Question I'm trying to merge partitions on my disk in Disk Management so my storage will show up in Windows ?

Nov 7, 2024
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Today I purchased a new 1tb drive to upgrade from my old 500gb nvme. I cloned my drive onto the new one and finally got it to boot and function normally. I noticed that when I went into storage settings to check if I had my 1tb, that it only showed my old 500gb still. I went to disk management and I have 455gb of unallocated space, I tried merging them together on the same disk but it wouldn't let me expand the other C drive due to a 600mb partition. I was wondering if there's any way to merge the unallocated onto the regular C drive so it shows up as 950gb instead of multiple drives. I'll include a pic of the disk mngmnt. When I tried to create a new simple volume for the unallocated space it tells me I don't have enough storage on the drive either.

View: https://imgur.com/a/fPdF4ye


View: https://imgur.com/a/IK2Nkft
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
In Disk Management, you can only merge to the right, and only if there is nothing in between.

You can delete the 600MB 'Recovery' partition, and then Extend the C into that single unallocated space.
 
I cloned my drive onto the new one and finally got it to boot and function normally.
I tried merging them together on the same disk but it wouldn't let me expand the other C drive due to a 600mb partition.
You have made a serious mistake by converting your drive to dynamic.

Do you still have your old 500GB OS drive?
I'd suggest you redo cloning.

Then delete 600MB recovery partition and extend C: drive.
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Yes.
If the original drive still exists, redo the clone.

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Specific steps for a successful clone operation:
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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.
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