How do you Merge 2 Hard Drives in WinXP?

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Boombotz

Member
Dec 31, 2001
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I'm running WinXP pro. I have two seperate physical 80GB drives that I would like to combine ending up showing as one 160GB drive. How would I do this? Please help!
Thanks!
 
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nemo160

Senior member
Jul 16, 2001
339
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what you need is a raid controller card
pick up an ide raid pci card, back up all your data, and set them up as a raid 0 array
make sure to install the raid drivers while reinstalling windows...(when it says "press f6 if you need to install a 3rd poarty scsi/raid driver")
works nicely and may even get you a nice performance boost
as far as i know any software type solution won't perform well if it even exists
 
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Boombotz

Member
Dec 31, 2001
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Hmm, I Know about raid...But, I thought it would be possible to merge 2 non-os drives. eg. I have my C: but want my D: and E: to be just D:
Even if it takes a raid card to accomplish this, I would do it.
 
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bozo1

Diamond Member
May 21, 2001
6,364
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Read this article.

Basically, all you have to do is convert your D: and E: to Dynamic Disks. After that, you can create a spanned volume or a striped volume. (you will need to backup and restore your data if any as I believe this will be destructive) The spanned or striped volume will show up as one drive letter. With a spanned volume, once the first disk fills, it starts writing to the 2nd. With a striped volume, data is written to both disks.
 
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Boombotz

Member
Dec 31, 2001
108
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Quote from link - "vol. is created from free disk space that is linked together from multiple disks. You can extend a spanned volume onto a maximum of 32 disks. A spanned volume cannot be mirrored and is not fault-tolerant. "

Exactly what I am tring to do...I have Dynamic disks, The spanning part In drive management is where I am lost. It seems I can combine unallocated parts of disk, but not allocated parts(the important part) I just want to spann 2 full 80Gb disks.


Err...I feel so close...
 
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Boombotz

Member
Dec 31, 2001
108
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I got this half-way figured out...I have it so 1 of my 80GB Drives is a folder on another drive. I had to make the one drive completely unallocated, Both drives are dynamic and then spanned the full unallocatted disk onto the other...

It just seems to make sense that if you can take 1 drive a split it into 2 partitions, then you can take 2 drives and merge into 1 partition.
 
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networkman

Lifer
Apr 23, 2000
10,436
1
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It just seems to make sense that if you can take 1 drive a split it into 2 partitions, then you can take 2 drives and merge into 1 partition.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple. What others have said before is correct - back up your data, make the conversion and restore. Just bite the bullet and do it - you've already lost days looking for an "easy" way to do what you want - had you started earlier you'd be done already.
rolleye.gif

 
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ScottMac

Moderator<br>Networking<br>Elite member
Mar 19, 2001
5,471
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It's done in the drive manager (control panel|computer management|disk management - in WIN2K).

You have to unpartition both drives, then create the stripe (right-click on the partition and follow the options).

WinXP Pro is similar.

I don't think you can do it in 9x / ME.

Good Luck

Scott


 
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Boombotz

Member
Dec 31, 2001
108
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Alright, Well I finnally got it working....Without losing any data on one of the drives. Between all of your help, I was able to put the puzzle pieces together:)
Thanks all for your help!!!
 
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