Windows 10: Added SSD to Laptop. What's the Best Way to Reclaim Space on HDD

Happy New Year all!

So I just added an SSD to my ASUS laptop. I removed the HDD when installing a fresh Win10 on the SSD. I installed the SSD in the original slot the HDD was in as recommended on the ASUS forums. Once Win10 completed installation, I added the original HDD into the secondary hard drive slot. The HDD already had Win10 on it.

So now obviously the original Win10 partition on the HDD with the OS on it is showing as 'System Reserved ( D: )' and the usable partition with all my previous files are showing as 'Local Disk ( F: )' (with my dvd drive as E: )

I did not clone my HDD to the SSD as my SSD is much smaller and I really only wanted it for the OS and maybe a couple programs and games that I want there for faster booting and loading.

Basically I'd like to get rid of the original OS partition on the HDD and have the entire disk show as the D: drive. And although I did a back up of my files from the HDD before starting this process, I now already have access to them. Is there a simple way to accomplish this within Win10? I see I can format the partition by right clicking on D: but I'm not sure that'll accomplish what I want as formatting typically doesn't delete the partition and obviously I'd like not to create a bunch of registry errors.

How should I proceed?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

:)

 

Storage

I have a laptop with an SSD and a HDD in one, and it has been primarily using the SSD. However the SSD had a small limited amount of space and now it has been used up. I am trying to update a game, but it won't let me due to insufficient storage. Is
there a way to transfer all of the info from my SSD to my HDD and use the HDD as a primary, and only have the SSD run games? If not, do you recommend any other solutions?

 

Appdata Roaming move from SSD to HDD

Hi, recently bought a laptop with an ssd and a hdd. What i noticed was that every time i downloaded something, even though it was located in HDD, the SSD still took up space. I already moved the download, documents, etc. to the HDD.

Then i noticed that whatever i download gets into the appdata/roaming folder as well, so is it ok to move the Roaming folder from SSD to HDD?

 

Disk Management may be able to delete most partitions on that secondary drive but there's at least 1 that can't be removed. To get a truly clean [as-shipped] drive I boot to a GPARTED LiveCD and delete the partitions with it. If I can get the drive into a dock made for the purpose such as Thermaltake's BlacX box I'll use my Linux Mint computer that has GPARTED to do it.

 

okay, so I just went into Disk Management and deleted the D: partition with the old System Reserved OS. I renamed F: to D: And the new D: now has an unallocated partition of 351 MB. It also has a 450 MB Recovery partition. Do I need a recovery partition on my secondary hard drive, or is the one on the C: drive all I need? Is there a way within Win10 (Disk Manager or similar) to merge the unallocated partition('s) with the rest of D: or do I need install something like Mini Tool partition wizard?

 

Please complete this tutorial so we can have a look see of what you have.

By gregrocker.

Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of General Tips Tutorials

Remember that Disk = Numbers
Partitions = Letters

Example:

Disk "0", Partition "C".



Jack

 

I also realize we're talking about a combined 800MB on a 1TB drive. So if there's a simple way to merge the unallocated space, I'll gladly do it just for cleanliness and thoroughness, but if it's more of pain to go through, I have no issue just leaving it as is.

And with swapping the SSD into the previous HDD slot, it appears the C: drive is on Disk 1 and D: on Disk 0. Apparently this is normal according to the ASUS forums. They all recommend to do it this way. Not sure if having C: on 1 is an issue or not really.

 

Do you need anything on Disk 0 ? (D drive) if not just delete the partitions and then re-create one large partition.

Have you already copied over your Documents/music/pics etc ie basically the old Users>YourName Folder from D: to the new C: Drive? then you can just wipe the drive as above and recreate as one large Drive.

Minitool is a good program for doing this or a Merge if needed....it will also show the MSR partition (16mb) that Disk Manager does not...

 

Warning! Following this advice will destroy everything on Disk 0 (your target drive). Proceed only if you have a current and complete backup, or don't care about what's on that drive anyway.

Run diskpart from an admin PowerShell or cmd.exe session
Enter these commands:
1. List disk
You'll see a list of disks on your system. Select the disk number, let's say it's Disk 0, for the disk you wish to reformat/rebuild. Disk 0 is usually the boot/system disk, so make doubly darned sure this is the one you want to rebuild before following this blindly.
2. Select disk 0
This tells diskpart to focus its actions on the disk you wish to work on
3. Clean
This tells diskpart to WIPE OUT EVERYTHING on the disk you just selected
4. Exit
This gets you out of diskpart
5. diskmgmt.msc
This launches the Disk Management management console. It should notice you've got a "bare drive" now because of the clean action. Tell it to format your drive using GPT (unless it's smaller than 2TB, or you just prefer MBR). Then you can create a single partition for the entire disk, format it (NTFS), and name it something useful (I usually name mine by mfgr and size, e.g. HGST4TB) so you can identify it uniquely on that system.

That should do it!
HTH,
--Ed--

 

@Rysdan

What you've deleted wasn't the OS (old windows), but just System reserved partition (350 or 450 MB). So Old Windows system is still there, with all the Programs installed (in that large D: partition).

If you just want to merge partition, I would recommend Minitool partition wizzard (free). Delete also that recovery partition on old drive, you don't need it. In Minitool free you can than expand D: partition to full size (could also be possible in WIndows disk management)

 

This is exactly what I was looking for. Worked like a charm. Thank you!