Windows partition

I recently installed Windows 7.
I set aside a small bit of my hard drive to make sure that I could boot it and everything would work okay, because my last Windows install didn't work.

So after I tested it, I formatted my Ubuntu partition to NTFS so I could resize my Windows partition to take up the entire hard drive.

My problem is I know have a C: drive that is completely full, and an E: drive that is barely used. It's a huge pain, having my hard drive split like this for no reason, is there a way to merge them without having to completely reinstall Windows?

Assuming both paritions are on the same harddrive, if you've got access to an external harddrive or something like that, you could copy the files from the E: partition to the external harddrive, delete the E: parition, and extend the C: partition to take up all the space. That would erase all the files on the E: parition, while leaving all the files on the C: partition. Then you could just copy the files back from the external drive.

First off, I don't have an external harddrive ; __ ;

Second, when I formatted my Ubuntu partition, I tried to extend the Windows partition, but all it gave me the option to do was shrink it.

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Originally Posted by Fableflame

Second, when I formatted my Ubuntu partition, I tried to extend the Windows partition, but all it gave me the option to do was shrink it.

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That's because the ubuntu disk was already formatted. What you should have done was to delete the ubuntu partition, and then extend the windows partition. You can only extend it to unallocated space.

Now, one other way you can do it, if you have at least as much free space and taken space on the E: partition, is to shrink it, extend the windows partition, copy the files over from the E partition to the C partition, and the delete the E partition and extend the windows partition to cover all the space. But that will take a lot of time.

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Originally Posted by khh

if you have at least as much free space and taken space on the E: partition

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I don't.

How big are the drives and how much stuff do you have stored on them?

There are certain applications that can merge and split partitions, but this is risky business, and you might end up with corrupted files, in which case you'll have to reinstall anyway.

I suggest you backup your most important files and simply format all over.

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Originally Posted by Photolysis

How big are the drives and how much stuff do you have stored on them?

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C: drive is 24.3 gigabytes, and I'm using 20.69 gigabytes of it.
E: drive is 205 gigabytes, and I'm using 44 gigabytes of it.

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Originally Posted by Marvo

There are certain applications that can merge and split partitions, but this is risky business, and you might end up with corrupted files, in which case you'll have to reinstall anyway.

I suggest you backup your most important files and simply format all over.

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This seems like my best option.

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Originally Posted by Fableflame

This seems like my best option.

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If you'd like to reinstall windows anyway, then I agree. However, my second suggestion should work just fine.

You can shrink the E partition to 50 gigabytes or thereabout and extend the C partition to use up the now unallocated ~150 gb, then move the files from the E partition to the C partition, then delete the E partition and extend the C partition to cover the remainder of the drive.
Just keep in mind that shrinking the E partition to 50 gb will take hours, I usually do that kind of thing over night.

If you don't have a partitioning programme, I can recomend using Gparted. It can be run from a live CD (If you've got an ubuntu live CD lieing around, that'd work fine).

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Originally Posted by khh

If you'd like to reinstall windows anyway, then I agree. However, my second suggestion should work just fine.

You can shrink the E partition to 50 gigabytes or thereabout and extend the C partition to use up the now unallocated ~150 gb, then move the files from the E partition to the C partition, then delete the E partition and extend the C partition to cover the remainder of the drive.
Just keep in mind that shrinking the E partition to 50 gb will take hours, I usually do that kind of thing over night.

If you don't have a partitioning programme, I can recomend using Gparted. It can be run from a live CD (If you've got an ubuntu live CD lieing around, that'd work fine).

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Sounds annoying, but I guess I'll do that.

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Originally Posted by Fableflame

Sounds annoying, but I guess I'll do that.

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Yeah, it'd be much easier to simply dump the files to some external drive. But baring that, it's the best option I can think of.

The closest thing I have to an external hard drive is a 2 gigabyte micro sd card.

Basically do what khh said. It's a bit annoying, but it does allow you to save stuff and not lose your windows installation.