Advice Request Unallocated disk space at the beggining of disk. Any way to merge with main partition?

[mlnevese]

I recently cleaned up all recovery partitions left behind by Windows 10 upgrades but one of them was at the beginning of the disk. I thought I would be able to just move the partions and merge the free space to C: but no tool I tested seem to be able to do it. Any ideas? I won't format the machine just to recover that space, the install is working well, no need to format it.

 

[boombastik]

You will make a an image with macrium reflect free and then will restore the image with the partition and how you want(with the help of a bootable usb that can be done with macrium). You must store the image in an another hard drive so then you can restore it.

It gives also the option when you restore an partition to expand it . So you will restore partition 1,2,3 expanded 500 mb and the 4

 

[mlnevese]

You will make a an image with macrium reflect free and then will restore the image with the partion and how you want.(with the help of a bootable usb that can be done with macrium) you must store the image in an another hard drive so then you can restore it.

You mean deleting all partitions first then restoring from backup?

 

[boombastik]

You mean deleting all partitions first then restoring from backup?

Yes i have done it many times.

 

[show-Zi]

MiniTool Partition Wizard may be useful

MiniTool Partition Wizard | Best partition magic alternative for Windows PC and Server

As a partition magic alternative, MiniTool Partition Wizard is the latest partition manager software that can be used to manage partitions on Windows 11/10/8/7 and Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019.

www.partitionwizard.com

 

[mlnevese]

MiniTool Partition Wizard may be useful

MiniTool Partition Wizard | Best partition magic alternative for Windows PC and Server

As a partition magic alternative, MiniTool Partition Wizard is the latest partition manager software that can be used to manage partitions on Windows 11/10/8/7 and Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019.

www.partitionwizard.com

Tried that. It can't move the free space at the start of the disk...

 

[show-Zi]

It seems to be a procedure to combine the free area at the beginning and the separated 3- (c) area.

 

[mlnevese]

It seems to be a procedure to combine the free area at the beginning and the separated 3- (c) area.

Yes, I just couldn't move the partitions to allow the merge

 

[show-Zi]

 

[shmu26]

The Macrium Reflect way will work but will probably result in an unbootable system because your BIOS won't be looking at the right place on the disk for the files it needs. This is easily fixable with the Macrium Reflect boot repair tool.
If all else fails, just restore your image exactly like it was before, and you are back to where you were before.