Make 1 partition of multiple unallocated partitions

[theonlycollin]

I have a 1 tb hard drive that has multiple unallocated partitions in it and something called a recovery partition I have no idea what that is and what it does.
I just want to make 1 partition with the full amount of space that my hard drive has how can I do that?
p.s. I don't have anything stored on the drive so no worries about backing data up

 

[Barty1884]

Were both drives connected when you installed your OS?

Looks like the recovery partition ended up on the secondary drive. Unfortunately, pretty common.

You don't want to delete it - is actually serves a purpose.

You could probably move the partition to the far left, although you'd need third party software to do so. Then, you could format/extend both empty partitions into one, single drive.


Ideally though, I'd clean install your OS on the SSD - with only the SSD connected, that'll avoid this issue happening again.

 

[theonlycollin]

Were both drives connected when you installed your OS?

Looks like the recovery partition ended up on the secondary drive. Unfortunately, pretty common.

You don't want to delete it - is actually serves a purpose.

You could probably move the partition to the far left, although you'd need third party software to do so. Then, you could format/extend both empty partitions into one, single drive.


Ideally though, I'd clean install your OS on the SSD - with only the SSD connected, that'll avoid this issue happening again.

yes both drives where connected when I installed my os.

I want to use this hard drive for my xbox so I just want to erase everything on it and if I can't delete the recovery partition can i atleast put it on another drive?

I'm not going to use this hard drive in my system anymore so I just want it cleaned

 

[Barty1884]

....Maybe.

Because it's only the recovery partition, you should still be able to use your OS and boot from the SSD - BUT, in the event you need to recover anything, or roll-back, you may well have an issue.

As for using it in an Xbox, I'm not 100% of the formatting setup. If you can use it in it's current format, your Xbox will have 2 separate partitions to deal with.

 

[theonlycollin]

....Maybe.

Because it's only the recovery partition, you should still be able to use your OS and boot from the SSD - BUT, in the event you need to recover anything, or roll-back, you may well have an issue.

As for using it in an Xbox, I'm not 100% of the formatting setup. If you can use it in it's current format, your Xbox will have 2 separate partitions to deal with.

Well I actually don't need the recovery partition in that case this system is only a workstation all my important documents are stored on a local server.

I just need a way to format the drive (all the 931mb's) in FAT32 to use it as an external xbox drive

 

[Barty1884]

I'm not 100% sure where the recovery partition can come into play, so you might end up dealing with some weird issues.

You should be able to format the drive in Windows Explorer &/or disk management - but it may stop you with the recovery partition on there, as it's likely considered part of the OS. In order to format, you'll likely have to delete the partition in Disk Management & create one single partition on the drive - and assign a drive letter.

If that's the case, I'd highly, highly recommend you clean install your OS to avoid future issues.

Once you've clean installed, the drive will definitively be secondary, and you should be able to delete the partition & format within Windows

Failing that, you could connect to another system as a secondary drive & format it.

 

[theonlycollin]

I'm not 100% sure where the recovery partition can come into play, so you might end up dealing with some weird issues.

You should be able to format the drive in Windows Explorer &/or disk management - but it may stop you with the recovery partition on there, as it's likely considered part of the OS. In order to format, you'll likely have to delete the partition in Disk Management & create one single partition on the drive - and assign a drive letter.

If that's the case, I'd highly, highly recommend you clean install your OS to avoid future issues.

Once you've clean installed, the drive will definitively be secondary, and you should be able to delete the partition & format within Windows

Failing that, you could connect to another system as a secondary drive & format it.

Thnx for the information about the recovery partition I'm just going to buy a new external hard drive that way I don't have to mess with my system becouse it is all set up and working now I don't want to break it.

Thnx for your advice