Aug 30, 2016 How do you merge two drives into one? I recently upgraded my OS from Windows XP Home Premium to Windows XP Pro. Some how or another I now have two.
How do I merge a 500gb Hard drive?
It is an internal HDD by default but I have connected to my laptop via USB. It is split into two partitions, OS and DATA. I have tried merging them with EaseUs but to no avail. Each partition is showing up as full and the option to merge one with the other is greyed out.
Any help is much appreciated.
- If Robert goes through Backup, Delete, Re-Partition, Restore process will the O/S still be bootable and will the programs still run properly?
- The booting problem can rise if the image is recovered on another configuration like motherboard is changed, in this case repair/reinstall windows and reactivate. But Robert do not clearly indicate if the hard drive in question has on OS installed or just files
- Perhaps I am mistaken but I believe he indicated that his drive has rwo partitions: OS and DATA.
- If an image backup is made of the OS partition and a file-based backup is made of the DATA partition and test restores of both backups are proven to work properly, then the existing partitions are deleted and a new single partition is created encompassing the entire drive, restoring the OS image and the DATA files should leave the entire original system functional.In cases where redirection of user files has been implemented so they would automatically go to the DATA partition, these would need to be changed to point back to the sole existing partition again. The same thing may apply to any applications that allow user configuration of default storage locations such as MS Office.
- @dragonmouth you are quite right the hard drive with the OS cant be easily used on another hardware configuration to boot as working OS, because it will have bootmgr problems related for instance to drivers..... Also Robert did not mention if The OS is healthy or needs to be repaired and for which reasons he is trying to connect the hard drive to laptop.
- you can try command line: delete partition overridefirst do backup hard drive files.
1) go to run and type cmd, right click and choose run as administrator
2) type: diskpart and hit enter
3) type: list disk and hit enter
4) type: select disk X (x your hard drive to work with) and hit enter
5)type: list partition and hit enter
6) type: select partition X (x your partition you want to remove) and hit enter
7) type: delete partition override and hit enter
8)Type Exit then hit Enter
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730824.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490893.aspx- @Bruce E quite right, backing data is important prior to proceed, if nothing works this can be the last resort; this can join the two partitions but one of the partition will lose data on it. As i see may be Robert want to consider update/reinstall the external hard drive driver.EaseUs prof can make bootable cd, perhaps to boot on it and to check if merging will be possible. if Robert does not have EaseUs prof then can try some live cd like hirens boot cd (it has parted magic on it)
http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd