Partiton help, should be simple to solve

[Kurt101]

Hi guys, this should be rather simple, i dont understand why there are multiple unallocated spaces. I was previously led to beleive they should just merge together, if anyone has a explanation i would really appreciate it. I have a trim ssd with gpt disk format, Kind regards -Kurt101

[Energycore]

Hi! What tool are you using?

[DXMember]

it is very likely you have multiple physical storage devices there

[Kurt101]

2 minutes ago, DXMember said:

it is very likely you have multiple physical storage devices there

could you explain this please? There all from the same ssd

[EPPHO]

I had same problem. Solved with few programs and it was kinda hard. Each unlocated space was able to be merged into just one partition and couldn't make a new partition with whole unlocated space. Would like to help but you have to figure it out yourself.

[Kurt101]

9 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Hi! What tool are you using?

i usually use windows 10 dos, as im a fan of the old time command line (diskpart btw) not the new graphical interfaces, i did however install minitool just to double check they were separate.

[Energycore]

Just now, Kurt101 said:

i usually use windows 10 dos, as im a fan of the old time command line (diskpart btw) not the new graphical interfaces, i did however install minitool just to double check they were separate.

Yeah that looks like separate unallocated space between multiple drives.

 

What does the W10 disk management look like? (Win + X -> Disk Management)

[Kurt101]

1 minute ago, Energycore said:

Yeah that looks like separate unallocated space between multiple drives.

 

What does the W10 disk management look like? (Win + X -> Disk Management)

Here..

[Energycore]

6 minutes ago, Kurt101 said:

Here..

Can you right click one of the unallocated icons and then click "Extend Volume"?

[Kurt101]

3 minutes ago, Energycore said:

Can you right click one of the unallocated icons and then click "Extend Volume"?

no, i cannot, if it helps i have a hdd, and the unallocated space on there is normal but it saids it is "logical" where on my ssd it saids "gpt" if im correct then dosent that mean the unallocated space is being treated as a individual partition? rather then empty space?

[Energycore]

If you're keen on troubleshooting independently, and since you like the command line I bet you are, I'd say make a bootable USB with gparted (it's a linux bootable environment), then see if you can use that to merge the unallocated space bits. Maybe create a partition that spans all the unallocated space, then delete it.

[Kurt101]

Just now, Energycore said:

If you're keen on troubleshooting independently, and since you like the command line I bet you are, I'd say make a bootable USB with gparted (it's a linux bootable environment), then see if you can use that to merge the unallocated space bits. Maybe create a partition that spans all the unallocated space, then delete it.

I already have a ubuntu disc version 16 04, i will boot into live environment on that and install gparted using sudo apt, and i will see if i can merge them. Thanks for helping i do appreciate it, and have a nice day

[kirashi]

So here's what I think happened:

Originally your Windows was installed in the beginning~100 GB partition, with the 451 MB partition after being used as boot or recovery.

At some point, you or something shrunk the ~270 GB partition after the Windows partitions at the beginning down to ~120 GB for some reason.

Then Windows was reinstalled, and either you or Windows (I'm going to blame Windows here) decided to install on the drive space after everything else.

 

This will not be easy to fix, since if you want to move your Windows install to the beginning of the desk it will require a lot of file moving and might just be easier to reinstall, choosing the ~100 GB partition as your installation location.

 

The easiest solution would be to merge the beginning ~100 GB, 451 MB, and ~120 GB partitions at the beginning of the drive, and then make the ending ~100 GB partition its' own partition for storage. You can't just merge the 50 GB Windows partition with the 200 MB recovery without boot issues, and thus you cannot add the ~100 GB at the end to the Windows partition.

 

I would still recommend backing up everything to another drive, wiping your SSD completely, and reinstalling Windows with the partition layout you want. Right now what you've got is like having a pressed music record that needs changing - you can change it, but it's a lot more effort than it's worth compared to pressing a fresh record.

[Squish4058]

43 minutes ago, kirashi said:

So here's what I think happened:

Originally your Windows was installed in the beginning~100 GB partition, with the 451 MB partition after being used as boot or recovery.

At some point, you or something shrunk the ~270 GB partition after the Windows partitions at the beginning down to ~120 GB for some reason.

Then Windows was reinstalled, and either you or Windows (I'm going to blame Windows here) decided to install on the drive space after everything else.

 

This will not be easy to fix, since if you want to move your Windows install to the beginning of the desk it will require a lot of file moving and might just be easier to reinstall, choosing the ~100 GB partition as your installation location.

 

The easiest solution would be to merge the beginning ~100 GB, 451 MB, and ~120 GB partitions at the beginning of the drive, and then make the ending ~100 GB partition its' own partition for storage. You can't just merge the 50 GB Windows partition with the 200 MB recovery without boot issues, and thus you cannot add the ~100 GB at the end to the Windows partition.

 

I would still recommend backing up everything to another drive, wiping your SSD completely, and reinstalling Windows with the partition layout you want. Right now what you've got is like having a pressed music record that needs changing - you can change it, but it's a lot more effort than it's worth compared to pressing a fresh record.

I agree with this guy, Windows installers have a habit of not giving a crap but still wanting to not touch any important looking files, this was further messed up by backup programs that make their own "RECOVERY" partiton by shrinking your windows partition.

Sometimes if you upgrade or reinstall your OS these RECOVERY partitions will either be left, or deleted. But the partition to install to (during new install) will not automatically expand due to the chance that the recovery might not be right infront of the windows partition, it could be before, it could be on the other end of the drive. Point being windows and other setups are not sophisticated enough to determine whether to fill empty space or not.

Personally I would reinstall windows and remove ALL partitions, when doing this run a windows installer ISO, click custom setup, delete all partitons on said drive (if you want you can unplug all other drives during setup, i do) and click the unallocated space and click install. It will then seperate about 500mb for the bootloader and the entire rest of the drive for windows, the way it should be.