How to combine two hard drives. How to merge two local drives into one

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

Warning! Before you begin, make a copy of the data located on the disk you are attaching, as... they will be deleted. For example, you can write information to a flash drive or upload it to . Opening Start\ Control Panel\System and Security\Administration

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

Volume 1, as we see, is reserved for system recovery. Volume 2 system partition which is necessary (reserved) for the operation of the hard drive. But volumes 3 and 4 are exactly what we can work on. But since in volume 3 we have the system itself installed, we will not touch it. And we can combine volume 4 with volume 3 if we need it.

So we found the volume to be attached, by right-clicking (right mouse button), we select “Delete volume”.

Or through the "Disk Management" menu

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

If you are not satisfied with the disk space layout of your hard drive, you can resolve this kind of problem yourself. There is no need to seek help from a specialist; you can do it yourself. Right now you will be given the necessary recommendations regarding questions on how to combine sections of hard disk and what exactly is needed to restore the hard drive directories. Believe me, everything is much simpler... The main thing is desire and attentiveness in actions. Let's get started, I guess.

Standard option

Using built-in system Windows tools You can perform both partitioning and merging of disk space. However, this article is devoted to the second option - organizing a single volume from several components. Let's say you need to make one volume from two directories (C:\ and D:\).

• Open the Start menu and type in search bar command - diskmgmt.msc.
• The “Management...” service window will open.
• Mark the partition “D” and use the right mouse button to call up the context menu, from the list of which select the “Delete volume...” command. Of course, all data on it will be destroyed. Confirm your action.
• The next step is to point the cursor to drive “C” - call up the menu and activate the “Extend Volume” command.
• In the new window, click Next and then select the unallocated area ( remote disk"D")
• Completing the process is the “Done” button. After the above process, the system volume “C” will expand, and the question is how to merge the partitions hard drive, can be considered resolved.

Effective organizer: Acronis Disk Director Suite

The above program can, if not do everything, then do a lot. Launch Acronis and in the next minimized window check “ Manual mode" There are no fundamentally different actions in using the presented program, meaning the considered option. However, the functionality of the software significantly prevails over Windows tools.

• Select the drive (D) and when calling the context menu, select “Merge”.
• In the next window, indicate the section to join (C).
• In the case when the drive (D) has data and has not been formatted, you need to create a folder where the transferred information will be located.
• Next, give it a name.
• In the next window, click on the new folder, then confirm “OK”.
• The final action is to click on the shortcut in the form of a flag.

In order to understand how to combine hard drive partitions, one practical repetition is enough.

Partition recovery

A software failure is the main culprit when the system loses access to one of the hard drive volumes. However, Acronis can fix everything.

• Use manual mode again.
• In place of the partition there will be an unmarked area, by clicking on it, you need to select “Advanced”, then “Restore”.
• The next step is to select “Manually” and click “Next”.
• Then the Search Method window will appear, where Full is your choice.
• At this stage, you may see some kind of list through which hard drive partitions are restored. It is here, in this window, that all lost data is displayed. It is important to select from the list the section that most closely matches the size you are looking for.
• Now click on the familiar “Flag” and wait for the recovery process to complete, which the program will notify you about via a message.

In conclusion

As you can see, the question that has been tormenting you is “How to combine hard drive partitions?” in fact, it is easily resolved; moreover, it does not require special knowledge and IT skills from the user. In order for your hard drive worked as long as possible, and its performance always remained at its best, carry out timely preventive maintenance: defragmentation, cleaning and checking for errors. Be effective!

Do you need to get rid of extra disks on your home or work computer? We present to your attention a simple step by step instructions by combining them into operating system windows 7. Follow simple tips and you will succeed!

How to merge drives in Windows 7?

Stage 1. Save data from disks!

IN previous versions it was not possible for the operating system to carry out the merging procedure local disks using built-in utilities. But starting from version 7 of the product, this can be done simply and quickly.

Attention, the merging procedure will delete all information from the disk that you are removing for subsequent merging! Therefore, make sure that you do not have to part with the necessary documents on this disk. Save and transfer everything you need before you begin.

Stage 2.

So, on your desktop, open the Start menu. In it you will see the “Run” option.

When you click on it, a new window will open with a field for writing commands. Switch the keyboard layout and enter the following command in the field: diskmgmt.msc, confirm your choice with the “Ok” key. You have reached the built-in menu Windows utilities 7: "Disk Management".

Stage 3.

The Disk Management utility in Windows 7 has a wide range of options for managing your computer's local disks. With this tool, you can partition your disk, change the names and volumes of volumes, delete and rename partitions. So, in the utility window that opens, you will see a list of volumes. Select required disk that you want to get rid of.

Call the section's context menu with the right mouse button. The “Delete Volume” item will appear in the list that opens. A warning window will appear about deleting information on the drive you selected. Click Yes. Before you agree, please double-check that you have saved all the information you need.

Confirm deleting the volume.

Stage 4.

After you remove the disk (volume) you selected, you can see that a green partition appears with the name “Free”. You need to delete it, to do this, select “Delete partition” in context menu.

Now you have an unallocated partition that can be distributed among the remaining volumes. If you did everything correctly, then instead of the “Free” section a new one will appear - “Unallocated”.

Stage 5.

The disk you need can now be expanded using the Extend Volume Wizard, adding to it the same free disk space that resulted after deleting the volume (disk) you no longer need. To do this, select the one you need and right-click to bring up the context menu. Click on the "Extend volume" item.

Stage 6.

In a new window you will get a visual representation of the procedure you have completed. If you are interested in the details, please review and click Done.

So, using the built-in utility Windows management 7, you have increased the disk you need by the nth amount of memory and got rid of what you don’t need. In this way, disks are combined using built-in means in the operating room. Windows system 7.

Likewise, the same utility will allow you to split the disk into several separate partitions. However, it is worth remembering that large number volumes consumes more memory resources, which means it affects the performance of the system as a whole.

Let's remember what to combine Windows drives 7 without losing information from the disk being deleted with this utility it is impossible. Unfortunately, Windows has not provided this option to its users, but there are third-party tools for this. One of the most popular programs, which allows you to carry out various manipulations with local disks, including merging them, this is Acronis Disk Director.

In the previous article, we discussed ways to create partitions in Windows. There are circumstances that some users, having divided their hard drive into two or more partitions, ask the question of how to return parts of the hard drive to their original state.

After reading this article, you can easily figure out how to put all your sections together without losing important data.

How to merge hard drive partitions in Windows

For this procedure, you can use the built-in system tools "Disk Management" to merge partitions, however, in this case, you need to transfer all the information from partition E:, then delete partition "E:" and then merge both partitions into one. If there is a lot of information on the disk, it will take considerable time. We will discuss this method in end.

To connect sections we can use special program for disk management - you can download it at . This program available for commercial and home use and absolutely free.

Attention!!!AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard refers to groups of programs for working with disk partitions. If you make a mistake when working with this program, you may lose important information on the disk, so we recommend that you make Backup all partitions of your disk to save all important information.

How to Merge Partitions Using AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard

Download and install the program on your computer, run it and follow the further instructions.

Sections are merged. All information that was on the second partition was automatically transferred to drive "C" in the folder " E-drive".

Merging hard disk partitions using built-in Windows tools

Open the "Start" panel and type "Computer Management".

Let's take a closer look at how to combine hard drive partitions. If your hard drive is divided into several partitions, you can easily combine them using standard Windows tools or third party programs.

In more earlier versions Windows division of the hard drive into partitions made it possible to structure the volumes of information that users stored on their computers. And also, some system administrators create separation so that system files and the rest of the data was stored in different places.

This reduces the risk of damage from virus software or careless user actions.

IN modern models The OS typically uses only two divisions - the main disk and backup space. Thus, if a serious failure occurs in Windows and everything stops working, your data will not be damaged, because you will always be able to make a recovery using the second disk partition.

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

Preparing to delete a disk volume

Before you merge multiple volumes, there are steps you can take to help preserve your files. Any editing of a partition in Windows leads to permanent deletion files and folders in this volume.

We recommend creating backup copy all files and move it to a removable USB drive. If the amount of information is too large, create a separate profile for it in cloud storage. In most of them you can use up to 20 GB of space for free (Yandex.Disk, DropBox, OneDrive and others).

Fig. 1 - schematic example of dividing a hard drive

Merging partitions in Windows 7

In Windows 7, users can merge disk partitions without booting additional programs to your computer. All necessary settings can be changed as follows:

• Go to the Start menu and open the Run window. In Windows 7 Home Edition, this key may not be available. In this case, just press Win+R to open 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 entry

• The following window will open. All connected to the system are displayed at the bottom of the window. hard drives and their conditional division. Each division section is a separate volume. It is designated by a letter and has its own type file system and space;

Rice. 3 – display sections in settings

• You need to select the section that you want to delete (merge with the main volume of drive C). Then right-click on it and click on “Delete Volume”. Next a window will appear with system message that all data on the volume will be deleted and you will not be able to restore it. Confirm uninstallation. Essentially, you're not deleting anything, just erasing the section. All space goes to drive C;

Rice. 4 – volume deletion

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 correct section. Click on the section into which all objects will be combined and click on “Extend volume” in the context menu.

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

Rice. 5 – volume extension in Windows 7

After completing the procedure, you must restart Windows operation, 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 Windows 10 and all Windows versions 8. You can merge partitions using built-in OS tools. As in the previous description of settings, we will need the Disk Management utility. Follow the instructions:

• Go to the search box and enter the word "Management". The results will show required option. And also, you can press the Win and X key combination to bring up the menu quick access. It contains a link to access Disk Management;

Fig. 6 – hard drive settings window in Windows 10

• Decide which sections you no longer use. For better orientation, they are indicated by letters that correspond to the names of the drives in the “This PC” window;
• If you only want to keep one volume, choose which volume you will attach the rest of the items to;
• Then right-click on the object that you want to delete. And uninstall it;

Fig. 7 - deleting a partition in Windows 10

• Confirm the action, agreeing to data loss;
• Remove 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 correctly performing all the actions, you will see that the following message appears in place of the disk section: “Not allocated.” Now you can start merging the sections.

Click on the main section - in most cases this is drive C. In the menu, select volume expansion.

Rice. 9 – element connection

The Settings Wizard window will open. With its help you can easily separate free space or combine it into one system storage medium.

Fig. 10 - merging sections

Working with Acronis program Director

Often in standard window"Disk Management" users are faced with the fact that the "Delete Volume" key is not available or other functions cannot be performed. This is due to the limitation group policies. Maybe, system administrator has prohibited performing such actions or your OS version does not allow you to configure disk partitions and other system parameters.

Usage third party utilities will help solve the problem. Acronis Director- this is one of the best programs, which allows you to customize the disk configuration and bypasses all prohibitions on changing the settings of your computer.

We recommend working only with bootable version program, because it will help to avoid errors that may appear while setting up system parameters. 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 setup elements. You must select a volume that will be the primary one and attach other objects to it one by one.

After completing all the steps, you must apply the settings. To do this, click on the “Apply” button, which is located at the top of the utility (on the toolbar).

Thematic videos:

How to merge hard drive partitions in Windows.

Simple Solution to Complex Errors

Merge hard drive partitions FAST!

I'll tell you how to merge hard drive partitions using a simple program Acronis Disk Director. If you still don’t know how to do this, then watch my short video tutorial, where I outlined everything in detail. You will need a few minutes of your time to merge the disks and the Acronis Disk Director application.