External HD partitioned into 3 Drives; Restore to Original Format???

sassofalco · 03 Jan 2016

Western Digital "My Book 1111" - 1TB external HD, 2.0 USB external HD;

Some time ago I partitioned the above external HD into three separate and distinct Drives - Drives (G:/), (H:/) and (I:/) - see attached diagram below.

I now wish to remove all the data from those drives, and copy all to another and different external hard drive. Reformatting happens after I manage to add the data to another storage external HD.

Once the reformatting (NTFS files system) is done, I want to restore the external HD to its original state by combining all three fields. This snip shows what I wish to do.

External HD partitioned into 3 Drives; Restore to Original Format???-wd-my-book-111-2.0-usb-1tb-external-drive.jpg

Please advise best method

ignatzatsonic · 03 Jan 2016

I'm not quite following you.

I don't know what you mean by "original format" or "original state".

When the smoke clears, what do you want to end up with on Disk 1:

One partition?

The same 3 partitions shown in your picture?

Generally speaking, partitions on an external drive can be deleted at will through Windows Disk Management. If you delete all partitions, the external drive would show as 100% "unallocated space". At that point, you can re-partition it as desired.

All of that would be done in Windows Disk Management, using menus.

sassofalco · 04 Jan 2016

ignatzatsonic said:

One partition? Correct

The same 3 partitions shown in your picture? Exactly

.....done in Windows Disk Management, using menus.

I made a real hack of things in Windows Disk Management, and ended up downloading MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition 9.1 to eventually successfully "merge" all three drives to return the Ext HDD to its "original" configuration - that is, before I created the three partitions. The Ext HDD is now one single partition. Thanks for the nudge.

ignatzatsonic · 04 Jan 2016

sassofalco said:

ignatzatsonic said:

One partition? Correct

The same 3 partitions shown in your picture? Exactly

.....done in Windows Disk Management, using menus.

I would have thought that "one partition" and "The same 3 partitions" were mutually exclusive concepts, but what do I know?

External HD partitioned into 3 Drives; Restore to Original Format???

External HD partitioned into 3 Drives; Restore to Original Format???

MT Partition Wizard worked for me