Windows 10: Combine Hard Drive Partitions

I am trying to combine my C: with D:.
There are 3 other partitions on the drive and I'm not sure which partitions it is safe to delete or combine.
1st Partition: 1.36 GB Healthy (Recovery Partition)
2nd Partition: 518 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)
3rd Partition: Windows (C: 15609 GB NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump Primary Partition)
4th Partition: Data (D: 3545.8 GB NTFS Healthy (Primary Partition)
5th Partition: 22.35 GB Healthy (Recovery Partition)

:)

 

Combining harddrive partitions

I have windows 10 64 bit with hard drive partitioned as C & D. C drive windows and system files. I want to create a single C drive combining D drive in to C drive.

Please help.

 

Clean windows 10 with two SSD

Hi Fernando.

Combining the two SSD in one hard drive partition as your C drive is not possible. However, what we can do is to transfer other files on the other hard drive to free up space.

Let us know if you have any other questions.

 

Welcome to the forum. Keep all other partitions delete d then expand c the others are boot drive and recovery

 

Thanks for the help!
Am I right in assuming I can use 3rd party software to merge the 2 partitions without losing the data on the D:?

 

Yes, however, be advised if there is data residing in the area that is to be merged into another partition, whether 3rd party software or Windows, the data will take TIME to be moved. At least that's what happened to me when I used Acronis Disk Director 12, which is one of the best.

 

You dont show all details on your screen shot. Its safer and quicker to copy data off then delete and expand c or shrink d as much as possible move to right expand c then copy data to ac then delete d.

In theory you should be able to merge but its how valuable you data is

 

Thanks for help.
I think what I am going to do is:
Copy whatever data I want to keep from the d:
Then try a 3rd party application to merge the partitions.
If it don't work, I will have the data to copy back to the drive.

 

I have other ones but use this most of the time: Download Active@ Partition Manager

 

• The 1.36Gb partition and the 22.35 GB partition is a recovery system from the system manufacturer, unless you are intending to recover back to factory condition, (in order to sell on the system) I would consider this wasted space but only you can decide
• The small EFI partition is required and would normally be at the start of the drive.
• There would normally be a 500MB system partition without a drive letter which is missing in your set-up but can be left of and still have a system that works (as you do). It would normally be used to contain the boot files and the windows recovery options ( which on your system appear to be in your C: System Drive).
• The C: Drive is essential and is actually best kept for just the system files, this way if you ever have a serious system crash and need to perform a re-install then your irreplaceable data in not in danger as it is safe on the D: partition
• The d: drive is your data drive

You have not stated your reason to combine the C: and D: partitions but I would advise against it for the reason given above - there are ways to extend the C: drive if lack of space here is your issue.

What I would do is back up all the data and rearrange things as follows ...

Remove the 1.36 GB and 22.35 partitions ( there may be an option in the software supplied with the system to create DVDs for use instead of this space on the drive so you still have the option to recover to factory state )
Move the EFI partition to the start of the drive, and the C: system partition immediately after
I would extend the C: system drive to give an amount of extra space as required
I would then move the D: data partition immediately after the C: System drive and extend this partition to use the remaining recovered free space

This I believe would give you the best use of space and a reasonably secure system setup - I use the Paid version of Partition Wizard but the free version of this or the software already mentioned is fine.

If you decide to keep the factory partitions you could reduce the size of D: Data: and increase the size of C: System to give more space on C:System, You can also move the standard user data folders (Pictures, Documents, etc) to D: data to free up space on C: system

 

Barman said it best! Follow his advice.