How to merge all partitions & unallocated space into 1?

Hello,

I've just installed W7 Ultimate x32 on a 20GB partition and I wish to merge all the other partitions (1 being W7, 1 being Windows Vista, and 10 GB of unallocated space) since I have no use for the vista part and obviously i'd like to use those 10GB.. But I've tried following the steps and extending to no avail.. I can't delete C: (W7 says its using it even though it's installed on E and it won't let me add the unallocated space to the W7 partition either...

I find it annoying and I would really like to have just one drive.. any help would be greatly appreciated

Cheers

Can you post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management so we can get a visual look at your partition layout?

You generally cannot extend a partition in Windows Disk Management UNLESS you have free space IMMEDIATELY to the right of the partition in question as displayed in Windows Disk Management. That may be the problem you had.

You can get around that by using Partition Wizard's boot disc.

Worst case scenario, you could reinstall Windows 7 and wipe out all existing partitions during that re-installation process.

But you shouldn't have to do that.

Are you dual-booting Vista and Windows 7??

ignatzatsonic said:

Can you post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management so we can get a visual look at your partition layout?

You generally cannot extend a partition in Windows Disk Management UNLESS you have free space IMMEDIATELY to the right of the partition in question as displayed in Windows Disk Management. That may be the problem you had.

You can get around that by using Partition Wizard's boot disc.

Worst case scenario, you could reinstall Windows 7 and wipe out all existing partitions during that re-installation process.

But you shouldn't have to do that.

Are you dual-booting Vista and Windows 7??

Click to expand...

My partition is to the right.. that's the problem, how do I use that Partition Wizard you talk about?

I don't really want to reinstall Windows 7... too lazy to go out and get a flash drive/ DVD

And, the boot window lists both Windows 7 and Windows Vista, Windows 7 being at the top of the list.

You can't extend a partition into another partition.

You CAN extend a partition into unallocated space.

Windows Disk Management will NOT allow you to extend into unallocated space UNLESS that space is IMMEDIATELY to the right of the partition in question.

Your unallocated space is to the left, not to the right. So you can't grab that extra space with Windows Disk Management.

You have to use something the Partition Wizard boot disc. You download the ISO and then burn it to a disk and boot from it. It should allow you to grab that unallocated space.

Get it here:

Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software - Partition Wizard Online

ignatzatsonic said:

You can't extend a partition into another partition.

You CAN extend a partition into unallocated space.

Windows Disk Management will NOT allow you to extend into unallocated space UNLESS that space is IMMEDIATELY to the right of the partition in question.

Your unallocated space is to the left, not to the right. So you can't grab that extra space with Windows Disk Management.

You have to use something the Partition Wizard boot disc. You download the ISO and then burn it to a disk and boot from it. It should allow you to grab that unallocated space.

Get it here:

Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software - Partition Wizard Online

Click to expand...

EDIT: The site won't open.. doesn't matters which edition I use? I think I can download the home edition from CNET.
Thanks for the quick reply.. but one more thing, how do I delete the C: Partition since Windows 7 says it is in use?

You want to delete C???

I thought you only wanted to extend C into the unallocated space.

At any rate, C will not be in use when you boot from that Partition Wizard CD. Be sure you can properly identify each partition when you use that disc. The drive letters may not be what you are used to, but you should be able to identify each component by its size in GB, even if the drive letters are weird.

I just want C (or E, whatever letter) to be the only drive, with all the space available in it. I wanted to delete the C partition that has vista in it since I'm not gonna use it, and just extend the Windows 7 partition to the max.. do I necessarily need to boot from the CD?

I think I would wait for input from someone with more experience than I in this case.

I don't want you to do something that isn't quite the right approach.

Your E partition is marked as the boot partition. If that is Windows 7, you might just be able to go into Windows Disk Management and delete C outright, which I assume is the Vista partition.

But I think you'd better wait for another opinion. If it were my own machine, I would just barge in and attempt to delete the unwanted partition.

You have 2 operating systems floating around on that drive, which may complicate things.

Thanks for the amazing support I think I'll try that partition wizard a try, if not i'll just have to live with those partitions, again thanks!

Just make sure that the final partition is marked as the boot partition.

You should have deleted all the partitions when you installed Windows 7.

Do a reinstall.

Its very simple. If E: is the win7 partition (since you said in the first post you installed win7 on a 20gb partition, if you aren't sure first make sure), all you need to do is boot via the Partition wizard Boot CD, delete all partitions other than E: and pull the win7 partition slider to the left till it occupies the entire disk space. Then click on Apply to apply pending changes.

After this your windows will fail to boot. Reason? the boot files are placed on C: drive which you would have deleted. So you need to do the following carefully:

After deleting C: partition, right click on the win7 partition (all this in PW) and mark it Active. Then extend it to cover the entire disk space. Now place the win7 install dvd or the system repair disk in the tray/slot and boot from the dvd. Choose to repair Computer, then run startup repair (might need to do this 2-3 times). Then reboot into windows normally.

Partition resizing can sometimes cause loss of data so make sure your data is backed up before attempting the above.