[SOLVED] How to merge two drives?

[mkmossop]

OS: Windows 11

So I cloned a 1 TB drive to a 2 TB drive and now 1 TB shows up unallocated on the new drive.

I have Macrium Reflect and the unallocated space shows up greyed out with no options to do anything. So I used Disk Manager and create a new Simple Volume... drive D.

I would like to have one single C drive, but don't know how to merge the drives.

I don't see any options to do this in either Disk Manager or Macrium.

I've attached a screenshot from Macrium.

Thanks!

 

[Lafong]

I suspect you could not add the unallocated to C because of that red "Windows RE" partition sitting immediately to the right of C. Disk Management does a big frown when it sees any intervening partition like that.

You can use a third party app like Minitool Partition Wizard. It does not have that limit of the intervening partition.

I'd first back up anything you may have of value as a general precaution any time you start messing with partition structure.

I haven't used Minitool in a while. Check the menus. You may have to outright delete D, turning it back into unallocated space that you could then add to C. Or you may be able to directly merge C and D. I can't recall exactly.

 

[mkmossop]

I suspect you could not add the unallocated to C because of that red "Windows RE" partition sitting immediately to the right of C. Disk Management does a big frown when it sees any intervening partition like that.

You can use a third party app like Minitool Partition Wizard. It does not have that limit of the intervening partition.

I'd first back up anything you may have of value as a general precaution any time you start messing with partition structure.

I haven't used Minitool in a while. Check the menus. You may have to outright delete D, turning it back into unallocated space that you could then add to C. Or you may be able to directly merge C and D. I can't recall exactly.

Hey thanks so much for the reply.

When it's deleted or when it's a simple volume the Partition Wizard doesn't give me any "merge" option. I can merge the red "Windows RE Tools" with the C drive, but I don't know if that's a good idea. Or if I merge it if it'll then help me merge C with D since it won't be to the right of C anymore?

 

[Misgar]

I have Macrium Reflect and the unallocated space shows up greyed out with no options to do anything.

Macrium Reflect allows you to clone to a larger drive and configure the C: drive to use all the space that would otherwise be "wasted" after the Recovery partition. You can also clone to a somewhat smaller drive in some circumstances.

Instead of accepting Macrium's default drive copy option, you need to "drag and drop" partitions one at a time from the Source drive to the Destination drive as follows:-
N.B. You need to tell Macrium to remove all existing partitions on the destination drive before continuing. Existing partitions will not be deleted until you start the clone, so you can back out at any time without deleting any partitions.

1). Drag and drop first 260MB partition to empty destination drive
2). Drag and drop second 16MB partition to destination
3). Drag and drop fourth 653MB partition to destination (NOT the third partition)
4). Right click 653MB partition and select "Flush Right". This moves the Recovery partition to the end of the disk, leaving a large area of free space in the middle
5). Drag and drop the main 952.96GB C: drive to destination. Right click the Windows partition and select "Fill Space". This resizes the Windows partition to fill all available free space.
6). Start the clone process
7). When finished, disconnect the source drive before booting from the destination drive

I haven't used Minitool in a while.

I use Easus Partition Master which is similar.

@mkmossop. If you no longer have the original 1TB drive, you can use partition managing software as follows.

8). Delete the D: drive partition on the 2TB drive (or perform this step in Disk Manager)
9). Select the 653MB Recovery partition and move it to the end of the disk. Keep the size at 653MB.
10). Resize the C: drive partition to fill the available free space (you could perform this step in Disk Manager instead if you prefer)
11). Click Accept, or OK or as required, to execute the steps you've chosen in the partition manager software, to shift the Restore partition to the end of the drive and make room to expand the C: drive

I've managed to do these steps using Easus on dozens of drives with no problems, but if you don't have backups of your files, take care. Get it wrong and you could lose everything.

 

[SkyNetRising]

So I cloned a 1 TB drive to a 2 TB drive and now 1 TB shows up unallocated on the new drive.
I would like to have one single C drive, but don't know how to merge the drives.

Do not merge! Do extend instead.
Merge operation can end very badly. It is absolutely required to have a backup before merge.
Better to avoid it completely.

1. Delete Windows RE tools partition.
2. Delete partition D :
3. Remove bitlocker encryption from C: drive
4. Extend C: to free space behind it.
If extend asks you to convert to dynamic drive, then you're doing something wrong. Stop immediately!

 

[USAFRet]

Those aren't 2 "drives", but rather 2 partitions.

There is a function in Macrium where you could have caused it to use the whole 2TB.

Is the original source drive still working?
If so, redo the clone. Or, for future reference.

(pay attention to the middle section of this)
-----------------------------
Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
-----------------------------
Verify the actual used space on the current drive is significantly below the size of the new SSD
Both drives must be the same partitioning scheme, either MBR or GPT
Download and install Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Magician (which includes Data Migration), if a Samsung target SSD)
If you are cloning from a SATA drive to PCIe/NVMe, you may need to install the relevant driver for this new NVMe/PCIe drive.
Power off
Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.
If not, we have to fix that first.

Run the Macrium Reflect (or Samsung Data Migration)
Select ALL the partitions on the existing C drive

[Ignore this section if using the SDM. It does this automatically]
If you are going from a smaller drive to a larger, by default, the target partition size will be the same as the Source. You probably don't want that
You can manipulate the size of the partitions on the target (larger)drive
Click on "Cloned Partition Properties", and you can specify the resulting partition size, to even include the whole thing
[/end ignore]

Click the 'Clone' button
Wait until it is done
When it finishes, power off
Disconnect ALL drives except for the new SSD. This is not optional.
This is to allow the system to try to boot from ONLY the SSD

(swapping cables is irrelevant with NVMe drives, but DO disconnect the old drive for this next part)
Swap the SATA cables around so that the new drive is connected to the same SATA port as the old drive
Power up, and verify the BIOS boot order
If good, continue the power up

It should boot from the new drive, just like the old drive.
Maybe reboot a time or two, just to make sure.

If it works, and it should, all is good.

Later, reconnect the old drive and wipe all partitions on it.
This will probably require the commandline diskpart function, and the clean command.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

 

[mkmossop]

Macrium Reflect allows you to clone to a larger drive and configure the C: drive to use all the space that would otherwise be "wasted" after the Recovery partition. You can also clone to a somewhat smaller drive in some circumstances.

Instead of accepting Macrium's default drive copy option, you need to "drag and drop" partitions one at a time from the Source drive to the Destination drive as follows:-
N.B. You need to tell Macrium to remove all existing partitions on the destination drive before continuing. Existing partitions will not be deleted until you start the clone, so you can back out at any time without deleting any partitions.

1). Drag and drop first 260MB partition to empty destination drive
2). Drag and drop second 16MB partition to destination
3). Drag and drop fourth 653MB partition to destination (NOT the third partition)
4). Right click 653MB partition and select "Flush Right". This moves the Recovery partition to the end of the disk, leaving a large area of free space in the middle
5). Drag and drop the main 952.96GB C: drive to destination. Right click the Windows partition and select "Fill Space". This resizes the Windows partition to fill all available free space.
6). Start the clone process
7). When finished, disconnect the source drive before booting from the destination drive

Ok this seems like the easiest solution... I think I will try this, thanks!

Do not merge! Do extend instead.
Merge operation can end very badly. It is absolutely required to have a backup before merge.
Better to avoid it completely.

1. Delete Windows RE tools partition.
2. Delete partition D :
3. Remove bitlocker encryption from C: drive
4. Extend C: to free space behind it.
If extend asks you to convert to dynamic drive, then you're doing something wrong. Stop immediately!

Thanks! I think as above I will try to reclone and merge the spaces and hopefully that works.

Those aren't 2 "drives", but rather 2 partitions.

There is a function in Macrium where you could have caused it to use the whole 2TB.

Is the original source drive still working?
If so, redo the clone. Or, for future reference.

Ask questions if anything is unclear.
-----------------------------

Yes I still have the drive so I think I will try to reclone as you said. I think I understand the process. I will reply when done . Thanks!

 

[mkmossop]

Disconnect ALL drives except the current C and the new SSD
Power up

Verify the system boots with ONLY the current "C drive" connected.

Ok so I'm having some trouble with this.

The current drive I'm trying to fix is the one I installed in the pc. I have the old drive I cloned in an external USB case.

I connect the case and try to boot from it... error, cannot boot from usb.

I restart the computer from the internal drive. I see that the external drive is locked by bitlocker... ugh. I finally find the key to unlock it. So I restart the pc again from the external usb drive thinking it will work, but no, error again.

I again boot from the internal drive and see that the external drive is STILL locked by bitlocker. I assume that this is the reason it can't boot from the drive. If it's locked it's inaccessible. How do I unlock it and KEEP it unlocked when I restart the pc to boot from the drive?

Why the hell does Windows even do this? I just wanna boot from my external drive but am stumped now how to do that.

 

[USAFRet]

No, Windows will not boot from an external HDD. BitLocker or no BitLocker.

 

[USAFRet]

The current drive I'm trying to fix is the one I installed in the pc. I have the old drive I cloned in an external USB case.

Put the original drive back into the PC.
Does the system run properly?

 

[SkyNetRising]

I again boot from the internal drive and see that the external drive is STILL locked by bitlocker. I assume that this is the reason it can't boot from the drive. If it's locked it's inaccessible. How do I unlock it and KEEP it unlocked when I restart the pc to boot from the drive?

Get rid of bitlocker.
Control Panel/Bitlocker Drive Encryption

Why are you even using it?

 

[Misgar]

I sometimes find it easier to connect both laptop drives (1TB source SSD and 2TB destination SSD) to a desktop PC and clone them there. Some of my USB housings don't "play ball" when cloning.

As for booting Windows from USB, you'd need something like WintoUSB to create a Windows To Go (WTG) drive.
https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

 

[Misgar]

Why are you even using it?

Do some laptop manufacturers enable BitLocker to "protect" the customer from hackers if they leave their laptop in a taxi? I think large corporations probably use bitlocker and might not disable it when they wipe and dispose of old laptops.

 

[mkmossop]

No, Windows will not boot from an external HDD. BitLocker or no BitLocker.

What really? Can you not boot Windows from a USB drive? There is an option to do so from the blue screen section when you boot up.

The old drive I want to close is a pcie ssd in an enclosure, which I connected via USB so I'm not sure why that wouldn't work?

Put the original drive back into the PC.
Does the system run properly?

Ugh I hope this isn't the only way. I don't wanna re-open the pc to do this all over again.

Get rid of bitlocker.
Control Panel/Bitlocker Drive Encryption

Why are you even using it?

I don't know... I suppose it just came on the new pc when I bought it.

I sometimes find it easier to connect both laptop drives (1TB source SSD and 2TB destination SSD) to a desktop PC and clone them there. Some of my USB housings don't "play ball" when cloning.

As for booting Windows from USB, you'd need something like WintoUSB to create a Windows To Go (WTG) drive.
https://www.easyuefi.com/wintousb/

Ok this is an option I didn't think about. I do have my old pc which I'm still using now so I could try that out. Hope it works!

 

[USAFRet]

What really? Can you not boot Windows from a USB drive? There is an option to do so from the blue screen section when you boot up

A USB flash drive to install with, yes.
A Windows OS on a drive that used to be internal and is now external, No.

Ugh I hope this isn't the only way. I don't wanna re-open the pc to do this all over again.

Opening the case and swapping the drives around is the easiest part of this.


The Win2Go thing mentioned above is not to try to convert your existing OS install on that drive to something external, but rather to maybe create the external thing from scratch.

 

[mkmossop]

1). Drag and drop first 260MB partition to empty destination drive
2). Drag and drop second 16MB partition to destination
3). Drag and drop fourth 653MB partition to destination (NOT the third partition)
4). Right click 653MB partition and select "Flush Right". This moves the Recovery partition to the end of the disk, leaving a large area of free space in the middle
5). Drag and drop the main 952.96GB C: drive to destination. Right click the Windows partition and select "Fill Space". This resizes the Windows partition to fill all available free space.
6). Start the clone process
7). When finished, disconnect the source drive before booting from the destination drive

Well I put the original drive back in the pc and cloned it using this method and it worked thanks!

Was a hassle to switch the drives in and out again but was worth it.

Thanks for everyone's help!