Every time I've installed Windows 10 via bootable USB I end up with a volume on the left side of my C: drive which I am able to delete, however, it remains as unallocated space which can't be merged with the C: drive. Thus I lose ~10 GB.
This volume is left over from the install as it is used for the installation files so it can be safely deleted and I am still able to reboot. But no matter what I do, it ends up to the left of the partition where I installed Windows.
I've created the bootable USB using the Windows media creator tool. During the install wizard where I select the destination partition I simply select my 2TB SSD (GPT) and everything else is done automatically.
I've tried using diskpart at install to manually configure the partitions to see if I can change the order but I end up with an error message that the GPT partitions are not in the recommended order.
I tried using the AOMEI disk partition manager tool but that's not as free as I kept seeing people say it was in other posts. Preferably I'd like to know how to do this without having to rely on a third-party tool right after a fresh install. I can't fathom that this is normal or expected, to lose a chunk of disk space, so I must be doing something wrong here??
Best Answer
No need for 3rd party tools (some are even not recommended at all), the Windows installer can manage partitions.
So simply delete the ones you don't want/need (actually all of them would be a nice idea since you aren't dual-booting therefore there's nothing you need to keep of the ESP and the ESP will be automatically created also if installing in any drive without it).
It's this simple.