merge partitions that scan created

[jt256]

when I bought my pc my hard drive was formatted into two partitions, c and d.

I now want to merge them back to just c.

Tried acronis disk manager but wouldn't work with windows 7. Any tips?

Thanks

[DarkStar_GT]

It look like you'll need to wait for Disk Director 11

http://kb.acronis.com/content/1628

http://forum.acronis.com/forum/5828

or have a look at this (not tried it myself):
http://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-personal/

HTH

[jt256]

Ok that's good to know. thanks

[DarkStar_GT]

Why do you want to go to a single partition? I prefer partitions to keep things more organised and to make backups smaller and quicker to do.

By the way, as far as I know partitions cannot be merged. So any data on D:\ would be lost when you delete it unless you copy the data to C:\ or somewhere-else.

It is possible to delete, resize or create a partition. So you would copy the data that is on D:\, delete the D:\ partition, resize the C:\ partition

[Ben @ Scan]

Hi

Can you confirm if you got Acronis True Image with the system? If you did a recovery partition will have been created on the second partition and this could be why you cant delete or resize it, if it was a Vista with a Win 7 Upgrade you may have but if it was a Retail Win 7?

As far as I know we are not doing Acronis with Win 7 Premium or higher as it has its own Imaging software built in.

Windows 7 does allocate a 100MB Partition for its own use and I dont think you can get rid of this, check by Right Click on Computer and select Manage, this opens the disk management software.

Please PM me your Build number if you need any further advice

Regards

Ben

[jt256]

Sorry for the delay. I managed to delete the partitions and assign the empty space to the existing partition. so they're now treated as one drive, but I think there's some kind of dynamic trickery by windows involved.

I didn't realise that once you make a partition you can't get rid of it so easily! when the system was made by scan I had an OS partition and also a storage one. But since I got an ssd for OS disk I wanted to merge the original disk back to one partition.

hopefully window's way will work out OK, but Im sure it's not quite as good as having a clean drive. I wonder if there's a way to format the whole thing so that the partitions disappear, to bring it back to factory state. Is that doable?

Cheers

[Terbinator]

I wonder if there's a way to format the whole thing so that the partitions disappear, to bring it back to factory state. Is that doable?

Cheers

Yes but it will require re-installing Windows and formatting the partitions then deleting them so they go back into one, when you boot your Windows disc up it should ask where you want Windows installing. It shows a list fo drives and in your case should show the various partitions - just delete them. Save any valuable work first of course.

[DarkStar_GT]

That strange partition (how big?) may be the Acronis SecureZone or (if you have Windows 7) a hidden partition that the install creates.

If you install Windows 7 on a clean disk with no existing partitions, it creates a System Reserved partition of 100 MB at the beginning of the disk and uses the remainder of the unallocated space to create your system drive. That small partition isn't assigned a drive letter so you won't know it exists unless you look in the Disk Management console or use Diskpart or a similar low-level utility to inspect the disk structure.

This stub of a partition, new in Windows 7, serves two functions. First, it holds the
Boot Manager code and the Boot Configration Database and reserves space for the startup files required by the BitLocker Drive Encryption feature.

[jt256]

The OS no longer resides on the disk I want to format, so no need to worry about reinstalling etc. I just wanted to rid it all all partitions, dynamic or otherwise, so I could use it as one simple drive.

Found instrucs here http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/309044