Combining two hard disks in to a single drive on Window Home Premium

[larnall]

All - I hope you can help. This issue is driving me nuts.

I have a relatively new PC with two hard disks - a smaller 200gb and a larger 1.8TB. The way the machine was configured when I received it was that the smaller disk was designated as the C:. and unsurprisingly has become full. The larger 1.8TB disk is unused. I want to use the empty space on the 1.8TB disk to increase the size of the C:, (in other words I want a single large C: spanning the two physical disks) but try as I might I can't find a way to do it. I have attempted to create a "New Spanned Volume" of the larger disk in Disk Management, but the option is greyed out. I've tried some free download software from CNET, and those applications haven't been able to do it. I've scoured through forums and read a lot of threads, but I can't find anything which solves the problem.

Help?!

L

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Why do you need to put C on 2 different hard drives?

It may be doable with "dynamic" volumes, but it's complicated and generally not recommended--but you may have some particular reason to do this??

 

[strollin]

Why don't you keep the C: drive as your boot drive but move all of your data to the larger drive? Many of us have relatively small SSDs as boot drives, coupled with larger data drives. I personally have a 128G SSD as my boot drive and a 1.5T HDD for a data drive. Works great.

 

[DeaconFrost]

Let's back up here. Something doesn't sound right, so can you fill in your system specs or better yet, post a screenshot of your Disk Management screen? My guess is, they may actually be part of the same drive.

As for spanning, that isn't going to happen without having identical drives...so one way or another, it isn't going to be an option for you. Post the Disk Management screenshot and we'll go from there.

 

[larnall]

Thanks all for your replies. I may be making this harder than it needs to be. Specs are below. The reason I wanted to run one drive off two disks was that the first disk was full, and I wanted the computer to simply start using the space on the second, much larger disk without having to change the settings of the computer to redirect where it saves, etc. It sounds like in practice the latter may actually be straightforward. So, let me change the question.

My computer has been saving everything (videos, music, downloads, games etc) on to the smaller drive. It's now full. I want it to use the larger drive for these purposes as a default. But changing how my computer behaves seems to be a laborious manual task. I'm assuming there must be a smart way to do this. Can you help? Rig specs follow.

Chillblast Fusion Blackbird 4.6GHz Core i7 2600K, 16GB, Radeon 6990 4GB : Corsair Graphite 600T Midi Tower CaseIntel Core i7 2700K Processor Overclocked to up to 4.9GHz Corsair A70 Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler Asus Sabertooth P67 Motherboard 16GB Corsair PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 Memory (4 x 4GB sticks) Chillblast AMD Radeon HD 6990 4096MB Graphics Card 120GB Corsair Solid State Drive 1800GB 7200RPM Hard Disk Samsung Blu-Ray ROM / DVD-RW Combi Drive Corsair TX 850W PSU Onboard High Definition AudioWindows 7 Home Premium 64 bit

 

[larnall]

Why don't you keep the C: drive as your boot drive but move all of your data to the larger drive? Many of us have relatively small SSDs as boot drives, coupled with larger data drives. I personally have a 128G SSD as my boot drive and a 1.5T HDD for a data drive. Works great.

Strollin - hi. I think that may be precisely what I need to do. How do you set it up/manage it?

Thanks

L

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Strollin - hi. I think that may be precisely what I need to do. How do you set it up/manage it?

The first step is to post a picture of Windows Disk Management as Deacon requested in post 4 in this thread.

Tentatively, the plan would be for C and System Reserved partitions to be on the 200 GB drive. C would include Windows and all applications, but nothing else.

And the 1.8 TB drive would be nothing but personal data.

But the pic of Disk Management is needed to avoid errors and wrong assumptions.

Your post #5 says you also have a 120 GB Corsair SSD.

So there are actually 3 drives: 120 SSD, 200 HDD, and 1.8 TB HDD???

 

[larnall]

There are two drives. Apologies for the earlier confusion. One smaller SSD and one larger. I've attached a printscreen of Disk Management, as requested. You can ignore Disk 2 (it's an external hard drive).

Thanks for the help with this.

L

 

[larnall]

Reattaching as the previous document seemed to have become corrupted.

L

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I get the following error message when I try to open that doc in Word:

"The image cannot be displayed. Your computer may not have enough memory to open the image, or the image may have been corrupted."

I can assure you I have enough memory.

The easiest way is to post an image right in this thread, not in a Word doc.

But do what you have to do to get us to see it.

 

[larnall]

How about the attached?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

That looks as expected. The SSD has System Reserved and C. The large drive is empty.

I assume you store all your stuff in some folder under C Users, most likely C users yourusername?

You need to redirect that folder.

I have never used user folders at all and save directly to the D drive, so I'm not the authority on what you need to do---but it is commonly done.

Below are a couple of tutorials that you can at least look over. I'd wait for others who have actually done the procedure to comment as I think there may be some nuances or there may be other relevant tutorials.


http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html?ltr=U

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html?ltr=U

 

[DeaconFrost]

I would recommend not redirecting folders, but just changing the library pointers. That used to be the way, but I see most people suggesting to not redirct anymore with Windows 7. On any system I use, I don't store anything on C on purpose. Everything goes to my D drive...docs, photos, music, etc.

 

[strollin]

I created folders on my D: drive similarly named to the ones on my C: drive. For instance, I have Music, Pictures, Video, Program Files, etc... When I save a data file, I simply save it to the folders I created on the D: drive.

I don't install ALL of my program files on my SSD but only those that I use frequently. I also moved the page file and TEMP file folder to the D: drive.

When installing a program, it's easy to tell it to install on the D: vs. the C:. The default is usually to install to the C:\Program Files\ProgramName folder. Since I have the Program Files folder on my D: drive I simply change the install drive from C: to D:. Many programs require you choose "Custom Install" to be able to alter the default install location.

 

[DeaconFrost]

I created folders on my D: drive similarly named to the ones on my C: drive. For instance, I have Music, Pictures, Video, Program Files, etc... When I save a data file, I simply save it to the folders I created on the D: drive.

That's exactly how I have all of my systems set up, and then I just change the Libraries to point to those folders and only those folders.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I created folders on my D: drive similarly named to the ones on my C: drive. For instance, I have Music, Pictures, Video, Program Files, etc... When I save a data file, I simply save it to the folders I created on the D: drive.

That's exactly how I have all of my systems set up, and then I just change the Libraries to point to those folders and only those folders.

I do something similar, but I don't use libraries or user folders.

I have folders on D named downloads, mp3, pictures, video, etc and save directly to those folders.

I can't remember when or exactly why Microsoft introduced the "user folder" thing, but I never saw any need to get involved with it. Was it on XP that they first appeared? Or Windows 98?

Likewise, libraries don't add anything I need.

Here is another tutorial by Kari that may be pertinent for the OP:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorial...reate-move-during-windows-7-installation.html

I think I saw a post by Gregrocker in the last few days in which he said that the best method is to COPY user profiles to D, rather than move them.