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Recover an SSD hard drive with a single partition instead of 3

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Cymaru -  

Hello,

After installing Linux Mint in dual boot with Windows 11, I wanted to stop using Linux because there were problems with my Wi-Fi card.

On my PC I have 2 hard drives (drive 0 and drive 1). Drive 1 contains Windows and, initially, drive 0 was only a storage drive. During the Linux installation, I freed 200 GB on this drive 0.

Today, when I check the disk manager, this drive has 3 partitions:

And I cannot reclaim the 194.69 GB unallocated on the D: partition because there is the EFI partition between the two.

When I use the diskpart command, here is the result on the partitions:

And the clean commands (for the disk) or delete partition override (for the partition) do not work.

How can I end up with only a single partition on disk 0?

I tried with tools like MiniTool Partition Wizard or AOMEI Partition, without success.

Not sure if this is useful, but here is the PC configuration:

Thanks for any help you can provide.

4 answers

  1.  fabul Moderator

    Hello,

    With a partitioning program like Macrorit Partition Expert Free Portable, you can move the WinRE partition to the end of the disk.

    Then enlarge (Resize) C:)

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    1. Cymaru Author

      Hello @fabul,

      Thanks for the feedback. After tinkering with Macrorit Partition Expert Free Portable, I managed to move the EFI partition to the left and thus extend partition D: to recover the 194.69 GB unallocated.

      Before marking this topic as resolved, can you confirm whether I am required to keep the EFI partition (which apparently was created when Linux Mint was installed)?

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      1. fabul Moderator

        Re Bonjour,

        I don’t know, I only install a Linux distribution very rarely, and not in dual boot.

        I just notice that you have two EFI boot partitions in total (One too many) and no recovery partition, unless it’s on the truncated part of Windows Disk Management image.

        But you have another oddity, a Dynamic Disk partition.

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        1. brucine

          Hello,

          What isn’t clear is whether Linux is still installed; of course, if not, the EFI partition is useless.

          Otherwise it’s up to each person when there are several disks, a common EFI partition or one on each disk, which makes the second disk independent of the first.

          To summarize, a dynamic disk allows data to be spread across multiple volumes; the benefit for a private individual isn’t clear, but the drawback is: in principle you cannot convert it back to a basic disk without losing all data.

          The recovery partition, you can very well have deleted it; that’s my case, but that means we rely on other repair provisions (installation and repair USB keys, external backups of data...).

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      2. Cymaru Author

        A capture from Macrorit Partition Expert Free Portable:

        Disk 0 has always been dynamic. Why is that a problem?

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        1. jfmimi Contributor

          Hello

          in dynamic, not a problem in itself

          but I see that your C drive is 90% full

          not good, risk of slowdown

          you should have at least 25% free

          To make space on the "C" drive, move to the "D" drive the user folders (Documents, Videos, Music, Downloads and Pictures) — here is the procedure:

          or this one:

          Start by creating on the D drive the new folders (Documents, Videos, Music, Downloads and Pictures); it will be easier.

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        2. brucine

          As mentioned, it is only applicable to specific configurations such as servers (fault tolerance, RAID...).

          There is no daily drawback, but in "advanced practice".

          No possibility of converting back to a base disk without data loss.
          No automatic export to a new disk or a new computer, with difficulty in data recovery.
          No possibility to create new partitions, dual-boot on the disk, or install another operating system.
          Supported only by Windows.

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        3. brucine
          @brucine

          Without performing the more or less complex manipulation mentioned in <7>, nothing forbids, this is my case, to create on a partition other than the system partition corresponding folders and to use only them (for example by specifying the Downloads folder in the browser) instead of the famous system folders whose relocation is always tricky; it is also necessary, of course, to consider whether all the contents of the system disk are indispensable, data or programs to delete, the last ones to reinstall if necessary on the other disk.

          The other part of my "previous question" has not been commented, even if the space occupied by the EFI partition and the reserved partition on disk 0 is symbolic: they have no reason to exist if the disk is not formatted in GPT, which is unnecessary if this disk is not system or if, as suggested by the 194 Go now unallocated, it was only ever allocated.

          It would then theoretically be possible to merge them with partition D, but not sure if that is possible on a dynamic disk.

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        4. Cymaru Author
          @brucineHello @brucine,

          Sorry, I didn’t see the comments, that’s why I hadn’t replied.

          After reading the comments, I searched and indeed, Linux hadn’t been completely uninstalled.

          From there, I backed up all my documents available on disk 0 to an external HDD, then converted disk 0 to a basic disk.

          Thus, I was able to merge the EFI partition and the reserved partition with partition D:.

          Here’s what it looks like now:

          And as mentioned by @jfmimi, I started tidying up to free space on C: (Migrating the user folders seems like a good option, after that I’ll see whether I migrate the system folders or create folders by feeding the path).

          Thank you all for your valuable help anyway.
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