Can one merge Drive C: and D: if D: contains all programs?

Rene

On 2021-09-19 11:25 a.m., Rene Lamontagne wrote:
> Can one merge Drive C: and D: if D: contains all programs?
>
> Rene

Forgot to mention both C: and D: are both on the same NVMe D: follows C:

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:
> On 2021-09-19 11:25 a.m., Rene Lamontagne wrote:
>> Can one merge Drive C: and D: if D: contains all programs?
>>
>> Rene
>
> Forgot to mention both C: and D: are both on the same NVMe D: follows C:
>
> Rene
>

Would there be a bunch of " D:\ " references in the Registry
because of this ?

Does the OS know what you've done in a sense, or was this
achieved with a transparent file system trick ?

You could try Robocopy for the basic copy, but I've never done
any work like that in a TrustedInstaller owned area.

A disk partition management tool probably has the
requisite "Merge" command. But the results of using
commercial tools are not always good. One tool I was
silly enough to buy, almost nothing works properly
in there. Any "capability" in the tool, which instead
harnesses a capability the OS already has, that... works.

https://i.postimg.cc/9MqTzpDK/merge.gif

There are also freebies, and with freebies usually
the resulting menu has a pretty limited feature set.

https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html

"CNet:

Partition Master Free can Resize, Move, Merge, Migrate,
and Copy disks or partitions; convert to local,
change label, defragment, check and explore partition
and much more."

Only time will tell, whether such a function is
given away for free.

Paul

On 2021-09-19 3:47 p.m., Paul wrote:
> Rene Lamontagne wrote:
>> On 2021-09-19 11:25 a.m., Rene Lamontagne wrote:
>>> Can one merge Drive C: and D: if D: contains all programs?
>>>
>>> Rene
>>
>> Forgot to mention both C: and D: are both on the same NVMe D: follows C:
>>
>> Rene
>>
>
> Would there be a bunch of " D:\ " references in the Registry
> because of this ?
>
> Does the OS know what you've done in a sense, or was this
> achieved with a transparent file system trick ?
>
> You could try Robocopy for the basic copy, but I've never done
> any work like that in a TrustedInstaller owned area.
>
> A disk partition management tool probably has the
> requisite "Merge" command. But the results of using
> commercial tools are not always good. One tool I was
> silly enough to buy, almost nothing works properly
> in there. Any "capability" in the tool, which instead
> harnesses a capability the OS already has, that... works.
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/9MqTzpDK/merge.gif
>
> There are also freebies, and with freebies usually
> the resulting menu has a pretty limited feature set.
>
> https://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/epm-free.html
>
>    "CNet:
>
>     Partition Master Free can Resize, Move, Merge, Migrate,
>     and Copy disks or partitions; convert to local,
>     change label, defragment, check and explore partition
>     and much more."
>
> Only time will tell, whether such a function is
> given away for free.
>
>    Paul

I am sure that Mini tool partition Wizard will do the actual merge, but
also feel it will break all my programs, if I should be dumb enough to
try this without first having full backups of C: and D: using Macrium
reflect.
All the methods I find on the web seem to want to point to the
importance of doing backups of data on D:. But data is a far cry from
installed programs.
I gotta think about this some more before I try it, The water may be
quite deep at that end. :-)

Rene

Pretty much guaranteed to destroy things.

philo wrote:
> Pretty much guaranteed to destroy things.

It's true. This has happened with Merge before.

It's more likely to succeed, if the folder
structures being merged, have absolutely no
collisions. Like if one drive was D:\test and
that was all, and the C:\ it was destined for,
had no C:\test folder at all.

In the old days, some of these failures could be
traced to the user not running a CHKDSK before
running the command. Latent faults aren't quite
the issue they once were, because there is supposed
to be some file system checking going on in the
background.

I've never run a Merge -- a scaredy cat I guess :-)

If there were more positive words about the outcome
of Merge, I wouldn't feel that way.

Paul

On 2021-09-19 6:45 p.m., Paul wrote:
> philo wrote:
>> Pretty much guaranteed to destroy things.
>
> It's true. This has happened with Merge before.
>
> It's more likely to succeed, if the folder
> structures being merged, have absolutely no
> collisions. Like if one drive was D:\test and
> that was all, and the C:\ it was destined for,
> had no C:\test folder at all.
>
> In the old days, some of these failures could be
> traced to the user not running a CHKDSK before
> running the command. Latent faults aren't quite
> the issue they once were, because there is supposed
> to be some file system checking going on in the
> background.
>
> I've never run a Merge -- a scaredy cat I guess :-)
>
> If there were more positive words about the outcome
> of Merge, I wouldn't feel that way.
>
>     Paul

Nuts, didn't work, insisted that the partition I chose was in use Well
Duh, it was in use how else could I run the Minitool program.

Gave up, bad idea anyway.

Rene

Rene Lamontagne wrote:

>
> Nuts, didn't work, insisted that the partition I chose was in use Well
> Duh, it was in use how else could I run the Minitool program.
>
> Gave up, bad idea anyway.
>
> Rene

How did you convince your setup, to put the Program Files on
the other partition ?

Was it done in such a way, that a symlink hides the details
so the OS doesn't know what happened ?

Or did you use an interface option somewhere to request that
configuration ?

Paul

On 2021-09-19 7:11 p.m., Paul wrote:
> Rene Lamontagne wrote:
>
>>
>> Nuts, didn't work, insisted  that the partition I chose was in use
>> Well Duh, it was in use how else could I run the Minitool program.
>>
>> Gave up, bad idea anyway.
>>
>> Rene
>
> How did you convince your setup, to put the Program Files on
> the other partition ?
>
> Was it done in such a way, that a symlink hides the details
> so the OS doesn't know what happened ?
>
> Or did you use an interface option somewhere to request that
> configuration ?
>
>    Paul

Only thing I did was choose D and hit apply, then it wanted a folder
name and then choose partition, that's where things went sour.

Rene

Paul wrote:

> But the results of using
> commercial tools are not always good. One tool I was
> silly enough to buy, almost nothing works properly
> in there. Any "capability" in the tool, which instead
> harnesses a capability the OS already has, that... works.
>
> https://i.postimg.cc/9MqTzpDK/merge.gif

What a crappy dialogue ... by definition it requires you to select two
volumes, but it's so small that you can only see one at a time.

Andy Burns wrote:
> Paul wrote:
>
>> But the results of using
>> commercial tools are not always good. One tool I was
>> silly enough to buy, almost nothing works properly
>> in there. Any "capability" in the tool, which instead
>> harnesses a capability the OS already has, that... works.
>>
>> https://i.postimg.cc/9MqTzpDK/merge.gif
>
> What a crappy dialogue ... by definition it requires you to select two
> volumes, but it's so small that you can only see one at a time.

Sorry, that was an edit on my part.

I removed some local irrelevant info.

It wasn't really an attempt to show all the features,
but yes, the dialog starts by making you select the
master partition first. You can't specify both at
the same time. They want you to "commit" to one
choice, before making the second choice. Select the
"Master" first, then select the "thing to Merge Over"
second.

If I had not edited the picture, there would be
fourteen partitions listed in the window.

Paul

On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 20:11:46, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote (my
responses usually follow points raised):
>Rene Lamontagne wrote:
>
>> Nuts, didn't work, insisted that the partition I chose was in use
>>Well Duh, it was in use how else could I run the Minitool program.
>> Gave up, bad idea anyway.
>> Rene
>
>How did you convince your setup, to put the Program Files on
>the other partition ?
>
>Was it done in such a way, that a symlink hides the details
>so the OS doesn't know what happened ?
>
>Or did you use an interface option somewhere to request that
>configuration ?
>
> Paul

Or did you manually change the install location from C: to D: every time
you installed something?
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

Anything you add for security will slow the computer but it shouldn't be
significant or prolonged. Security software is to protect the computer, not
the primary use of the computer.
- VanguardLH in alt.windows7.general, 2018-1-28

On 2021-09-20 6:50 a.m., Paul wrote:
> Andy Burns wrote:
>> Paul wrote:
>>
>>> But the results of using
>>> commercial tools are not always good. One tool I was
>>> silly enough to buy, almost nothing works properly
>>> in there. Any "capability" in the tool, which instead
>>> harnesses a capability the OS already has, that... works.
>>>
>>> https://i.postimg.cc/9MqTzpDK/merge.gif
>>
>> What a crappy dialogue ... by definition it requires you to select two
>> volumes, but it's so small that you can only see one at a time.
>
> Sorry, that was an edit on my part.
>
> I removed some local irrelevant info.
>
> It wasn't really an attempt to show all the features,
> but yes, the dialog starts by making you select the
> master partition first. You can't specify both at
> the same time. They want you to "commit" to one
> choice, before making the second choice. Select the
> "Master" first, then select the "thing to Merge Over"
> second.
>
> If I had not edited the picture, there would be
> fourteen partitions listed in the window.
>
>    Paul

Decided to try again today, reason I could not choose the proper drives
is that they had to be adjacent, Mine had a 527 MB windows created file
in between so I deleted it, then I was able to choose the proper drives.

The procees could not comlete because it needed a restart, so did that
and it went into text mode for about 10 minutes then I hit enter when
it was finished.

Well, that was the sad end to Windows, it went into recovery repair
mode but could not repair due to missing or unsigned files, tried all
the offered options but nothing worked. Windows was FUBAR .So I
reinstalled yesterdays Macrium backup For both C: and D: and am back on
the road again.

It was an interesting experiment but I didn't have much hope for a
positive ending anyway.

Rene

On 2021-09-20 10:26 a.m., J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Sep 2021 at 20:11:46, Paul <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote (my
> responses usually follow points raised):
>> Rene Lamontagne wrote:
>>
>>>  Nuts, didn't work, insisted  that the partition I chose was in use
>>> Well  Duh, it was in use how else could I run the Minitool program.
>>>  Gave up, bad idea anyway.
>>>  Rene
>>
>> How did you convince your setup, to put the Program Files on
>> the other partition ?
>>
>> Was it done in such a way, that a symlink hides the details
>> so the OS doesn't know what happened ?
>>
>> Or did you use an interface option somewhere to request that
>> configuration ?
>>
>>   Paul
>
> Or did you manually change the install location from C: to D: every time
> you installed something?

Yes, I always did a manual change but decided to try a merge and
eliminate that step as there really wasn't much point anyway, just
longtime habit.

Rene