Consolidation of logical drives. How to merge two disks into one: merging options

To effectively allocate space on Windows- the computer may need to enlarge one particular partition at the expense of another partition, but non-adjacent - located relative to the first one, not before, not after, but somewhere in another part of the disk. Standard system tool - utility "Disk Management"- copes with this task only if the disk of a basic type is converted to a dynamic type.

In terms of operating basic disks, the utility's capabilities are very limited: it can increase the size of volumes only due to the unallocated space located after these volumes. And no more. The utility will not be able to increase the volume using the free space in front of it. Not to mention performing merge operations on non-contiguous volumes.

How to combine two non-adjacent hard drive partitions? To do this, you will have to resort to third-party software - the program. To solve the problem, a basic edition of the program will be enough, which, by the way, is supplied completely free of charge.

So, let's launch the program.

In our case, two non-adjacent sections that need to be combined into one are H And I. Wherein H is the original partition that we want to keep and enlarge, and I– an attached person who will subsequently disappear and give up his place H.

You can’t just go ahead and carry out the operation of merging them. Even if we select this operation in the context menu on any of the sections,

then we will only discover the possibility of their unification with adjacent ones.

Attached section I will have to be deleted to create unallocated space in its place. But first, of course, you need to take care of the data (if they are) . During the merge operation, the original partition H will not be harmed. It is on it that you can transfer data, right up to filling it to capacity. If there is not enough space on the latter, the remaining data will have to be temporarily scattered elsewhere on the computer. But it is undesirable for these to be intermediate sections located between the original and the attached one. To simplify the task of transferring data, you should always attach a smaller partition to a larger one. The letter, if it is specified in programs as a data path, can be changed at any time after the merger.

Well, let's get started. Call on the section I context menu and delete it.

As you can see in the screenshot below, now unallocated space has formed in its place. Let's go further: call the menu on the original section H and choose merge operation.

In the window that appears, check the box (this is the former section I) and press "OK".

That's it - the operations are planned. We can analyze the future picture of the disk and, if necessary, by clicking the button at the top "Reset", cancel everything to redistribute the space somehow differently. If you are satisfied with the future structure of the disk, we can begin to directly implement everything that is planned. Click "Apply".

Then - .

AND - "Reboot Now".

Next work will continue in preboot mode. If we are talking about carrying out the task at hand HDD , you may have to wait a long time for its completion. After all, when merging non-adjacent partitions, other partitions located between the original and the one being joined are shifted. Accordingly, all data stored on these intermediate partitions will be overwritten to other areas of the media. A HDD According to the conditions, it will not be able to cope with such a load quickly. The more data is stored in the intermediate space, the longer the displacement process will take.

As for SSD , the operation of merging non-adjacent partitions will naturally proceed more quickly. However, as mentioned, the data will be overwritten. Therefore, to redistribute space to SSD -disk will be advisable only in conditions of real need.

To work with hard disk partitions (dividing into partitions or combining them into one), the Windows 10 operating system has a built-in utility “ Disk management" Its use, in my opinion, is preferable to installing any third-party tools. You can read how to split a hard drive using Ten’s own means or, conversely, combine its partitions in separate articles on this site: divide And combine. But sometimes situations arise when it is quite difficult to do without third-party tools.

This article was written in response to questions from site readers who had problems dividing a hard drive or merging its volumes. The Disk Management utility built into Windows 10, despite all its advantages, has its drawbacks: sometimes it does not allow you to create a partition of the required size, sometimes it does not allow you to split your hard drive at all, sometimes it is not possible to combine the necessary volumes into one. In these problematic situations (and only in them!) I recommend using a third-party one, even if free program for managing hard disk partitions in the "top ten". It is worth remembering that using any third-party tool to manage the operating system can be potentially dangerous. I am not inclined to dramatize the situation, but I believe that I am obliged to warn about it, even if the probability of possible problems is one chance in ten thousand. Therefore, whenever possible, it is better to still use the Disk Management utility built into Windows 10, developed by Microsoft.

When I was preparing this article, I spent several hours of time to find a truly completely free, reliable and reputable program for dividing a hard drive into partitions(or their combinations). There are a lot of outright lies and dubious programs of unknown origin in this area. A separate point in my search was the question that the software found should not only free, but also had a Russian-language interface and it also turned out completely compatible with Windows 10. The last question is far from idle - the fact is that on the Internet you can find information about how some disk partitioning programs created for Windows 7 or 8 ruined the hard drives of Windows 10 users.

So, as a result of a long and thorough search, I finally found and tried the program myself AOMEI Partition Assistant. In general, its full version, the Professional Edition, costs from $59 and much more. But don’t let this scare you, because the functionality of its free Standard Edition branch is quite enough to:

• Divide the hard drive into partitions
• Merge hard drive volumes into one partition

In general, the presence of a paid version speaks only in favor of this software. After all, this indicates the seriousness of the intentions of its authors. Those who create programs for money probably make decent solutions for free, albeit with somewhat limited functionality (especially since it’s quite enough for us). Another proof of the authority of AOMEI Partition Assistant, in my opinion, is the presence of an article about it in Wikipedia. By the way, if you doubt the reliability and safety of a particular program, always check through a search engine whether Wikipedia writes about it. This, of course, is not a 100% guarantee, but still, since this electronic encyclopedia strives for maximum objectivity, in articles about software there you can find information about the possible “pitfalls” of a particular program. It is there, on Wikipedia, that it is better to take a link to the official website of the program. The fact is that the first places in search engines are often not the official websites of certain programs.

On the official site AOMEI Tech I found it right away section dedicated to the Partition Assistant program. Let's go down a little on this page to the second screen. There, to download the free version of the program we need to manage the hard drive, we find the item Partition Assistant Standard Edition and (of course) click “Download”. Don’t be alarmed that the site is in English; the program itself has an official Russian localization. Please note that there are several options for downloading this program for different needs on the page - for free home use, choose the version Standard Edition.

The installation process of the program is not at all complicated. First, you are asked to select a language, then traditionally accept the usage agreement, and, if necessary, select the folder where the program will be stored - that’s basically all. After installation, the program will automatically launch if you leave the “Run this program” checkbox at the last stage.

I will not consider all options for using AOMEI Partition Assistant to manage a hard drive. I will only examine in detail the question of how this can free program to split your hard drive into several partitions in Windows 10. Everything else (including merging volumes) is done by analogy.

Dividing a hard drive into partitions using the free AOMEI Partition Assistant program in Windows 10

When the program starts, all the physical hard drives installed on your computer or laptop, as well as the partitions that exist on them, will be displayed at the bottom. In order to divide a disk into several volumes, you first need to “pinch off” a piece of space from an existing partition. To do this, stand on the donor volume and, right-clicking on it, select “ Resize partition».

A new window will appear in which you need to specify what size you want to leave the existing volume. All remaining space will be freed up for the new partition. I left the C drive with 150 GB. Click OK.

Now we see that we have free space labeled " Unoccupied" We need to create a new partition (volume) on it. To do this, right-click on it again and select the item “ Creating a section».

The pop-up window appears again. We leave everything in it as default and click OK.

After this, a new section will appear on the program screen. It would seem that you can rejoice. But it was not there. Turns out, no changes have been made to the hard drive itself yet! For the operation to be completed, you need to click the button at the top. Apply».

Typically, you will need to restart your computer to complete the operation. This is exactly what the new window in the AOMEI Partition Assistant program tells us. Click “Go” on it. It is better to leave the checkbox next to the “Check partitions before execution” item. This will allow the program to check partitions for errors before dividing.

After this, a new window will appear again warning you to restart your computer. We agree and click “Yes”.

After the reboot, the actual physical division of the hard drive into two partitions begins. It occurs before the Windows 10 operating system boots in PreOS mode.

Personally, this process took me only a couple of minutes. Most likely, the fact is that on the shared hard drive I had nothing except the clean installed Windows 10 and several programs. Therefore, it did not take much time to move files. If the computer is weak and there is a lot of information on the disk, then the division process may take much longer. My computer rebooted twice and then started up normally. After this, a new section appeared in Explorer, and the existing one became smaller.

Let me remind you that, by analogy with this instruction in Windows 10, using the free AOMEI Partition Assistant program, you can combine hard drive partitions.

I foresee a question from some meticulous readers of my site about why I reviewed only one free program for managing hard drive partitions on the “ten”. Will explain. The fact is that the rest of the programs I studied did not suit me for various reasons: some of them did not have the Russian language (and for many this is important), others had too much functionality in the free version, others raised doubts about the plan security for the operating system and compatibility with Windows 10. In addition, I absolutely see no point in looking for something else to solve fairly rare problems. I believe that the software reviewed copes with the assigned tasks with a bang and has undoubted advantages over all other free programs that I have studied. So why then bother yourself and others with unnecessary information?)

In this short article I step by step I'll tell you with pictures, how to combine hard drive partitions on Windows 10 into one volume. It is not difficult to find programs on the Internet that can do this. However, in my opinion, there is no need to use often dubious third-party programs when the Windows 10 operating system itself has a built-in ability to merge hard drive partitions. That is, we will consider how to combine a hard drive using the built-in tools of Windows 10 itself.

This method is suitable not only for Windows 10, but also for “seven” and “eight”.

Step 1. Open the built-in Disk Management utility

In order to combine hard disk partitions into one, first you need to open the built-in Disk Management utility.

You can launch it in a new way, which appeared in the “top ten” - right-click on the Start menu and select “Disk Management”. (if the utility has started, go straight to step 2 - ↓ down through two pictures)

For earlier versions of Windows, look for this tool through search or Control Panel. To do this, type “Control Panel” (Figure 1), and then open it with a mouse click (Figure 2).

In the window that opens, select and click on the “System and Security” item.

A new window opens. In it we go down and in the “Administration” item, click on the sub-item “Creating and formatting a hard drive”.

We are presented with the Disk Management utility itself.

Step 2: Delete volume and partition to merge with another partition in Windows 10

Now we need to select the partition that we are going to join to another partition. In my case, this is partition F. Right-click on it and select “Delete volume”.

Click “yes”.

We now have 50 gigabytes of free space. But they cannot yet be added to another section. Now you need to delete the partition on these 50 GB. Also, as in the previous step, right-click on the already freed partition space and select “Delete partition”.

The appearance of 50 GB with the inscription “Unallocated” tells us that now we can add this free and unallocated space to any other partition of our hard drive.

Step 3: Add free unallocated space to an existing hard drive partition

I will add them to partition D. To do this, right-click on the corresponding partition and select “Extend volume”.

The Volume Extension Wizard starts. Click “Next”.

To transfer all the free space to the partition we have chosen, simply click “Next”.

If you want part of the space to go to one partition (for example, C), and part to another (for example, D), then here you can choose how much free space you will add to a specific partition of the hard drive in your Windows 10 OS

Click “Finish”.

The last picture shows that the 50 GB partition F that originally existed for me has disappeared. Instead, 50 additional gigabytes of free space appeared on drive D.

P.S.: In some rather rare cases, the Disk Management utility built into the OS may not allow you to merge some partitions of one hard drive. I realized this after reading the comments below. It looks like Microsoft is playing it safe here. It was to solve this and other problems with managing hard drive space that I began to look for another option that allows me to manage the hard drive in Windows 10 using third-party, but extremely safe and free developments. For those who have encountered such problems, I wrote an article “

To make two local disks into one or increase the disk space of one of the volumes, you need to merge partitions. For this purpose, one of the additional partitions into which the drive was previously divided is used. This procedure can be carried out both with saving information and with its deletion.

You can merge logical drives in one of two ways: using special programs for working with drive partitions or using the built-in Windows tool. The first method has priority, since such utilities usually transfer information from disk to disk when merging, but the standard Windows program deletes everything. However, if the files are unimportant or missing, then you can do without using third-party software. The process of how to combine local disks into one on Windows 7 and more modern versions of this OS will be the same.

Method 1: AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

This free disk partition manager software helps you merge partitions without losing data. All information will be transferred to a separate folder on one of the drives (usually the system drive). The convenience of the program lies in the simplicity of the actions performed and the intuitive interface in Russian.

After the merger is complete, you will find all the data from the disk that was joined to the main one in the root folder. It will be called X-drive, Where X- letter of the drive that was attached.

Method 2: MiniTool Partition Wizard

The program is also free, but it has a set of all the necessary functions. The principle of working with it is slightly different from the previous program, and the main differences are the interface and language - MiniTool Partition Wizard does not have Russification. However, basic knowledge of English is sufficient to work with it. All files will be transferred during the merge process.

Look for the transferred files in the root folder of the disk with which the merger occurred.

Method 3: Acronis Disk Director

is another program that can merge partitions, even if they have different file systems. By the way, the free analogues mentioned above cannot boast of this opportunity. User data will also be transferred to the main volume, but provided that there are no encrypted files among them - in this case, merging will be impossible.

Acronis Disk Director is a paid, but convenient and multifunctional program, so if you have it in your arsenal, you can connect volumes through it.

After reboot, look for files in the root folder of the disk that you designated as the primary

Method 4: Windows built-in utility

Windows has a built-in tool called "Disk Management". It can perform basic operations with hard drives, in particular, this way you can merge volumes.

The main disadvantage of this method is that all information will be deleted. Therefore, it makes sense to use it only when the data on the disk that you are going to attach to the main one is missing or not needed. In rare cases, perform this operation through "Disk Management" fails, and then you have to use other programs, but such a nuisance is rather an exception to the rule.

1. Press the key combination Win+R, type diskmgmt.msc and open this utility by clicking "OK".

   

2. Find the section you want to join to another. Right-click on it and select "Delete volume".

   

3. In the confirmation window, click "Yes".

   

4. The volume of the deleted partition will become an unallocated area. Now it can be added to another disk.

   

   Find the disk whose size you want to increase, right-click on it and select "Extend Volume".

   

5. Will open . Click "Further".

   

6. In the next step, you can choose how many free GB you want to add to the disk. If you need to add all the freed up space, just click "Further".

   

   To add a fixed size to a disk in a field "Select the size of the allocated space" indicate how much you want to add. The number is indicated in megabytes, taking into account that 1 GB = 1024 MB.

7. In the settings confirmation window, click "Ready".

   

Result:

Merging partitions in Windows is a very simple procedure that allows you to effectively manage disk space. Despite the fact that the use of programs promises to combine disks into one without losing files, do not forget to make a backup copy of important data - this precaution is never superfluous.

Please note that when merging, data from the second partition will be completely deleted (photos, videos, documents, programs). Copy them to a removable USB drive or to the cloud so as not to lose them.

After that:

1. Launch the Run system utility using a keyword search or by simultaneously pressing the Windows + R keys on your keyboard. It can also be launched through the “Standard” menu.

1. Next, you need to open the classic application and enter the command “diskmgmt.msc” in the empty field, as shown in the screenshot. Then click “OK”.

1. The Disk Management utility will launch. It will be used to combine HDD or SSD partitions. In the first column you can see a list of available volumes. On the contrary, the file system type (NTFS, FAT32), state, capacity and free space (in GB, MB or percentage) are indicated.

1. In our example, we will merge the “New Volume W” with the “C” drive. Please note that merging multiple sections is done one at a time, that is, “C” with “D”, but not with “W” or “E”. If they are not nearby, the system will not allow you to do this. If you do not want to delete data from the volume that you plan to merge with the main one, then make sure that you copy it. After this, right-click on the partition you want to remove and select “Delete Volume” in the context menu that appears.

1. A notification will appear asking you to cancel the procedure if you have not yet created backup copies from the selected partition. Click "Yes" to continue.

1. After this, the section will disappear from the list, and the message “Not distributed” will appear at the bottom of the program.

1. Right-click on the disk you want to expand and select “Expand Volume” from the context menu.

Attention! If the “Extend volume” button is not active, then most likely you are trying to merge partitions that are not “consecutive”. For example, if there is another occupied (or vice versa free) disk space between them. You can only merge volumes that are in close proximity.

1. The Volume Expansion Wizard opens. Select the logical or local drive through which you want to increase space and click “Next”. If only one is available, it will be marked automatically.

1. Confirm your selection and click Finish to complete the process.

After this, the remaining partitions will appear in the list. You can close the utility and continue using your computer. If desired, here you can create a new volume, delete it, or hide the disk.

The computer will automatically flag any changes. Therefore, in case of problems, you can do a full system restore. In this case, user data will not be affected. However, if you deleted them when merging, you cannot get them back.

Through third party software

If you don't want to use Microsoft's built-in tools, you can merge drives using third-party software. Many of them are available for free download and allow you to:

• save data from partitions automatically;
• Merge disks and partitions that are out of order.

What is a dynamic disk? This is a technology that allows you to divide physical media into several volumes and sections. They can be created, deleted, expanded (at the expense of others).

The application is available for free download from the developer's official website. It is entirely in Russian, so you don’t have to download the localization language separately. Launch the downloaded program distribution and follow the wizard's instructions during installation. After this, launch the program.

The operating procedure on a PC will be as follows:

1. Right-click on the disk (if it is not hidden) that you want to add to the main one. In the context menu that appears, select “Delete partition”. In our example, this is the “G” drive.

1. A notification will appear warning you that the information will be completely deleted. Agree to move on to the next step. To do this, we recommend selecting the first item and clicking “OK”. For more detailed information, click on the “Help” button.

1. The “G” drive will disappear from the list and “Unallocated Space” will appear in its place. We will “add” it to the main section “C”.

1. To do this, right-click on “C” and select “Merge Partitions” from the context menu.

1. The Merge Wizard will open. From the list, select the section that you want to add to the main one. Then click “OK”.

1. Click on the big green "Apply" check mark in the toolbar to connect "C" and "G".

The selected sections will be merged into one; no other changes need to be made. In a similar way, you can combine several partitions at once, which have the word “unallocated” written next to the space. To do this, they do not need to be in close proximity to each other, as required by the system utility from Microsoft.

A partitioned disk can be divided into partitions and merged into one an unlimited number of times. Please note that data loss in this case is inevitable. Therefore, do not forget to make backup copies or use third-party software.

The program is fully compatible with OS Windows 10 (home, premium or other version) and is available for free download from the official website. Please note that it does not support the Russian language, so you will have to work with the English interface. After installation, follow these steps on your PC:

1. Launch the program and select MiniTool Partition Wizard. The program for working with disks will open.

1. Right-click on the main section to which you want to add another. Select "Merge" from the context menu that appears.

1. A new window will open, select “Disk 1” and partition “C”. When you're ready, click Next.

1. The program will prompt you to come up with a name for the folder into which all information from the current partition to the main one will be moved. Here, in the upper part, mark the section through which you want to increase the main one (in our case it is “C”). Click Finish. You can add multiple disks here if you wish.

1. The “Merge Partition” window will close. In the application itself, click on the blue “Apply” checkmark to start merging.

Please note that the process may take from a few minutes to hours. The exact time will depend on the size of the partition, the presence of files that will be copied to the main disk. They will remain in the root directory with the name you specified.

Unlike Aomei, MiniTool Partition allows you to immediately make a backup copy of all data stored on the partition. This is convenient if you do not want to save information manually (for example, if it is too large). But in this case, the operation will take much longer.

To speed up the merge and backup process, delete unnecessary files yourself or move at least some of them to removable media or the cloud.

Conclusion

Now you know how to merge disks in Windows 10 using standard system tools or third-party software. But keep in mind that it will not be possible to carry out the operation without data loss. Therefore, be sure to save all important information from the disk whose space you want to add to the main one. Because it will not be possible to restore them later.

If you plan to merge several sections, we recommend using free software. Additionally, it allows you to copy files to a new partition, so you don’t have to do it manually.

Video

Below you can watch a video on the topic of combining disks on Windows 10.