Disk management shows 3 partitions with same drive letter

[roflcopterofl]

Hello,
I recently wanted to partition my hard drive. I looked in the disk manager and noticed that their were 3 partitions in yellow, and they were all one drive letter. Is it possible to make them one so I can shrink it and create a new one?

Thanks

 

[roflcopterofl]

Sorry, it appears my picture link didn't work. I have fixed it, Thanks

 

[roflcopterofl]

Is their a way I could do that without transfering 600 gbs to a external hdd then back? All I need to do is make all the A:'s one and shrink it.

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hello,

This is a very unusual disk partitioning setup.

The Boot Drive Drive 0 is a Basic Drive, MBR single partition. No problem.

The second drive, Drive 1 is a Dynamic Drive Type, (can't tell if it's set up as an MBR or GPT partition style), with two unallocated areas at the front of the drive, and 3 "Simple" dynamic volumes, all with the same Volume Letter, present.

You must have set up the spacial allocation of this drive, but I'm not clear on the logic, or why you would want to do it this way. And how 3 of the volumes have the same Drive letter (these are simple volumes, not spanned volumes. Spanned volumes have purple bands above them)

First, right click on the Disk 1 cell, lower left, choose properties, then click on the Volume tab. Report the Type & Partition Style listed there.

Probably the safest way to set up this drive in a more standard fashion, is to copy all the data from it to a separate temporary drive for safety.

Then the drive can either be left as a Dynamic drive, or changed back to an Basic drive, partitioned with either 1 or 2 simple volumes with different Volume labels, the Unallocated space removed, and then your data copied back over to it.

There are several ways you can accomplish this, but you need to decide how you want to partition it, and how you want to separate your data.
Then someone can step you through the steps to get there.

In any case, the safest thing to do is copy your data to a separate drive before deleting partitions, including the Unallocated space, and assigning new volume labels to this drive.

 

[roflcopterofl]

Hi,

The Type is Dynamic and the Partition style is MBR.

It is very odd. I'm not sure it is possible to make those 3 one partition.

Thanks

 

[John_VanKirk]

Having a backup of your files is very important, whenever you are going to change partitions, in case of a disaster. That said,

If you have any files in the second 501 MB Volume, or in the third 185 GB Volume, copy them to the first A:\ 733 GB Volume, so all files in the three A:\ Volumes are in the first Volume. Nothing in the second or third A: Volume.

Download and install EaseUS Partition Master from their website. Home edition is free

www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm

there is a user manual available to read to get you started.

Next change the third A:\ DriveLetter to G. If all three A: Volumes change to G Volumes, stop and report back.


Remember after each step, click on the checkmark icon in the tool bar to complete that step.

Next change the second A:\ DriveLetter to F

If all OK, then select Volume G, and delete the Volume G, click to complete that step
then select Volume F, and increase its size to the right to incorporate all the Unallocated space, complete that step.

Lastly, select the remaining A: Volume and change the DriveLetter to E, complete that step
Then increase the E:\ Volume to the left to incorporate the unallocated space to the left.

That should give you an E: Volume with all your files in it, and an F: empty Volume to use for other storage.

Finally give each DriveLetter Volume a VolumeName, so they can be easily identified, instead of just New Volume.

 

[roflcopterofl]

Hi,

When I change one drive letter all 3 partitions change to that drive letter.

This is very odd...

Thanks

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi again,

Wonder if this HDD was set up on a different computer using a Dynamic Drive type, then moved to your present one.

There are a couple choices,

Using partition master, might try to "merge" the third A: Volume with the second one. If successful, then could "merge" the second Volume with the first one.

If not, with data saved, probably should delete Volume A (which should delete all A volumes along with the formatting and data), and then with all Unallocated space, create one, or two Volumes with E and F DriveLetters and formatted with NTFS. Then copy your data back.

 

[quesionboy]

Hello,
I recently wanted to partition my hard drive. I looked in the disk manager and noticed that their were 3 partitions in yellow, and they were all one drive letter. Is it possible to make them one so I can shrink it and create a new one?

Thanks

http://i50.tinypic.com/1h7z10.jpg

From your img it shows that your partition A is simple volume on dynamic disk, and it be splited into three slice, this is the feature of dynamic volumes ( it could make volumes become discrete, like your situation), you could not merge them into one volume, because it is a single volume already (not three volumes, just three slice. (To understand "slice" you could refer to software raid 0, 1, or 5).
In your situation you could only backup your data on A volume then delete it and create a new single with one slice then back your data. Or you could use Dynamic Disk Converter, to convert it back to basic disk.
Note: if you use that tool, you should use the second method to clone your volume A to a basic disk, then the three slices will be "merged" into one.