Partition / SSD Install Question

[Aurimas]

I'm going to be installing my old desktop SSD into my gaming laptop. (Yes I had a gaming laptop w/ no ssd to save money).

I currently have a mechanical HD with 2 partitions on it. One for the OS and one for data. I'll be leaving that for storage.

My question: Windows 10 currently handles resizing partitions without destroying data, correct?

It might seem like a dumb question, but last time I did something like that was in windows XP or 98 and you needed "Partition Magic" software to make it work.

Current plan is to install the SSD into my free SATA HD slot. Re-install windows onto the SSD (It's time for a clean install anyway, so I won't just image it over).

After making sure everything is ok; I plan on deleting the OS partition on the mechanical HD, and expanding the Data partition to take up the now free space.

I should be able to do that without losing data (on the data partition), using just Windows 10s built in disk utility, correct?

(I'm aware I'll lose the data on the OS partition that I am deleting)

[Lathais]

While I do think it is possible, and even if it isn't there are free tools with which it is possible, I still would not do it. I would format that separate partition and just use it as storage as is. While adjusting partitions is possible, there is always a chance for error when doing it and those errors tend to be the unrecoverable kind. Yeah, it may be a really small chance, less than 5%, of having an issue, but there is still a chance for issues.

[Blueobelisk]

It sounds like it'll work.

1. Install W10 on SSD.
2. Make sure SSD has higher boot priority in BIOS.
3. On your W10 SSD, open up partition manager, and use it to delete the W10 partition of your HDD.
4. Allocate the new space from the W10 partition to your data partition.

I don't think it'll destroy your data, but I'm not entirely sure you'll be able to delete the W10 partition in step 3. I think the partition manager will tell you that you'd have to check the disk or something whacky and it won't let you touch the partition.

If you did use a third party tool, it probably has a higher possibility of success.

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If I were you I would cut my losses. I would do steps 1-2 I mentioned above, but instead.
3. Boot into your W10 on HDD, delete shit you don't need.
4. Open the partition manager and shrink the W10 on HDD to as little as you can.
5. Reallocate the space to the Data partition on the HDD.

That way, you're wasting maybe 100 GB on the W10 HDD space, but you don't risk losing your data.

[Thunderball]

You cannot merge partitions without destroying the data, you can, however, delete one of the partitions (with data from it deleted or moved previously) and reallocate that free space to the second partition on the drive.

[Lathais]

You cannot merge partitions without destroying the data, you can, however, delete one of the partitions (with data from it deleted or moved previously) and reallocate that free space to the second partition on the drive.

You absolutely can. I have done it before. On our server here at work, the guy who originally set it up set up the partitions in such a way that the main partition Windows was installed on eventually ran out of space sue to updates. We backup up all the data, shrunk the other partition, created a new partition out of the leftover space and merged that partition with the Windows install partition. Obviously, the data was all still there because Windows was still running. It is possible, but it carries risk. We did not use Microsoft tools to do this though, we used Easus Partition Magic, since this was on Windows SBS 2003 not W10. It is possible though and W10 is even able to do it without third party tools now. I still recommend against it if at all possible. We only did it because we backed everything up and if it failed, we could have simply rebuilt the partitions how we wanted and then copied our backup over. As a home user, if you have the available external HDD or even another internal HDD with which to back the data up on, then sure give it a shot. Most people don't just have that laying around though.

[Shakadam]

Yeah it's possible. I don't know about any risks but I've done it myself using Seagate Disc Wizard (this was on a Win 7 machine) and didn't encounter any problems.

[Lathais]

Yeah it's possible. I don't know about any risks but I've done it myself using Seagate Disc Wizard (this was on a Win 7 machine) and didn't encounter any problems.

Something like 95-99% of the time it goes of without a hitch. It really is safer than I make it sound. The issue is, when you do have a problem it is catastrophic. The data is just gone and not really recoverable.