[SOLVED] Merging all partitions of a drive ?

[tilophase]

I have a 4TB drive that has 3 partitions on it. Conveniently, now, after about a year of owning it, I realised what a stupid mistake I have made partitioning the drive in the first place as I've had to expand partitions twice so far, and things are getting messy, so I'm trying to correct my mistake.

Here's what it looks like in Windows Disk Manager:

As you can see, I started off with volumes D, F and E, then expanded D, then expanded E.

What I want to do is to merge all these volumes. None of them are Windows boot volumes, all are NTFS, so I assumed it would be pretty straightforward, but that has not been the case.

I first tried EaseUS Partition Manager, but the merging partitions option seemed to not be available for Dynamic Disks. I then tried AOMEI Partition Manager, where there still wasn't the option to merge volumes on a dynamic disk. There was, however, the option to convert a dynamic disk to a basic one, which I tried doing. Unfortunately, this didn't work, as the maximum supported disk size is 2TB (mine is 4TB).

So at the moment, I'm stuck. I don't have a spare drive laying around that I can offload all this data onto so that I can format the drive and start from scratch. The actual data on this drive is of mixed importance. All the important stuff is backed up online, but about 50% of the drive is movies and stuff that I would have to download all over again if something happened to the drive. Regardless, replacing the data on the drive would be a massive pain that I would like to avoid.

Does anyone have any suggestions as to what steps I might be able to take in order to merge all the partitions on the drive into a single partition?

 

[USAFRet]

1. Please show us the FULL Disk Management window.
2. What other storage devices do you have available?

I don't have a spare drive laying around that I can offload all this data onto so that I can format the drive and start from scratch.

Without that, any pathway to 'merging' is doomed to fail.

 

[tilophase]

Here is the rest of the info in Disk Management relevant to the drive in question:

any pathway to 'merging' is doomed to fail.

I was afraid of that... Is there any possibility at all of shuffling some data around the volumes? If it helps, here is a screenshot from the AOMEI Partition Manager:

As you can see, I do have free space on some partitions, and the option of offloading 200-300GB of data onto external drives. I could make room for more storage, but not up to the point of the full ~2.1TB that I'm currently using on the drive.

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

you can find some relatively cheap large internal or external HDs these days.

the simplest method would be to just get something large enough to hold all of your current data,
copy everything you wish to keep to the new drive,
format the old drive(s),
then reconfigure all of your storage to be more efficiently organized for whatever your needs may be.

keeping those "blacked out" directories that you want no one to see on a totally separate external drive may turn out to be a better option.
for both privacy and/or security reasons.

 

[tilophase]

those "blacked out" directories that you want no one to see

Nothing private on the names of those volumes haha, just identifiable information that I didn't want to post on a public forum.


Would it be possible to move all the data from volume E into volume F, then delete volume E. Then I'll be left with volumes D and F.

Then, expand volume D as required, then move the data from volume F into the new space in volume D. Then, delete now-empty volume F, leaving only volume D, which I can then expand to fill the entire size of the drive.

How likely is this plan to work? Any pitfalls that I might not be forseeing?

 

[JohnBonhamsGhost]

seems like a lot of extra work just to organize a drive.

moving data back & forth between partitions as you delete/merge/rearrange can work but it can also lead to corrupt data and extra wear on the device.
if you feel like going through it, go ahead.
i started out many years ago with a couple large drives with multiple partitions and ended up doing what you're planning now.
just wish storage was cheap then like it is now to have avoided all that hassle.

one reason why making a direct backup of all data to a separate drive can be a better option,
much easier;
a couple copy/pastes and one format and your done.

 

[lordmogul]

I remember being able to merge partitions into each other by having one partition take on the role of a folder within the other partition.
Assuming that is still possible, I'd probably do it like this:

That way you avoid manually moving things between the partitions and just move the volumes themselves.
Note that cloning the F: partition to the end and moving the D: forward will take time. It's about a 500-600 GB write action each. So expect a couple hours to get that moving.
With maybe 100MB/s on a CMR typical drive, writing 500 GB would be around 80-85 minutes, so you're looking at around 3 hrs assuming you don't peg the drive with anything else and the writing runs smoothly
And that is with CMR drives! SMR drives continuous writes can drop as low as 10 MB/s and slower which would mean you could see 30+ hrs of not using the drive for anything else.

But as already noted the wear won't be nice and the more you juggle the more can go wrong.
I'm at that point where I just run 1 partition per drive and add more drive as necessary or replace them with bigger ones (by cloning the partition onto the new drive, then extend it )

 

[USAFRet]

Do you have a known good backup of this data?
It seems not.

That is the first priority.

Then, having that, delete all these partions and copy the data back.

All this moving stuff around on this single drive...Many many ways it could all go bye bye.

 

[DSzymborski]

Wait, the backup for the storage is on the same drive as the storage?

That's a bit like keeping a copy of your tax return in the same envelope as your original or keeping your spare housekeys on the same ring.

You shouldn't even be worrying about merging partitions before you remedy the situation that leaves you open to catastrophic data loss.

 

[tilophase]

Wait, the backup for the storage is on the same drive as the storage?

No. It's backed up to the cloud.


I managed to go through with my plan of shuffling the data around the volumes. Each time I did this, I copied the files over, and used this program (freefilesync.org) to verify that all the data had been copied over correctly.

I'm now left with below.

It's three separate slices for a single volume, which I'm not completely happy about, but as far as I know, I should still be able to access the single volume as I would if it were a single chunk. So as I understand it, for all intents and purposes, it's as if it was merged.

Do you have a known good backup of this data?
It seems not.

That is the first priority.

I decided the risk was minimal enough (to be clear, I did have the important data backed up). This is an Ironwolf NAS drive that hasn't really seen intensive use since I bought it, so I decided it'd probably survive. The whole copying the files, then reading over those files again to verify the integrity probably imparted a good bit of wear on the drive, but that's a worthy trade-off for me not to have a headache with this issue down the line once the drive is more full.

Well, I've certainly learned a lesson: not to split a drive into multiple partitions unless absolutely necessary, because it's a right pain to mess around with partitions when there's data on the drive.

 

[DSzymborski]

No. It's backed up to the cloud.


I managed to go through with my plan of shuffling the data around the volumes. Each time I did this, I copied the files over, and used this program (freefilesync.org) to verify that all the data had been copied over correctly.

I'm now left with below.

It's three separate slices for a single volume, which I'm not completely happy about, but as far as I know, I should still be able to access the single volume as I would if it were a single chunk. So as I understand it, for all intents and purposes, it's as if it was merged.



I decided the risk was minimal enough (to be clear, I did have the important data backed up). This is an Ironwolf NAS drive that hasn't really seen intensive use since I bought it, so I decided it'd probably survive. The whole copying the files, then reading over those files again to verify the integrity probably imparted a good bit of wear on the drive, but that's a worthy trade-off for me not to have a headache with this issue down the line once the drive is more full.

Well, I've certainly learned a lesson: not to split a drive into multiple partitions unless absolutely necessary, because it's a right pain to mess around with partitions when there's data on the drive.

That's good to know then. You wouldn't believe how many people come on this forum with similar issues and very important files for their lives are only exist on some 10-year-old hard drive that's actively failing. So always good to check first thing before suggesting any partition manipulation (or anything else).