Mystery HD partitions...

[Wolfie]

My post mentioned moving the partitions first before merging.

Hi Bastet,

I know what you mean but I still don't think you can move (drag) a partition and place it beside another?, at least I have never heard of that?. Maybe you are right, the next time I play around with a spare HDD I have, I will use a Linux version and GParted and try it out and let you know. I will be interested to see if it works myself!.

 

[Bastet]

Hi Wolfe. Hopefully my mind isn’t playing tricks on me.

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Bastet,

I checked with a live version of Ubuntu and GParted, and there is no option to merge partitions that I can determine. Resize/Move, Delete, copy and format are the only options apart from managing flags etc.

 

[Bastet]

Hi Wolfie.
I’m using EaseUS. Other partition software may be different.

 

[Wolfie]

Hi Bastet,

if you read the text from their website, it is kind of misleading, yes you can merge 2 partitions when they are next to each other but not when there is another partition in between?.

Step 2: Select partitions to merge

1. Select one partition next to the former selected partition.
2. And click "OK" to continue.

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-guide/merge-partitions.html

Anyway, it is basically all academic if the OP is not prepared to use a partitioning tool!.

 

[davehc]

Does this helpView attachment 11316View attachment 11316

Seems to have drifted a little, but, for what it is worth, you can remove most, if not all, of those extra partitions, using the command prompt. I am on my phone, away from home at he moment,, but, basically, you open the partitions with diskpart. Next line Select partition ( x , or whatever. Be careful there, that you select the correct one) . Then “delete partition”. You may need a slight addition, if it refuses to delete - easily added.

 

[Bastet]

Hi Bastet,

if you read the text from their website, it is kind of misleading, yes you can merge 2 partitions when they are next to each other but not when there is another partition in between?.

Step 2: Select partitions to merge

1. Select one partition next to the former selected partition.
2. And click "OK" to continue.

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager-guide/merge-partitions.html

Anyway, it is basically all academic if the OP is not prepared to use a partitioning tool!.

Yes I still had to move the partition next to the partition (C) which I wanted to merge into.
If the OP doesn’t wish to use partitioning software then I have no other solution.

 

[Saltgrass]

If I could recover PBR (J) and combine that back to C: and leave the other alone I would be happy.

Have you decided on which partitions your will remove? Of the 8 partitions on the drive, you only need 4 for Windows 10.

The 4 partitions that are considered critical are the EFI System, MSR, OS and the 519 MB Recovery partition just behind the OS partition.. You can't see the MSR partition unless you check it with Diskpart, but it is just infront of the OS partition..

Also, in some cases, removing a partition then moving another partition would allow you to extend the target partition.. But you do have to be careful because things can go wrong. A system image backup can come in handy in such situations. Deleting a partition and extending another partition, rather than merging, might be easier.

 

[clifford_cooley]

Of the 8 partitions on the drive, you only need 4 for Windows 10.

I would only have one, if Windows didn't automatically create the second one. As it stands I only have two. As for a recovery partition, that is OEM not Windows. So including the recovery partition I only see need in three partitions.

 

[sjoblom]

Had about the same mess on my hard drive, did a clone of the OS disk as backup, wiped the OS disk and did a clean reinstall of the OS.

Seems like you have one smaller SSD disk, is your current OS disk SSD as well?
If not, why not use the smaller SSD disk as OS disk and then use your "slower" other disk as data-disk? You will get a huge performance improvement then (if your current OS disk is none SSD).
Just make sure to back up important files before you do the reinstall conversion

 

[Steve Mann]

I have partitions that recently became visible in file explorer. They are J: (PBR) about 10GB and K about 400MB and looks like left over from new since they have files from DELL and want to delete and then combine partitions to C: with Acronis Disk doctor. The issue is I can't open the sub folder because of msg Access denied. How can I get into the folders?

thanks

This is a known bug in the 1803 Update,
"You are not meant to see the recovery drive and it is not meant to have a drive letter.
Remove the drive letter and everything will return to normal."

• Click your Start Button, type cmd, then right click Command Prompt and choose 'Run as Administrator'

diskpart
list volume

Note down the letter associated with that new drive Run these commands one at a time and hit Enter (replace X with the correct drive letter)

select volume X
remove letter X

I know that 1803 is a bit old, but this works for me when the recovery drive suddenly gains a drive letter.

 

[SmlBizAdmin]

Using Easus Partition Manager you can definitely move partitions around and merge them. I've done it several times and EPM is wonderful for that.
First you tell EPM to "delete" the partition. It doesn't actually make it disappear but empties it and makes it into an unused, unassigned partition. You then use EPM to drag and drop the partition to where you want it, just to the right of the C: partition. You then tell EPM to merge the now unused partition with the C: partition. Once you've told EPM what you want it to do you tell it to execute the commands.
EPM now reboots the computer and performs all the heavy lifting. When the computer boots back up, you now have an enlarged C: partition.
You might have to then run Disk Manager and tell C: to extend to occupy that new space. No reboot required.

EPM is great software and is what I always use when I need to do any work on on a Workstation OS like Win10, Win8, or Win7. It's free and it doesn't get any better than that.

Jonathan

 

[sjoblom]

Agree, EPM is the best But my hard drive was so messy that I gave it up and reinstalled the OS