How to Merge Partitions on USB Drive in Windows 10/11 [2022 New Solutions] - Qiling
Do you want to merge partitions on USB drive for more efficient management? Are you looking for a way to merge partitions effectively on USB? If your answer is yes, you have come to the right place. This article will detail three effective ways to help you merge partitions on USB. But, first, let's learn more about USB partitions.
Do USB Drives Have Partitions
Yes. In fact, you don't need to partition a new USB drive if you just use it to store and move files. However, you may need to partition your USB drive when you need to:
- Create bootable USB drives
- Encrypt a part of your USB flash drive
- Change the file system types of USB flash drives
- Organize the storage volume of a USB flash drive
You may partition your USB drive based on the reason above. However, what should you do if you don't need many partitions anymore? The answer is to merge partitions.
You can merge partitions on USB drives to get more free usable storage and efficient management of your partitions since too many partitions on your USB may make it difficult to find a specific file. Besides, each partition might be too small to store any large file if your USB has two partitions or more. However, how do we merge partitions on a USB drive? Don't worry. You can find the answer in the next part.
How Do I Merge Partitions on USB Drive
This section describes how to use Windows built-in tools and a third-party tool to help you merge partitions on USB, including the following three methods:
Way 1. Merge Partitions on USB Drive with Qiling Partition Master [Without Data Loss]
Way 2. Merge Partitions on USB Drive with Disk Management [With Data Loss]
Way 3. Merge Partitions on USB Drive with Diskpart [With Data Loss]
If you don't know which way to choose, there is a table to help you learn about the three ways. You can see clearly from the table that Qiling Partition Master is easy to use with low operation difficulty.
| Features | Qiling Partition Master | Disk Management | Diskpart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data Security | Safe | Relatively safe | Apt to suffer data loss |
| Operation Difficulty | Easy | Medium | Difficult |
| Suitable user | All users | All users | Users with computer knowledge |
| Data Loss | No | Yes | Yes |
You may suffer from data loss since Disk Management and Diskpart requires you to delete a partition before merging two partitions, so please back up your data or choose Qiling Partition Master Free to merge your USB partitions without data loss.
Now, let's try the easiest way to merge partitions on a USB drive first.
Way 1. Merge Partitions on USB Drive with Qiling Partition Master [Without Data Loss]
As a disk management utility in Windows, Qiling Partition Master supports almost every version of Windows, including Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10 and Windows 11. Moreover, it is suitable for all users to merge partitions on a USB drive since it is easy to use with a clear interface. You follow its prompts, and then you can merge partitions on the USB drive efficiently with simple clicks.
Now, download Qiling Partition Master and follow the steps below to learn to merge partitions on your USB drive.
Step 1: Select the target partition
Right-click on the partition which you want to add space to and keep, and select "Merge".
Step 2: Select a neighbor partition to merge
Select one partition next to the former selected partition to merge.
Step 3: Execute operation to merge partitions
1. Click the "Proceed" button to merge the partition.
2. The program will merge space and add files from the second partition to the first partition.
After this process, you merge your partitions on your USB drive. However, does Qiling Partition Master have any other useful features as a professional disk management tool in Windows? The answer is undoubted yes.
Features of Qiling Partition Master:
- Format USB to boot
- Hide or unhide partitions on USB drives
- Delete or create partitions on USB drives
- Merge partitions to solve the "C drive full" issue
Hence, download it to try if you want to manage your disk, USB, or other external hard drives well.
Way 2. Merge Partitions on USB Drive with Disk Management [With Data Loss]
What is Disk Management? It is a Windows built-in disk utility. It also allows you to merge partitions on a USB, but there is something you need to know in advance.
- Notice:
-
1. Disk Management can only work on your USB if your operating system is after Windows 10 1803.
2. If you have two or more partitions, you will need to delete all partitions one by one and create a new one.
Now, follow these steps to merge partitions on a USB drive with Disk Management.
Step 1. Search "Create and format hard disk partitions" to launch Disk Management.
Step 2. Right-click the partition that you want to merge with the other partition and select the "Delete Volume" option.
Step 3. Confirm your deletion, and then right-click on the partition you want to merge. Choose the "Extend Volume."
Step 4. You can finish merging the targeted partitions following the "Extend Volume Wizard."
Sometimes, you may see that the Extend Volume grayed out. This is because your version is older than Windows 10 1803, or the USB doesn't have enough unallocated space. Under this circumstance, you can choose Qiling Partition Master.
Or, if you are a computing professional, you can use Diskpart commands to merge partitions on a USB drive.
Way 3. Merge Partitions on USB Drive with Diskpart [With Data Loss]
Diskpart is also a good way to manage your disk partition with commands. However, you need to be extremely careful when you type the commands. If you type a worry letter or number, you will easily suffer data loss.
Now, follow these steps to try Diskpart commands.
Step 1. Click the search icon and type: Command Prompt
Step 2. Then hit the "Enter" key each time you type a command below:
- diskpart
- list disk
- select disk 1
- list partition
- select partition 1
- delete partition
Please replace "1" with the correct number, or you may suffer data loss. Be careful when you type the commands.
Step 3. Finally, type the command to merge the partition with the unallocated space: extend
Sometimes, you may receive error messages like Diskpart failed to extend the volume. You can try to convert FAT32 to NTFS to help with this issue or use Qiling Partition Master to avoid this error.
Conclusion
This article gives three methods to help merge partitions on a USB drive and compares the three methods in detail. Besides, this article guides you on how to perform merging partitions step-by-step. Obviously, Qiling Partition Master is a time-saving way and can merge, resize, delete, create, and extend partitions efficiently. If you get other further questions, the next part may enlighten you.
FAQs About How to Merge Partitions on USB Drive
This paragraph shows three questions and answers. If you are interested or want to learn more, continue to read.
1. Can you delete a partition on the USB drive?
Yes, you can. Use the following command, and you can delete a partition on the USB drive:
- list disk
- select disk 1
- list partition
- select partition 1
- delete partition
Remember to replace 1 with the correct number.
2. How do I merge unallocated space on a USB?
If your system is Windows 10 1803 and later versions, you can use Disk Management to merge unallocated space on USB. If your version is older than Windows 10 1083, you can try Qiling Partition Master to help.
3. How do I fix a USB drive with multiple partitions?
You can merge or delete extra partitions after backing up your data when you have two or more partitions on your USB drive.
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