Unable to utilize 2nd Hard Drive ("D" Drive)

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@MajorTom007  If the D drive is a separate physical disk, then you can’t delete the D drive and extend the C drive into that space. You need to use the D drive as a separate physical drive. If you’re seeing that error when you try to copy content there, it’s because a Windows thinks you’re trying to copy onto C for some reason. Try just reformatting the D drive as NTFS (right-click it and select Format, and keep Quick Format checked), then actually browse into the empty D drive and try to paste content there.

Thank you for the reply.  I run into the same error after the reformat.  To make sure I understand you, I click to open D in its own window and drop items directly into the folder.  If it provides insight, I have the Disk Management settings below.  

@MajorTom007  The Disk Management screenshot looks good, although the D drive shows as being encrypted by BitLocker. Did you do that deliberately? Either way, yes you’d just open the D drive from the This PC window in your original screenshot and you should be able to create folders, copy/move data there, etc. — just as if it was an external hard drive. It should be completely straightforward.

@MajorTom007  In addition to the above, you claim that the D drive shows up as empty even after you put 50 GB of data onto it, but that claim is contradicted by your own screenshot, which shows D having 1.76 TB free out of 1.81 TB total capacity. 1.81 TB minus 1.76 TB free works out to 0.05 TB in use. 0.05 TB is otherwise known as....50 GB.

I wish it were so.  While I am able to create new files in the D drive, the space it takes up is based on the alloction from the C drive.  The D Drive still shows as empty even though I've placed a 50 GB folder in it.  Is is as though I dropped this file in the C Drive, not the D Drive.  I am only able to fill up to 165 GB of D Drive as that is what is free in C Drive, even though D is a 2TB drive.  As for Bitlocker, this is the default setting of the PC.  It did this on its own. 

@MajorTom007  What EXACT steps are you performing that is triggering that error message? Be specific with each item you select, each mouse click, etc. I really don’t understand how you’re having trouble here. And BitLocker does not simply auto-enable EVER on non-OS partitions. Even on OS partitions it only happens if the system vendor staged it, which Dell does. But for non-OS partitions, you’d have to choose to enable it because you’d have to set a password and back up a Recovery Key. If you didn’t do either of those things, then you should not be storing any data on that drive at the moment, because if you don’t know how that drive is currently being unlocked, then you won’t know how to unlock that drive in order to access your data if whatever unlock method you’re currently using suddenly becomes unavailable. Do not EVER store data on a drive protected with BitLocker if you don’t at least have the Recovery Key backed up somewhere you would be able to access even if your PC was down. The same advice goes for your Windows partition, which I see is also using BitLocker. That partition would have its own Recovery Key, and if you don’t have that backed up, then drop whatever else you’re doing and back it up, or else disable BitLocker if you prefer. I’ve seen many threads here from people who saw a Recovery Key prompt at boot one day and didn’t have it. Those people ended up with their data effectively gone.

But once you’ve backed up the Recovery Keys for both partitions or disabled BitLocker, please post the exact steps you’re following to trigger that error.

@MajorTom007  Neither your latest reply nor your new screenshot amounts to a detailed, step-by-step list of actions you are taking to reproduce that error.  You've just stated once again that you can't add more data to your D drive than the amount of free space on your C drive.  Continuing to say the same thing is not going to help identify the problem.  You obviously managed to create a folder on D and put 50 GB worth of data onto it, so I don't understand why you are unable to right-click whatever other data you want to copy/move onto D, select Copy/Cut there, then browse into your D drive, right-click some empty white space in that folder window, select Paste, and watch the copy/move operation complete.  But the reason I can't understand why you're unable to do that is because you still haven't explained in exact, step-by-step fashion what exactly you're doing.

As for BitLocker, a simple Google search will show you how to back up Recovery Keys or disable BitLocker on either or both of the drives where it is currently enabled.  But here again, I don't understand how just saying, "That's how the system is" seems reasonable to you.  What you are currently doing is the digital equivalent of seeing an open vault and deciding to move your possessions into it, even though you don't know the combination to the vault and therefore would have no way to open it and regain access to those possessions if the vault door were ever closed.  Hopefully you can appreciate why that is not a sensible way to store your data.

In any case, if you post EXACTLY what you are doing that is triggering the error, literally mouse click to mouse click, I will try to help identify the problem.  Otherwise, continuing to state the unexpected RESULT of your actions without stating the actions that led up to it doesn't help diagnose the cause of the unexpected result.

Please allow me to clarify.  After taking your advice, I created a new folder in D Drive and I added 50 GB of data into the file.  Even though it is a 2 TB drive, I am unable to add anything to Drive D larger than the 165GB shown as free in Drive C. After adding the 50 GB file to Drive D, I attempted to add a file that was 443 GB.  That is when I received the error.

Regarding Bitlocker, I did not initiate this.  I received this PC from the Dell Authorized rep this way.  When I re-initiated Drive D a Simple Volume, Bitlocker appeared as you see it in the computer management screen.  I have located my Bitlocker key, but I do not have the choice to switch it on or off after deleting the volume and reformatting the drive.

@jphughan  I appreciate the fact that you do not understand the issue with my PC.  I do not either.  That is why I am here.  I'm not sure want additional detail I could provide you.

1.  After reformatting drive D, I create a new empty folder in said Drive D.  Drive D shows as empty as depicted.

2.  I currently have a file on my Desktop (on Drive C) that is 443 GB.  If I drag this file to Drive D or to the "New Folder" in Drive D, the error I have attached previously appears showing that I only 165 GB of free space.  The error is showing the free space and total space of my C drive. If I choose to CUT and PASTE the file from Drive C to DRIVE D I receive the same error. As described, the error does not appear for files less than 165 GB.

Its as simple as that, jphug.  I'm not sure what additional detail I could provide.  I'm not trying to anger, excite, or otherwise waste your time.  I am sorry if you feel so.

Regarding Bitlocker, I purchased the PC reconfigured in April and it would have come from the vendor with Bitlocker activated.  I did not activate this feature.  As I advised you above, I located the Bitlocker key, so please put your mind at ease.  My data is safe  .

@MajorTom007  Well I’ve worked in IT for over 15 years now, and I’ve seen well more than my fair share of strange issues, but I’ve never encountered what you’re currently seeing, nor can I reproduce it right now even with a similarly large file, similarly free D drive, and similarly occupied C drive. And based on your description of trying to cut and paste a file from your desktop to D and exactly how you’re doing it — those additional bits of info like the data source and exactly how you were attempting to perform the copy/move operation were the sorts of data points I wanted, though — I’m not sure what to tell you. Apart from BitLocker, which would not be a contributing factor to this behavior, you have an entirely ordinary disk setup on your system, nothing fancy like spanned partitions across multiple dynamic disks. The error in your screenshot showing the amount of free space indicates that Windows for some reason believes you’re trying to copy data to somewhere on your C drive, not your D drive, because if Windows thought you were trying to write that data to D, then it wouldn’t be complaining about insufficient space and certainly wouldn’t be displaying the amount of free space on your C drive rather than your D drive. But based on the location of the source file and you saying that this occurs even if you choose Cut on the source file and then paste it into the newly created folder on D, I don’t know what’s going on.

Briefly back to BitLocker, if you still have BitLocker enabled on both your C and D drives, you should have TWO Recovery Keys backed up, not just “the BitLocker key”. And just as a sanity check, those keys should each be 48 digits long. I’ve seen people mistakenly back up the BitLocker protector ID of their Recovery Key, which is an alphanumeric string and entirely useless for unlocking a BitLocker partition.

Thank you for your help.

Whether or not this is related to the issue, I only have 1 (ONE) Bitlocker Key available to me.  My PC will not view D Drive independently of C Drive.

@MajorTom007  Try opening an elevated Command Prompt (i.e. run as administrator) and entering the following:

manage-bde -protectors -get 

Do not post the results here, but you should have a protector type called Numerical Password, and the "Password" under that should be a 48-digit string.  If you see that, then that's your Recovery Key.  If you don't see that, then I'm not sure how you've got BitLocker enabled on your D drive, although I would suggest that you turn it off entirely on your D drive in that case as having encryption that you don't know how to unlock yourself is just a liability.  Right now I suspect your D drive is set up for auto-unlock within your Windows environment (you'd see that as an "External Key" protector in the output of the command I posted above), but if your Windows environment were ever to have a problem or you even disabled BitLocker on your Windows partition, then that auto-unlock would cease to function.  And at that point, if you didn't have a password or Recovery Key to unlock your D partition directly, then its data would be inaccessible to you.  A Recovery Key for your C partition will not auto-unlock your D partition.

@MajorTom007  Well for some reason the manage-bde command first posted with an emoji at the end and now doesn't seem to be posting correctly even after putting it in a code block, which is supposed to disable all auto-formatting.  After the -get you're supposed to enter your drive, which would be a "D" followed by a colon.