How do I gracefully rearrange partitions on an HDD?

[pickandwhammy]

Please bear with me while I try to explain my predicament. Attaching screenshots for reference:

(Greyed out irrelevant drives)

Initally the system had an internal 1 TB HDD (MBR) divided into a 64 GiB primary partition, which was the C:\ drive, and three logical partitions. Eventually I migrated the OS to a 64 GB SSD (GPT). Now the old "C:\" partition (now W:\) is lying separately (I flushed it of all data before writing this). Two other complications:

• 
  ■ Documents, Pictures, etc. folders do not reside on C:\ (SSD), but on E:\ (HDD).
  ■ Most software is installed in D:\ (HDD).
  ■ D:\ has a page file (this is minor - I can deactivate it for the procedure)

I would like to know what is the cleanest way for me to reorganise the partitions and merge the extraneous W:\ space into the other three partitions, possibly even converting the scheme to GPT first, such that when I boot back into Windows after the partitioning is complete, it works seamlessly. I have an external 1TB HDD (USB 2, K:\ in the image) to utilise for intermediate storage, but I would rather not try something and completely break the system.

Thanks in advance!

EDIT: I forgot to mention, K:\ is a backup drive, it doesn't contain any non-redundant data and can be wiped for the duration of the process.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, pickandwhammy!

I'm not entirely sure how graceful this suggestion would be, but I believe it will work best without causing any issues in the future.
Since you do have you K:\ backup drive, I suggest to backup all the data from your HDD.
Then go to Disk Management and delete all the partitions from your HDD (Disk 1) until you have only unallocated space.
Then simply right-click on that and "create a new simple volume" and rearrange your partitions however you want.
Eventually copy back all the data from your backup drive to your HDD.
The software that you have had installed (just guessing) on your previous OS (before migrating/cloning to the SSD), it's best to be re-installed either way.
I believe your whole system will respond much better to this 'rearrangement'!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[pickandwhammy]

Hey there, pickandwhammy!

I'm not entirely sure how graceful this suggestion would be, but I believe it will work best without causing any issues in the future.
Since you do have you K:\ backup drive, I suggest to backup all the data from your HDD.
Then go to Disk Management and delete all the partitions from your HDD (Disk 1) until you have only unallocated space.
Then simply right-click on that and "create a new simple volume" and rearrange your partitions however you want.
Eventually copy back all the data from your backup drive to your HDD.
The software that you have had installed (just guessing) on your previous OS (before migrating/cloning to the SSD), it's best to be re-installed either way.
I believe your whole system will respond much better to this 'rearrangement'!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions!
SuperSoph_WD

I don't know if using Windows to do it would be a good idea, especially because there are a lot of system dependencies on the HDD (Program Files, User folders). And reinstalling all the software would take me days! Thus the search for a better approach. Thanks for your response!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, pickandwhammy!

I'm not entirely sure how graceful this suggestion would be, but I believe it will work best without causing any issues in the future.
Since you do have you K:\ backup drive, I suggest to backup all the data from your HDD.
Then go to Disk Management and delete all the partitions from your HDD (Disk 1) until you have only unallocated space.
Then simply right-click on that and "create a new simple volume" and rearrange your partitions however you want.
Eventually copy back all the data from your backup drive to your HDD.
The software that you have had installed (just guessing) on your previous OS (before migrating/cloning to the SSD), it's best to be re-installed either way.
I believe your whole system will respond much better to this 'rearrangement'!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions!
SuperSoph_WD

I don't know if using Windows to do it would be a good idea, especially because there are a lot of system dependencies on the HDD (Program Files, User folders). And reinstalling all the software would take me days! Thus the search for a better approach. Thanks for your response!

I see. Okay then, since I cannot recommend any specific tool as a representative. I'd suggest to take a look at these threads about third-party partition software utilities and their features:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/277170-32-best-partitioning-software
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-2479307/windows-recovery-partition-software.html

Hope you find what you are looking for!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[bsc249]

Hey there, pickandwhammy!

I'm not entirely sure how graceful this suggestion would be, but I believe it will work best without causing any issues in the future.
Since you do have you K:\ backup drive, I suggest to backup all the data from your HDD.
Then go to Disk Management and delete all the partitions from your HDD (Disk 1) until you have only unallocated space.
Then simply right-click on that and "create a new simple volume" and rearrange your partitions however you want.
Eventually copy back all the data from your backup drive to your HDD.
The software that you have had installed (just guessing) on your previous OS (before migrating/cloning to the SSD), it's best to be re-installed either way.
I believe your whole system will respond much better to this 'rearrangement'!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions!
SuperSoph_WD

Still Great Advice! I just took an old HDD out of a laptop and it had OEM partitions, an EFI partition, a recovery partition all now dead space taking up valuable resources! Deleted 'em all and started with a new simple volume.
So Easy!
TY!