How to merge partitions

Is there a reliable way to merge two partitions without risking my data? I’m feeling pretty paranoid about losing everything on my computer, and using a standard partition manager feels a bit sketchy to me.

It’s hard to call anything "unreliable"... unless you're sitting in the dark during a blackout, in which case you can always find a similar thread a few posts down.

Then try moving everything over to a third drive if you have one, then just merge those two together...
If you think this is risky, trust me—there's no other way to pull this off without using those programs...

Rebecca Davis6 said:Maybe just move everything over to a third drive if you have one, then merge those two together...
If you don't want to take risks, there isn't really any other way to do this without those tools...

PartitionMagic works perfectly fine and it's reliable enough.👍

Acronis🙏🙏

Acronis works fine, but there are no guarantees. I’ve used it plenty of times without an issue, until one day...
I was helping a guy expand his system partition (C:) by taking space from his storage drive (D:). Everything seemed to be going smoothly; it finished the task, told him he needed a reboot, and restarted...
Five minutes pass, then ten, then fifteen—that's when the panic starts setting in because I hadn't backed anything up—then twenty. Finally, after thirty minutes of nothing, I just force-shutdown the machine. When I turned it back on, it was stuck at the command prompt.
I pulled the drive, took it home, hooked it up to my own rig, and used Recuva to try and pull the data off. I managed to save almost everything, except for the files where the client insisted on using special characters in the filenames. (I told him a hundred times not to use those non-standard characters, but nobody ever listens)
So instead of a quick ten-minute job, I wasted the entire afternoon. Fuck...
Since then, it's always data to a second drive first, then the fancy partitioning stuff later.

Yeah... been there. This same drive has let me down twice now

And I use it constantly...

PartitionMagic 8
I guess I’ve done this at least a hundred times now, and honestly, it works perfectly every single time!

Does this thing have a built-in editor or an "explorer" type interface? I need to be able to copy specific chunks of data and move folders around right from within the program itself.

And obviously, it has to be Windows based—wait, scratch that, I don't want anything running on top of Windows. It needs to be strictly bootable from a disc.

I'm trying to merge two partitions on my drive (my D: and H: drives). I’ve got about 40GB of data sitting on that D: partition, so I definitely wouldn't be thrilled about losing it all. By the way, Keith Bennett38, how on earth are you pulling data off a trashed drive? How is that even possible if the partition merger didn't go right in the first place?

Everything went sideways with my FAT table after a reboot. I ended up using Recuva to scan the drive and try to pull whatever data it could find onto my other disk, and luckily, it actually worked.
Basically, I was resizing my partitions—expanding the C: drive and shrinking D:—and the system asked for a restart. That's when things hit the fan; the FAT table got totally trashed, and now nothing seems to work. It won't even recognize the partitions, it just keeps telling me I have to format the disk.

Just wanted to say, watch your step. I’ve done this a hundred times without a hitch, but then the 101st time goes sideways. You can never be too careful, I guess. 😁

Got it. Thanks for the advice!👍

PartitionMagic 8
Everything went smooth as silk...

I just finished merging two partitions on my secondary drive—let's just call it the backup drive—plus I did the same thing with two partitions on my main drive.

Yeah... Partition Magic works fine enough... but honestly, you can never go wrong with a solid backup. I mean, come on—if the power cuts out mid-process, there isn't an app in the world that’s going to magically save your data.
I personally put more faith in Total Commander than I do in Apple... but hey, that's just my two cents.