One common complaint that I get
from friends and family is that their computers with default system
configurations from Dell, HP, etc often times make the C partition too
small and therefore forcing customers to figure out a way to extend the
partition in order to get more free space.
Unfortunately, when you
search about merging partitions, the vast majority of solutions suggest
you download third-party software to mange making changes to Windows
partitions. With all the choices and options, it quickly becomes a
daunting task for the average PC user.In this article, I’ll try to show you a simpler and easier way to merge two partitions without any third-party software. It’s not as robust as using a third-party and in some situations you will have to use a separate program, but it will get the job done for most people.
Basically, what we do is backup the second partition, then delete it, then extend the first partition to include the free space created when we deleted the second partition. Here’s how we do it in Windows 7.
Merge Partitions in Windows 7
First, right-click on Computer on the desktop and choose Manage.Now on the right hand pane, you’ll see a list of volumes at the top and the list of disks at the bottom.
As you can see in the example above, I have a C and E volume. The C volume is my System partition that includes the operating system and paging file. The E volume is just a second primary partition that’s about 10 GB in size. What we want to do here is to merge these two partitions so that the C partition becomes 60 GB instead of 50 GB.
The first thing we need to do is to right-click on the E partition at the bottom and choose Delete Volume.
You’ll get a warning stating that deleting the volume will erase all data on it. You should make sure you have backed up anything on that volume first before you do this. Once you delete it, you’ll see it becomes Unallocated space.
As you can see, the wizard found 9999 MB of unallocated space which I can use to extend the C volume. Click Next and then click Finish. Now you’ll see the first partition (C volume) has been extended and includes all the space on the disk.
That’s
it! Yes, with this method you have to delete a partition and back up
the data, but at least you don’t have to worry about any third party
software and paying for anything. It’s not too hard to just copy some
data to an external hard drive and then copy it back later. If you have
any questions, post a comment! Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment