Merging unallocated space

[snoboarder]

I just recently purchased a new internal hard drive, which will be used as storage alongside my main hd, and for some reason it has two unallocated spaces (see picture).

I've looked around the forums and tried creating the partition on the first unallocated space and trying to extend it but the option isn't shown. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I just recently purchased a new internal hard drive, which will be used as storage alongside my main hd, and for some reason it has two unallocated spaces (see picture).

I've looked around the forums and tried creating the partition on the first unallocated space and trying to extend it but the option isn't shown. Any help would be appreciated.

I certainly wouldn't expect a new hard drive to show 2 instances of unallocated space.

Do you have any idea how that happened---was it that way right out of the box?

Are you trying to partition in Windows Disk Management?

What exactly happens when you right click on the unallocated space? Does a menu come up? What choices appear in the menu?

Whoops--that's a 3 TB drive. Drives of that size often have some special considerations--with which I am not familiar.

Nonetheless, what happens with a right click as I asked??

 

[wanchoo]

Welcome to the Windows 7 Forums, Snoboarder.

The partitioning that you desire should be possible with a good Partition Manager Boot CD. I am pretty certain that Acronis Disk Director Suite Boot CD shall do it easily and more or less sure that Free Partition Wizard Boot CD shall be able to accomplish it too.

However Ignatzatsonic is dead right. It should have come out properly partitioned from the box.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition will allow you to merge these partitions. The FREE version can be downloaded here:

Free Partition Magic alternative. Best Free Partition Manager Freeware for Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/8 32 bit & 64 bit - EaseUS Partition Master Home Edition.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Night Hawk]

Hello snoboarder Welcome to SF!

Another thought on that would be a drive returned to seller by previous customer where someone had simply wiped the data without cleaning the drive off fully or it was a drive tested while on the production line at the manufacturer from a batch of drives and ended up being shipped out for sale.

The later believe ir or not is the more likely explanation for a new drive if received in a sealed carton unopened. For a fast clean of that you can use a free security tool like Eraser or open up a command prompt and use the Disk Part tool while sitll booted in Windows to nuke the drive entiirely before seeing a fresh new volume created and formatted for use.

Since the second drive is a 320gb model while the 7 host drive is only 120gb in size you won't have any problem using the following commands in Disk Part. The command prompt will open to:

C:\Windows\system\>disk part (start up tool)
list disk (lists all internal as well as external HDs, usb flash drives)
select disk #0 or #1 (you can easily see the size difference)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs
exit

The drive has been cleaned and seen a new NTFS volume added as well as formatted before you exit the tool and close up the command prompt. If you are worried about using the command prompt method and feel more comfortable using a gui the free drive tool GParted Liive for cd will cover any future needs as well as clean this in no time while booted live from a cd or usb flash drive made bootable.

 

[snoboarder]

Thank you all for welcoming me to the forum

I apologize for the misinformation - this was a clearance item from the store I purchased from and the hard drive was supposedly returned "unused." The seller said the sectors had been verified by the company, but I guess this issue was left behind...

@ignatzatsonic
The above paragraph was geared towards you but I thought it makes more sense if everyone was clarified. When I right click the second space of unallocated space, the context menu is grayed out besides the properties and help buttons

@Golden
I tried this program before starting this thread but it didn't recognize the 2nd unallocated space.

@Night Hawk
I tried using the cmd prompt way but it unfortunately kept the unallocated space.

@wanchoo
I didn't see an easy to get to link via google search to the second program you suggested (the first looks like it costs money), but I will continue looking into finding this program.

If all else fails, I think it would be best to just return the hard drive to the seller and trade in for another for peace of mind.

Thank you all again!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

You could try a "clean" or even "clean all" command from within Diskpart, but I'm not sure it would resolve the issue

 

[wanchoo]

Snoboarder,

Partition Wizard is the Partition Manager used by many in these Forums. Read a tutorial at http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93322-partition-wizard-use-bootable-cd.html and download the bootable CD from Free download Magic Partition Manager Software, partition magic alternative, free partition magic, partition magic Windows 7 and server partition software - Partition Wizard Online.

Good luck.

Amarnath Wanchoo

 

[karlsnooks]

Snoboarder,
Accept the two partitions.
You have run across a limitation of your Bios and Win 7.

Decide how you would like to partition the drive, but you will never be able to merge them on you system.

That is just as well. Running chkdsk, running defrag, running a malware scan is all going to be easier to deal with a max partition size of 2 TB and personally I recommend a max of 1 TB.

I don't have the technical links at hand, but accept the fact that you have hit a limit. If you had a newer bios, newer mobo then you could handle a larger partition. As I stated, practically speaking such large partitions just aren't needed.

 

[KLEBESTIFT]

Snoboarder,
Accept the two partitions.
You have run across a limitation of your Bios and Win 7.

Decide how you would like to partition the drive, but you will never be able to merge them on you system.​

I found your thread when i ran across the same problem, except that I already have 2 3TB drives in the computer that are recognised properly, so it couldn't have been a limitation of my bios or windows 7.

I solved my problem, simply by right clicking on the disk and selecting "Convert to GPT disk" and BAM! there's only one "unallocated space".



The limitation snoopy was referring to is with MBR disks, which is what your drive is currently using.

 

[wanchoo]

One may or one may not agree with the views expressed by somebody else, but not agreeing does not confer the right to use unparliamentary and intemperate language.

 

[Night Hawk]

Welcome to the Windows 7 Forums, Snoboarder.

The partitioning that you desire should be possible with a good Partition Manager Boot CD. I am pretty certain that Acronis Disk Director Suite Boot CD shall do it easily and more or less sure that Free Partition Wizard Boot CD shall be able to accomplish it too.

However Ignatzatsonic is dead right. It should have come out properly partitioned from the box.

It shouldn't have come with any partitions or divided spaces(unallocated) even but found "raw" totally unpartitioned being a new drive.

I think karksnooks may have touched on something as far as bios limitations depending on how old the system or board is. The LBA option seen on the old boards was a requirement for drives over a certain size. Otherwise the only partitions you would end up with would be limited in size from the start.

The make and model board would be the best help here for solving this as far as age and bios limitations as well as going into the bios setup to see if the LBA or Logical Block Addressing option is found to see that enabled.

The make and model board would still be a help however for looking up the user manual for the board itself.

 

[loqk]

same problem from external drive

Thanks KLEBESTIFT that worked perfectly.

I bought a hard drive multi dock thing, and tried to transfer my old external hard drives into it.
I discovered that for some reason, the external hard drive controller has the hard drive partitioned into three parts that read as one when in the external case, but as soon as you try to plug the drives into the computer directly, or through the 4 hard drive dock, it becomes three unusable partitions again.

I now have it operating as I wished thanks to your post.

 

[DaWood]

I just recently purchased a new internal hard drive, which will be used as storage alongside my main hd, and for some reason it has two unallocated spaces (see picture).

I've looked around the forums and tried creating the partition on the first unallocated space and trying to extend it but the option isn't shown. Any help would be appreciated.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi
Your hard drive is using the MBR format and the maximum partition size for this is 2TB. If you want to use the whole disk size you must change it to the GPT format to be able increase the partition size more than 2TB.

if you like to convert it to GPT , check this out:

Convert MBR Disk to GPT Disk