So, I received and installed a new Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD on a Gigabyte GA-H170M-D3H-GSM mainboard, which currently has a Samsung 850 EVO 500GB SSD, containing system (C:), data (D:), and G4D (E:) partitions. Formatted, and copied all data from the old data partition to the new drive. The original drive layout:
500GB:
| C: System (Primary) | Recovery (Primary) | D: Data (Logical) | E: G4D (Logical) |
The old data partition is now drive L:, to allow the new data drive to be D:. The new layout:
500GB
| C: System (Primary) | Recovery (Primary) | L: Data (Logical) | E: G4D (Logical) |
1TB
| D: Data (Primary) |
The intention is to delete drive L: (old data partition) and to use that space to increase the size of both the C: and E: drives. At the same time, why not change the E: drive from Logical to Primary? So the target layout:
500GB
| C: System (Primary) | Recovery (Primary) | E: G4D (Primary) |
1TB
| D: Data (Primary) |
To delete the L: drive is pretty easy. But the real question here is: what tool to use to extend the C: system partition, which will also involve moving the Recovery partition towards the end of the drive? An additional question would be: should the E: partition be converted from Logical to Primary?
The recommended tool will likely be a Linux tool (GParted?), which could be installed in the E: G4D partition--but since that partition will also be modified (extended), it would likely be safer to run the tool from a USB stick, yes?
Thanks for any assistance.