Merge partitions
brucine Posted messages 25198 Registration date Status Member Last intervention -
Hello,
A few years ago I installed a 2 TB SSD on my Windows 10 desktop PC that I partitioned (unwisely) into 4 partitions of 500 GB each (for "Documents", "Photos", "Videos", "Music"). Now, however, the "Photos" partition is almost full while the other 3 are only about 25% used. Hence the idea of merging these 4 partitions into a single one so I can store more photos there.
But is it possible, without having to wipe the drive, reformat, merge the partitions, and put all the files back? There are apps designed for this, but is it a good choice? Do you know AOMEI, for example? Is it safe? Of course I would make backups beforehand in all cases…
What do you recommend? Thanks in advance.
4 answers
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Hello,
I suppose the question is not to delete the contents of the other 3 partitions but to reclaim part of the free space from them (you should leave roughly 20% on each).
It can indeed be done without issue and without loss with Aomei, but you have to play the musical chairs game.
Assuming the partition to keep is the leftmost one, you start with the rightmost partition and reduce it to the desired size by moving the slider from the left so that the free space is in front.
You merge the third partition with this free space on its right that is adjacent to it, then you repeat the operation between the third and second partitions, and finally between the second and the first.
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Hello,
Decide on a partition to start emptying (Copy elsewhere) to delete it, and an adjacent one to keep, enlarge the first, and copy the data onto it as you enlarge it.
It may take a lot of operations, perhaps, but it is doable, in necessity and with no other means (Disk that can hold everything). -
Hello.
You can modify them to adjust their size without merging the 4 partitions. It will be much easier this way.
AOMEI in free version does it.
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Thank you all for your suggestions and advice!
I will get to it when I have a little time, I think it might be long... But I have patience.
@+
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It’s neither complicated nor really very long, in pictures, where you have to start from the end to, as specified, create a free space in front of the partition to reduce, then move up to the explanation showing how to merge it with the previous partition and so on.
https://www.aomei.fr/gestion-partition/comment-fusionner-partitions-windows.htmlToday's partitioning programs can move data from a partition to a disk, within the same partition, so you can shrink a partition from its beginning or from its end, which helps.
Macrorit Partition Expert Free Portable (version that does not require installation, I extract and use directly) does this as well.
https://macrorit.com/partition-magic-manager/partition-expert-download.html
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