Question Upgrading HD - Best Way w/o Starting from Scratch

[howaboutme]

Hi all...New here. Thanks in advance for your guidance.

I have a desktop that has 2 HDs. One is a SSD drive that is my C drive. The other is a traditional HDD that is my D drive. My C drive is what I have Windows installed on and some programs that can't be moved to the D drive. My D drive (larger capacity) serves as my file storage drive where I save all of my files. That includes pathing all of the "My Documents", "My Pictures", etc to.

My issue is that my C drive, the SSD that Windows is installed on, is running out of space. That is with just the bare essentials needed to run Windows and other software that doesn't reside on D. I need/want to upgrade that drive to something larger. What is the most recommended way to do that w/o starting from scratch?

Is it using a mirroring tool? If so, what happens to D? Will Windows recognize D as it was prior? What happens to software installed on D? Are there registries on C that will get messed up when upgrading the SSD drive? Or is a fresh install from scratch for both C and D better? I'm pretty handy with moderate computer knowledge and am not afraid to do anything. I'm just not familiar with this process and want to be fully prepared for what is to come.

Thoughts?

 

[Lafong]

You might be able to do it from Windows Disk Management menus.

"Extend volume" after highlighting the partition in question.

Windows Disk Management has limitations doing that. If it barks and won't comply, you can use another app like Minitool Partition Wizard.....which doesn't have that limitation.

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Post a screen shot of Windows Disk Management showing the new disk. Should be able to tell you if you must use MPW to extend.

 

[howaboutme]

Here is what it looks like:

Note that I originally had "unallocated volume" in that area. Extend Volume" was not available so I created a simple volume (removed the letter) and this is where I ended up. I am unsure of what to do next. Thoughts? Thank you .

 

[Lafong]

Windows Disk Management won't do it because of those 3 intervening smaller partitions in between C and the end of the drive.

If the free space was immediately adjacent to C, it would work.

Use Minitool.

It's pretty much menu driven. Inspect the menus. It's been a while since I used it.

It won't actually do something until you specifically authorize it from a menu, I think at the upper left. "Apply changes" or words to that effect.

Look for right lingo in menus. Maybe "combine" or "move" or "add to"...as I say it's been 2 or 3 years since I played with it.

Have you confirmed that the new drive boots and operates fine?

 

[howaboutme]

Windows Disk Management won't do it because of those 3 intervening smaller partitions in between C and the end of the drive.

If the free space was immediately adjacent to C, it would work.

Use Minitool.

It's pretty much menu driven. Inspect the menus. It's been a while since I used it.

It won't actually do something until you specifically authorize it from a menu, I think at the upper left. "Apply changes" or words to that effect.

Look for right lingo in menus. Maybe "combine" or "move" or "add to"...as I say it's been 2 or 3 years since I played with it.

Have you confirmed that the new drive boots and operates fine?

Thank you!

Yes, everything works fine. I'm using it right now. This is the last bit... I will try Minitool.

 

[howaboutme]

Alright. I used the "extend" option (as opposed to "merge") after carefully reading the documentation. It seemed to have worked except it didn't take all of the drive space. There is some left over. Here is what it looks like:

2 questions.

1. What do I do about the leftover space that didn't get extended into C?
2. What are the other partitions? Any reason why I can't bring them all into the fold?

One of the reasons I did not use "merge" is because merging creates a subfolder within C of the merged drive. That didn't seem right to me.

Thoughts?

 

[Lafong]

Your original drive had 5 partitions. You replicated them onto the new drive, as expected. That's what Macrium does.

What do you mean by "into the fold"?

Your picture in post 55 has a 27 gb partition. Your picture in post 52 does not.

I'm not sure what you did in Minitool.

I'm not sure I understand your comments about "merge". I'd think that might be what you need to have done, but I haven't looked at that app in years.

If push comes to shove, start over and restore the image a second time...to gain experience if nothing else.

 

[howaboutme]

Your original drive had 5 partitions. You replicated them onto the new drive, as expected. That's what Macrium does.

What do you mean by "into the fold"?

Your picture in post 55 has a 27 gb partition. Your picture in post 52 does not.

I'm not sure what you did in Minitool.

I'm not sure I understand your comments about "merge". I'd think that might be what you need to have done, but I haven't looked at that app in years.

If push comes to shove, start over and restore the image a second time...to gain experience if nothing else.

Sorry for being unclear. I was just asking how I can consolidate all of those partitions. I'm not sure why they are there. Dell must partition them off for some reason.... It's not a huge deal though. Thanks.

 

[Lafong]

Sorry for being unclear. I was just asking how I can consolidate all of those partitions. I'm not sure why they are there. Dell must partition them off for some reason.... It's not a huge deal though. Thanks.

A self built PC like mine will have C and 2 or 3 more partitions; all put on there by Windows install.

That big one of 15 GB or so is a Dell partition; put there if you ever want to restore the PC to original Dell factory condition.

If you want, you could start over and instead of selecting ALL partitions on the original drive with a checkmark, go to the upper left area of Macrium and choose "create an image of the partitions necessary to backup and restore Windows". That will make a new smaller image file to restore.