Re-partitioning Hard Drive

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  1. Posts : 46
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       #1

    Re-partitioning Hard Drive


    Before I start I want to say that I am pretty decent on a PC when it comes to repairing them and dealing with problems but this one has me stumped.
    I have a hard drive that I put windows 7 on, later on down the road I wanted to see how windows 8 was so I re-partitioned 500gb of it in order to do that by re-assigning that part of the drive. My question is, is there any way to rejoin that 500gb of memory to the win7 partition to make it a full hdd or do would I have to reformat completely? I know reformatting is easy but the area I am in only has like 5 mbps internet and I have about 200 games from steam on my PC, that would take forever to recover those games. Thanks for all your answers in advanced.
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  2. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #2

    Of course you can reclaim the space and add it to any partition on the disk. I suggest you post a picture of your disk management and tell us which part you want to add to what partition. Then we can advise you of the easiest way to accomplish that.
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  3. Posts : 13,576
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       #3
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  4. Posts : 46
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #4

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  5. Posts : 46
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #5

    darkf0xx said:
    I want to add the end part back to my windows 7 partition, the 530 gb part to the 1.4 tb part
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  6. Posts : 2,752
    Windows 7 Pro x64 (1), Win7 Pro X64 (2)
       #6

    Did you create that second "system reserved" partition of 100MB yourself? Only one such "system reserved" partition is actually needed ever, no matter how many bootable OS partitions you might have on this drive and/or any other drive. It is the one-and-only ACTIVE partition on the first boot drive in the BIOS boot sequence list in your machine that defines where "boot manager" is placed, and it is in the one on the very left of your picture. That's also where the "boot menu" would go, if you had multiple bootable OS systems to choose from. And it's also the partition marked ACTIVE, so that the BIOS can find it on the drive among multiple partitions... in order to start the boot process by launching boot manager.

    Also, you posted the graphical part from the lower portion of the DISKMGMT.MSC presentation, but it's in the upper portion where the text description of each partition is shown. This has more detail that would be helpful to us, so really both upper and lower parts of the presentation need to be seen... ideally in a large or full-screen window.

    Also, if you could spread the columns in the upper portion, so that all the text in each cell is visible, there's data there that really needs to be seen.

    Anyway, have you decided simply to forego your Win8 experiment, and now just want to return that previously carved out space back to your primary existing C-partition where Win7 lives? Very easy... using Partition Wizard. You can install it to run under Windows, and you can also download/burn the ISO to standalone bootable CD. Very intuitive and you should be able to immediately figure its GUI and out how to use it once you install it.

    Not all operations on C (e.g. resizing, merging, moving, etc.) can be completed while Windows is operating. But you can start the program, build the "queue of operations to be performed", and then push the APPLY button. This will prompt you to OK the restart of the system, when the boot-time component of Partition Wizard will then kick in to complete the operations on C before continuing on to perform the rest of the Windows boot process.

    Or, you can accomplish operations on C while booted to the standalone CD All operations available while under Windows are also available while booted to this standalone CD, but you can do everything here at one time.

    Given your picture, it seems you want to DELETE both of those two partitions to the right of the system C partition. Just right-click on each one in Partition Wizard, and select "delete". The GUI will redraw to show the total now unallocated space previously occupied by those two partitions.

    Then right-click on the C-partition, and select "move/resize" to do it manually, or "extend" to do it even simpler, either of which will allow you to absorb the now unallocated freespace into C.

    All of these consecutive operations are "queued up" by Partition Wizard, only to be applied when you finally are done and satisfied with your "script" and push the APPLY button. Otherwise, you can UNDO any operation, or cancel the whole sequence and start over or just abort the project.

    When you finally do push APPLY, it will either immediately happen if you're booted to the standalone CD, or will prompt you for the re-boot if you are running under Windows and have specified some operations that affect C in a way that cannot be completed right now... and thus triggers the re-boot to complete the script. Either way, those two partitions will be vaporized as partitions and simply absorbed back into the C-partition to their left, which then will have conceptually been resized back to use up the whole drive (which is from where you originally started, from your description).

    Partition Wizard is VERY highly recommended here.
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  7. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #7

    Is there anything on that E drive that you care about?

    If not, I'd think you could delete it, delete the extended partition surrounding it, and delete that System Reserved partition that now sits between C and E.

    That should give you a large contiguous block of unallocated space immediately adjacent to C.

    Then you could add some or all of that unallocated space to C with Windows Disk Management or Partition Wizard. Since the unallocated space would be adjacent to C, I think Windows Disk Management would readily do the job.

    You'd end up with the left hand System Reserved and C.

    Let someone else confirm.
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  8.    #8

    Just delete the last two partitions in Disk Mgmt. The mystery second System Reserved partition has no System or Active flag so is useless and can be deleted easily. The Logical (green border) will need to be deleted twice: to Delete Volume and then Delete Partition.
    Partition or Volume - Delete

    Once it's all Unallocated Space then rightclick C to Extend into the space as much as you want.
    Partition or Volume - Extend
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  9. Posts : 13,576
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       #9

    Now that you have done your Windows 8 experiment, and combined your space back to C:, you should consider making that 3rd partition to start storing data on and possibly even disk images.

    As already suggested Partition Wizard is the perfect tool.

    http://www.partitionwizard.com/parti...otable-cd.html

    With all those games installed you really should have at least 1 disk image created, you can use Windows native imaging or free Macrium Reflect, Macrium is a bit more flexible.

    Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

    Imaging with free Macrium

    http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx
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  10. Posts : 46
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
    Thread Starter
       #10

    "have you decided simply to forego your Win8 experiment"
    Yes I have, I didn't really like the way windows 8 was set up and the restraints that it seemed to have when it came to editing files, and really the way the files seemed like too much work to get to. Maybe I will try windows 9 if it looks better but I think so far windows 7 is the best since XP. I tried it out 3 times and all 3 times I didn't like it though (once in beta, once when it hit shelves, then once a few weeks ago after it has been updated and some glitches fixed). The only reason I partitioned so much space was because I was planning on using it as a main OS, I thought maybe I just needed to get used to it.

    here is the full picture and I will try that program out, I went to the website and read up on it and it seemed like what I needed.


    Im leaving the 100mb section to the left in though I just don't want the 530gb and 100mb to the right partitioned anymore. Not even sure how the second 100mb got made.
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