn't have happened if you followed the first two tutorials linked to the letter.

TeamMM3 · 07 May 2015

No clue, all I did was delete the smaller volume partition then extended the volume and that's what happened. Followed the instructions above step by step but didn't work for me.