How to make one local drive out of two. Merge disk partitions in Windows

All instructions are suitable for traditional hard drives(HDD), and for solid state drives(SSD).

Recall that a physical disk is displayed in the system as virtual volumes, they are also called local disks or partitions.

How to change disk partitions in Windows

Regular means

On Windows, you can merge drives without third party programs, but this method has an important drawback. You will lose all data of one of the partitions being merged. That's why important files you must first move it to another partition or to third-party media.

The process of merging local disks consists of two stages. First, you completely delete one of them along with all the contents, then give the space freed up in this way to the second disk.

You will need the standard Disk Management utility. To run it, use the combination Windows keys+ R, enter the command in the window that appears diskmgmt.msc and click OK. The hard disk partitions will be displayed at the bottom of the Disk Management window.

After running the utility, click right click mouse over the disk you are about to erase (for example, the conditional drive D), and select "Delete Volume". With a system volume, on which, this cannot be done, since the procedure destroys all files stored in the partition.

Now right-click on the neighboring partition (conditional drive C) to which you want to transfer the freed space, and select "Expand Volume".

When the Extend Volume Wizard opens, click Next twice. As a result, the selected partition (in our example - C) will receive the entire volume of the remote one.

Using third party software

There are free third-party software that greatly simplifies the management of local disks. For instance, MiniTool program The Partition Wizard allows you not only to quickly merge volumes, but also to easily resize them. At the same time, it saves all the data. But if there are important files on the computer, make them anyway - just in case.

So, to merge disks using the MiniTool Partition Wizard, run the program and click on the volume (let it be C) to which you want to attach another partition (conditional D). IN context menu select the Merge option.

In the window that opens, click on the same section (C) and click Next.

Now click on the section (D) you are going to attach to the one already selected. A field with the name of the folder will appear in the lower half of the window: merged_partition_content. The program will create it on the target partition and copy all the files from the remote partition there. Rename this folder if you like. Click Finish.

For the changes to take effect, click Apply in the left corner of the toolbar. If the program asks you to restart your computer, click OK and wait restart Windows. As a result, Explorer will display a disk equal in size to two merged partitions.

If your goal is not to merge disks, but only to increase the size of one of them (let's say D) at the expense of the other (let's say C), this can be done in two simple steps. First you need to reduce, and then transfer the vacant seat to the second.

To reduce the size of the disk (C), select it in the main menu of the MiniTool Partition Wizard and click on the Move / Resize Partition button on the left panel. In the window that appears, move the slider so that the number next to the Unallocated Space After parameter corresponds to the volume by which you want to reduce the selected partition. Confirm the change.

Click Apply on top panel and wait until the program redistributes the entire volume. This may require a reboot.

If you have a Mac, you will need preset program"Disk Utility". It's located in Finder → Programs → Utilities. Before manipulating disks, be sure to create backups important files.

After launching Disk Utility, in the left pane, select the hard drive you want to partition and click on the "Partition" button.

A window will appear on the screen in which you can merge the selected volumes or change their size. The interface of the utility is very visual: it is displayed as a pie chart, and its sections - as sectors.

To merge sections, you need to first delete one of them. To do this, select it and click on the minus under the chart. Remember that all his data will be erased. After that, when an empty sector is displayed at the place of the deleted partition, expand any neighboring volume by dragging the cursor beyond its border. And to redistribute volume sizes, simply move the boundaries of the corresponding sectors.

When you enter everything necessary settings, click Apply and wait for the changes to take effect.

There are several ways to merge local drives. You can use both downloaded programs and tools that are available on your computer system. Today we will look at merging multiple disks using Windows as an example. Actually the version of the system (XP, Vista or 7) does not matter. The principle is about the same everywhere. We will consider aboutjoining disks using system tools.

A warning! Before you begin, make a copy of the data located on the attached disk, as they will be removed. For example, you can write information to a USB flash drive or drop it into . We open Start\ Control Panel\System and Security\Administrative Tools

A list of available disks will open (they are also called "Volumes").

Volume 1, as we can see, is reserved for system recovery. Volume 2 is a system partition that is necessary (reserved) for the hard drive to work. But with volumes 3 and 4 just we can work. But since in volume 3 we have the system itself installed, we will not touch it. And we can merge volume 4 with volume 3 if we need it.

So we found the volume to be attached, by right-clicking (right-clicking), we select "Delete Volume".

Or through the Disk Management menu

There is very little left. After we freed up some space on our computer, we need to add it to the existing drive. To do this, click on our only RMB volume and find in the menu that opens "Expand Volume". After that, the assistant will open and we need to follow its instructions.

Let's take a closer look at how to merge sections hard drive.

If your PC has too many unused partitions and you want to remove them, use the following instructions from the article.

Preparing to remove a disk volume

Before you merge multiple volumes, you need to take steps to help save your files.

Any editing of a partition in Windows results in the permanent deletion of files and folders in this volume.

In most of them, you can use up to 20 GB of space for free ( , DropBox, and others).

Merging Partitions in Windows 7

In Windows 7, users can merge disk partitions without booting additional programs to your computer. Everything desired settings can be changed like this:

• Go to the Start menu and open the Run window. Home Edition may not have this key. In this case, just press Win + R to bring up the desired window or edit appearance Start menu in home screen settings;
• In the window that appears, type diskmgmt.msc - a command to open the computer's disk management window. Confirm the action by clicking on "OK".

Fig. 2 - command input

• The following window will open. The lower part of the window displays all connected to the system hard drives and their conditional division. Each division section is a separate volume. It is marked with a letter, has its own type file system and space;

Rice. 3 - display sections in the settings

• You need to select the section you want to delete (merge with the main volume of drive C). Then click on it with the right mouse button and click on the item " Delete volume". Next, a window will appear with a system message stating that all data on the volume will be deleted and you will not be able to restore it. Confirm the uninstall. Essentially, you are not deleting anything, but simply erasing the section. All space goes to drive C;

Rice. 4 - delete volume

After deleting one volume, you can do the same with the rest, thus creating free partitions. An Empty Volume will appear in place of the previous object.

Don't forget to attach it to the desired section. Click on the section into which all objects will be combined and in the context menu click on "Expand volume".

In the window that opens, select an available empty section and add it to the main one. Do this until there is no unreserved part of the hard disk left on the computer.

Rice. 5 - volume expansion in Windows 7

After completing the procedure, you must restart Windows work, otherwise further work may lead to errors and data deletion.

Instructions for Windows 10

The instructions described in this section of the article are suitable for both and for all Windows versions 8. You can merge partitions using the built-in OS tools.

As in the previous description of the settings, we need a utility "Disk Management". Follow instructions:

• Go to the search box and enter the word "Management". The desired option will appear in the results. And also, you can press the key combination Win and Xby calling the menu quick access. It contains a link to access "Disk Management";

Fig. 6 - hard disk settings window in Windows 10

• Decide which sections you no longer use. For better orientation, they are marked with letters that correspond to the names of the disks in the window. "This computer";
• If you want to keep only one volume, choose which one you will attach the rest of the elements to;
• Then right click on the object to be deleted. And uninstall it;

Fig. 7 - deleting a partition in Windows 10

• Confirm the action by agreeing to the loss of data;
• Delete partition space;

Fig. 8 - freeing up space

• Now you will see that the section has become empty, but its division remains. Since it is no longer used in the system, its name and other attributes are removed. The object can be combined with the main disk;
• As a result of the correct execution of all actions, you will see that an inscription appeared in place of the disk section: "Unassigned". Now you can start merging sections.

Click on the main section - in most cases this is drive C. From the menu, select the item expand volume.

Rice. 9 - attaching an element

The setup wizard window will open. With it, you can easily divide free space or combine it into one system storage medium.

Fig. 10 - merging sections

Useful information:

Working with Acronis Director

Often in the standard Disk Management window, users are faced with the fact that the Delete Volume button is not available or other functions cannot be performed.

This is due to a group policy limitation.

Maybe, System Administrator forbidden to perform such actions or your OS version does not imply setting up disk partitions and other system parameters.

Using third-party utilities will help solve the problem.

Acronis Director is one of the best programs, which allows you to configure the disk and bypasses all prohibitions on changing your computer settings.

The main window of the utility contains all the necessary data about the hard drive. Partitioning information is also provided in this window.

Rice. 11 - main window in Acronis Director

To create one disk instead of several sections, simply select all the partitions that you no longer want to use and click on "Merge" on the left side of the window.

Appear in a new window detailed setting elements. You must select the volume that will be the main one and attach other objects to it one by one.

Merge hard drive partitions FAST!

I will show you how to merge hard disk partitions using a simple program Acronis Disk Manager. If you still don't know how it's done, then watch my short video tutorial, where I explained everything in detail. You will need a few minutes of your time to merge disks and Acronis Disk Director.

If the hard drive on your computer is divided into two parts, an unpleasant situation may arise when there is not enough space in the system partition for new programs, or in the additional one for personal data. In this case, it is recommended to merge the two sections into one. Therefore, we offer a short guide on how to merge hard disk partitions in Windows 10.

How to merge hard disk partitions on Windows 10 using a regular utility

In this manual, in addition to recommendations for merging departments, you will also find information on how to delete one of them, because this is where you should start. If your computer is new, and the partition that does not contain system files and is called, for example, DATA, then we will simply delete it. If you managed to add any data, then in order to avoid losing it, copy everything to a USB flash drive. So our actions are:

Merge Windows 10 Hard Drive Partitions without Data Loss with AOMEI Partition Assistant

What we do:

If you are interested, please read on.

How to hide hard drive partitions on Windows 10

It happens that one of the sections of the HDD contains data that we would prefer to hide from prying eyes. In this case, the standard Disk Management utility, which we have already used when merging partitions, will again help us.

What should be done:

• Open the utility panel, as in the instructions above
• In the window that opens, we see all the disks that are on our device
• Select the one you want to hide and right click on it.
• Click "Change Drive Letter or Path" and then "Delete"
• We confirm "OK". Everything that we wanted to hide is hidden

An alternative option to hide what you need in the operating system is the command line method. Here are our steps in this case:

• We open command line(Win + R), enter the command dsikpart and confirm Enter
• Then List Volume and again Enter
• Select the drive letter to hide. Enter Select Volume and press Enter again
• Enter Remove Letter X (where X is the letter of the selected drive) and Enter
• We read the message that the disk was successfully hidden

Interesting - then read on our website!

How to view hidden hard drive partitions on Windows 10

We have already mentioned this briefly: we open our regular utility and in the window that opens we see all the partitions that are on the device. Including the hidden ones.

Restoring hard disk partitions

About removal partitions of the hard disk on Windows 10, we have already talked, let's move on to restoring them.

We will recover the lost disk using the already familiar AOMEI Partition Assistant program. And here are our steps:

• Open the program, select the unallocated space in the main window and click "Recovery Wizard"
• Select the hard drive on which we will restore partitions and apply "Next"
• In the same window, select Full search(if the quick one didn't help)
• The program finds our deleted partitions
• Select them with checkboxes and click "go"

If you don't know, read all the details on our website.

In this article I will describe step by step how to merge local drives in Windows 7. In previous versions operating systems, in order to work (divide / merge) local disk, it was necessary to download additional software. In Windows 7, you can get by with built-in utilities.

Attention!!! All information will be deleted from the local disk that you want to connect, so transfer all data to other disks or external media. The disk to which you want to connect, in case of a correct increase in space, all information will remain.

Initially, I have disks C, D, F, Y. The goal is to merge disk F with disk D (everything is deleted from disk F).

In order to merge disks, right-click on "A computer" on the desktop and select "Control". If the shortcut is not on the desktop, click "Start" then on "A computer" right click and select "Control".


Next, select the volume (local disk) that you want to merge and right-click on it, select "Delete Volume". If the line "Delete volume" is not active, read the article.

In the next window, select the disk that you want to connect and the amount of connected space, because in this example there is only one disk and I want to connect all the free space of this disk, leave everything by default and click "Further".

In the next window, we look at all the parameters we specified, if everything is correct, click "Ready".

As a result of all these actions, we have an enlarged disk D.