Installed win 10 with 3 drives connected, want to remove one

[nickmnader]

I have an SDD as the active partition for windows 10, a 1tb HDD and a 4tb HDD. I want to remove the 4TB HDD but after deleting the partition and removing it, it messes up my win explorer and applications. I assume this is because I installed win 10 with all the drives connected. How do I safely remove or migrate all the windows stuff on my HDD to the other drives to remove it without consequences?

 

[Colif]

What is the problem exactly? What did removing drive do to explorer or programs? Did the removal re order drive letters? What was on the drive?

Sorry for all the questions but I don't understand what problem is?

 

[karenjoly]

No can do. If your text is accurate you installed apps on a drive other than the c drive. If you remove either, the app is broken. After removing the hdd, just reinstall the apps.

 

[nickmnader]

When I had the drive partitioned there was nothing on it, formatted basically. But there were residual files that I could see from space missing. When I unplug the drive physically, a bunch of apps on the other drives break and dont load their shortcuts. The explorer also becomes very slow. Like it is loading everything off of the other HDD and not the SDD. This is all from removing the sata cable from my third drive (4TB HDD)

 

[Colif]

can you right click start
choose drive management
take a screen shot and upload to an image sharing web site. Show link here

could you see the files or just the fact there was space missing?

can try rebuilding the index - https://www.tekrevue.com/tip/how-to-solve-windows-search-issues-index-rebuild/
And maybe Icon cache - https://www.thewindowsclub.com/rebuild-icon-clear-thumbnail-cache-windows-10

it could be worse, sometimes win 10 puts the boot partition on spare hard drives during install process and removing that drive stops windows from booting up

Its possible windows was using that spare space for hidden folders like system restore images or the index itself. I know i have hidden folders on my 2tb hdd

 

[nickmnader]

I can just see that there was missing space.

I can still boot windows and everything, just have the slow explorer and missing app shortcuts

 

[Colif]

Well, the difference between 3809.37 and 4tb is just be the difference between how windows and how Hard drive makers measure a 1 MB

Windows sees 1 MB as 1024KB
Ram makers see 1 MB = 1024KB
HDD makers see 1 MB as 1000KB

So there will always be a difference. My 2tb drive shows as 1863.02 gb, double that is still less than what you have but not all hard drive makers put same amount of space on each platter.

I can tell drive 2 is a 250gb ssd as it has same space as my drive does in disk management, you lose 18gb on a 250gb ssd but the larger the drives become, the bigger the gap will be. ITs more complicated with ssd as they are solid state. They have ram instead of platters, so since ram sees 1024 kb as a MB, you get far closer to the actual advertised drive size. But SSD keep some of their space for error correction, that 18gb you are missing is likely used for spare space and to keep SSD running as fast as possible.

You might lose more space again once its formatted.

Strange your C drive isn't disk 0

What drive letter was the 4tb drive before? If it was drive D before and drive D was another letter, that might explain why all your applications are broken.

 

[nickmnader]

When I first built the PC I had the D: drive HDD 1tb in it as the main active partition. I then added the SDD and 4TB HDD and new GPU. Then I switched to a new mobo to upgrade my CPU and thus reinstalled windows with all 3 drives connected. Switching the main partition to the SDD. Before removing the 4TB HDD it was drive E: and had barely anything on it.

 

[Colif]

So D was D before you removed the drive. What applications are on D? what lost their shortcuts? I can only guess something was on E even though drives were empty. Windows 10 must have decided to use that space for something. As I said, it does like to spread itself around if extra drives attached when you install 10.

see if this helps with shortcuts

To fix Windows 8 and Windows 8.1 Modern UI app shortcuts, you will need to open the root folder where they are installed. Navigate to the following path and locate the apps which are causing you issues:

C:\Users\Your Account Name\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Application Shortcuts
Note: replace Your Account Name with the name of your local/MS account

In this folder, you will find all the apps you’ve installed on your system, each in a separate folder. You’ll have to locate the apps which no longer work and open their corresponding folder. In it, you will see a shortcut named “App“. Delete the shortcut and do so for all the apps that are not working. After you’ve finished, reboot your system and all should be fine. Your Windows 8 / 8.1 Modern UI app shortcuts should be working as intended.

Desktop shortcuts also have a tendency to stop working, usually due to a broken path to the program executable they should launch. This is due when the corresponding program is updated, uninstalled or moved. If you’ve uninstalled a certain program, then all you’re left is to delete the shortcut as well.

https://windowsreport.com/windows-8-1-shortcuts-working/ - there are other fixes on this page, just don't download their PC repair tool.