How do i move data from one harddrive partition to another

[JohnStafford]

Hello,
my hard drive has two partitions, one is full, the other is empty, how do i redistribuite the data so each partition is only partially full?

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi John, & Welcome to Tom's Hardware!

There are two easy ways to do this.
1. Just drag and drop the folders or files from one Volume to the other in Windows Explorer.

or if you just want to make the volume larger:

2. Right Click on My Computer, click on Manage, click on Disk Management in the lower left area.
If you are using Win-7, you can just right click on the empty volume to shrink it or delete it, then right click on the "full volume" and expand it.
Remember if you delete a Partition (volume) you will delete everything in that Partition. Just make sure the empty one is the one you are shrinking or deleting.

 

[John12345]

I am having the same problem too, I have a windows 7 pc. Could I copy the files from the full hard drive then paste in the less full hard drive then delete the files on the full hard drive and everything would still work?

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi John & Happy New Year!

The short answer is yes, but we could be more exact if you could review exactly how the drives are set up, or upload a screenshot of the Disk Management dialog box (Photobucket or ImageShack) and post it back here.

You can drag n drop folders or files from one volume to another. If it is to a separate drive, the folders/files will be copied and you could then delete the same on the full drive. Or you could store rarely used files on the second volume. You could also move your libraries to the second volume but that's slightly more involved.

If this is a single HDD, with 2 or more volumes (check in disk management) you can simply with Win-7 expand the full volume, adding space from the empty volume to the full one and not have to move any files. That's done in Disk Management, right clicking on the full volume, choosing Extend Volume, follow the prompts.

If you can post the disk management screenshot, makes it much easier to understand your setup and give you the best options.