Formating and giving partition D: space to partition E:

[Hasiorr]

Hello.
Could someone help me, please?
So, I know I can merge partitions, but when I searched, all I saw was people deleting and giving partition D: space to partition C:. What about the contrary?
I have one separated HD that contains 2 partitions. The first partition is D:, that contains 200Gb and an old OS. The second partition is E: that contains 800Gb and I store pics, videos, games, musics, etc. The E: partition is almost full.
My question is, can I format the D: partition to liberate space, and "give" its space to E:?
I don't want to format the full HD, because I have nowhere else to save my E: partition stuff.

 

[ArtPog]

The information provided you by EDab is right-on, however, be aware that the free versions of third-party partition management programs generally do not possess the capability of merging adjacent partitions. That capability is nearly always present in their commercial versions.

 

[Hasiorr]

Thank you EDab and ArtPog for the help.
I just have another question. I was thinking of format the D: partition to liberate space, then, instead of deleting it, transfer some archives that are stored in E: to D:. This way I will clear some space in E: partition and slowly give it's new free space to D:, so, the D: partition will grow up and I can store more archives from E:. Is this possible? Is this safe? Or should I just download a third party software for once?
I hope you understand what I'm talking about. English isn't my first language, I'm trying as hard as I can.
Thanks again.

 

[EDab]

if you clear some space in E: partition, you still cannot add the space to D: with Disk Management, because the unallocated space (space you cleared) will be behind E: drive and it's not contiguous to D: drive.

I recommend you try third party software. as far as I know, third party software might mess up with system partition. since what you want to do doesn't involve system partition, it should be completely safe. By the way, if you use third party software to merge D: to E:, it will take some time because all data on E: has to be moved leftwards.

 

[Hasiorr]

Ok, I get it. That's enough information.
Thanks a bunch, EDab!

 

[ArtPog]

Now let's get something clear here, OK?

As you have heard...you can merge the two partitions (D: & E using a third-party disk management program (there are quite a few of them available), but as far as I know ONLY their commercial versions possess that capability. Do you understand that? The freely available versions DO NOT possess that capability. (At least I have never come across a free version of those programs that do have that capability. But if anyone coming upon this thread has, I'd like to hear about it).

Incidentally, we're assuming the drive in question is a secondary drive and does not contain an OS.

Just one thing more...

If you do utilize a p-m program to undertake an operation MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU EITHER CLONE THE CONTENTS OF THE DISK BEFORE UNDERTAKING THE MERGING/PARTITIONING OPERATION OR AT THE MINIMUM BACKUP WHATEVER PROGRAMS & OTHER DATA THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO YOU.

Capiche?

 

[Hasiorr]

I got everything you said, ArtPog. But, if there isn't a free software that does what I need... So, what can I do, since I have nowhere to save my stuff and format the full hard drive?
We are talking about a secondary HD, with D: and E: partitions. There is an OS in the D: partition, but I will format this one, since I don't need that OS anymore. The D: will be free space again.

 

[ArtPog]

There may be a way to achieve your objective, but first provide the following information...
1. What is the total disk-space of the HDD?
2. What is the total disk-space of the D: partition?
3. What are the total contents of data (in disk-space) contained in the D: partition?
4. What is the total disk-space of the E: partition?
5. What are the total contents of data in (disk-space) contained in the E: partition?

 

[Hasiorr]

1. What is the total disk-space of the HDD?
1TB

2. What is the total disk-space of the D: partition?
204GB

3. What are the total contents of data (in disk-space) contained in the D: partition?
54GB - This partition contains the OS that I no longer use.

4. What is the total disk-space of the E: partition?
726GB

5. What are the total contents of data in (disk-space) contained in the E: partition?
561GB - This partition contains photos, videos, games, docs, etc.

 

[ArtPog]

Unfortunately, given the volume of data you're working with I couldn't come up with a solution to your problem not involving a third-party partition management program to simply merge the two partitions.

What I had hoped you could do was to clone the contents of your E: partition to the unallocated disk-space preceding that partition after deleting the D: partition. But given the 561 GB of data contents on your E: partition that's not possible. If the size of the unallocated disk-space was sufficient to contain the 561 GB of data in the E: partition then this would be a practical solution since you could then extend the partition to encompass the new unallocated disk-space created after the partition-cloning operation.

The thought occurs to me that you're obviously working with a boot drive, right? Is there any possibility that you could temporarily move a large amount of data from the secondary drive's E: partition over to the boot drive? Then you could manipulate the secondary drive's partitions to accompany all of your data formerly on that drive in a single partition.

Another rather simple solution is to clone the contents of the E: partition to another drive with sufficient disk-space to contain the 561 GB of data on your E: partition, then create a single partition on the 1 TB disk and clone the data contents back to the 1 TB drive. But you haven't indicated you have such a drive at your disposal so I suppose that's not a possibility.

 

[Hasiorr]

So, I'm actually using a 250GB HDD as my boot drive on C:. My plan was to use this HDD to be my boot drive, and use my 1TB HDD to be my storage drive.
I have on my boot drive 196GB free space, and on my secondary HDD, the D: partition that contains the old SO have 150GB free space. I wanted to merge D: and E: on my 1TB HDD, but, as you know, I haven't enough space to alocate my E: partition stuff.
So, I was thinking... After all this, isn't better to just liberate space on my D: partition deleting the old OS and just storage my stuff on D: and E:? Because, I have to pay to use a third party software and I have nowhere to move my E: stuff.
I wanted to merge D: and E: because it's cleaner. So, I would have the C: partition in my main 250GB HDD and my stuff in my E: partition on my secondary 1TB HDD.

 

[ArtPog]

If I correctly understand your intention there's certainly no downside to deleting the old Windows OS on your D: partition and utilizing that available disk-space for storage.

 

[Hasiorr]

So, that's what I'm going to do, until I find a place to storage my E: stuff and format the full HDD.
ArtPog, thank you very much for the help. I truly apreciate it. And thanks a bunch for EDab too.