Merging Unallocate space with Allocated?

[rylant]

I have a feeling this is a silly question. I am working on my new computer and run into something I can't figure out. I have a 256 gb solid state drive which has my operating system and a few other things on it. I also have a 3 tb seagate drive which I am going to use for my data. The SSD is marked drive C and the data drive is marked drive E. On the disk management screen, the data drive is marked as only having 2 tb of NTFS with a healthy partition, 100 mb as system reserved, and 746 gb as unallocated. I am trying to figure out how to merge this unallocated portion with the 2 tb portion which is usable. Every time I right click the Unallocated portion, "Properties" and "help" are the only available options. When I right click the 2tb usable portion of the drive, the "extend volume" option is greyed out.

Does anybody have any ideas how to make the unallocated section of the drive usable? Any help here would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Rylant

 

[phil22]

you can only merge or join volumes together if they are next to each other on the volume map in Disk Management.
If "System Reserved" is sandwiched between them, you can't merge them.

It's strange, however, that there's no option to create a volume on the unallocated portion so you can format it and make use of it - that I can't explain.

 

[rylant]

thanks for the reply, Phil. It isn't like that. On the "Disk Management" screen, the first section says "Disk 0, Basic, 2794.52 GB, Online". On the right of that is a section that says "System Reserved, 100 MB NTFS, Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition". On the right of that it says "New Volume (E, 2047.90 GB NTFS, Healthy (Primary Partition)". On the right of that it says "746.52 GB, Unallocated".

"System Reserved" isn't between them, it is on the left side. Any ideas?

Rylant

 

[fzabkar]

If you are using an MBR partitioning system instead of GPT, then this would explain the 2TiB limitation. In this case you could use DiscWizard to create a virtual physical disk in the unallocated space. Otherwise, to create a single 3TB partition, you would need to backup your data and rebuild the drive in GPT mode.

 

[Paperdoc]

fzabkar has the answer. It appears your 3TB unit was set up with the MBR Partitioning system that cannot exceed 2 TB. You will have to back up completely and re-Partition the unit using the GPT system.

 

[zdbc13]

Also, it looks like you installed windows with both your ssd and hard drive installed. Not the recommended method. If it were me, I'd re-install the OS with just the SSD hooked up. Then add the HDD and do the GPT format. Then the system reserved will be on the SSD and not give you as much trouble in the future. Just saying...

 

[quesionboy]

Hi, the "Extend volume" grayed out is caused by the limitation of the disk management on extending partition size.
The "Extend volume" only work when the unallocated space is next to the partition which you want to increase.
Here I find an video tutorial about this situation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGHsvc2Ljic

In the video it also shows you how to solve the problem, hope it could help you