Is it possible (and how) to combine two partitions on the HDD separated by empty space into one partition?

Question

Hard disks

If there is a desire or need to continue to operate a hard drive that has a single surface damage somewhere in the middle, then the standard way is to create two partitions - before and after the defect, with some warranty clearance. I still did this, but the very presence of two sections was annoying. I looked for what can be done to merge them - it turned out that the option to merge partitions (even separated by free space) is in the Paragon HDM partition manager. I decided to try it, especially since Paragon's HDM v.15 is available on almost any repair and recovery LiveDVD/LiveUSB.
I tried it, and it turned out that the method from Paragon is not ideal, there is one roughness there: the merged partition shows the same size in the OS as it would be without cutting. Here's how it was for me: the original terabyte HDD shows 931 GB in Windows, I cut out 40 GB and expected the combined partition to show 891 GB. But no, it showed all the same 931 GB, i.e. the cut 40 GB also added on. It turns out that without re-checking by Victoria, such a disk cannot be distinguished from a fully functional one, and this is inconvenient.
Tell me a way (if any) to merge the sections so that the total volume obtained is shown correctly, and the seam between the combined parts is not noticeable when using.

Answer 1

There is one option - simple, native (without third-party software), but not without flaws.
Leave two partitions, but in disk management, remove the letter from the second partition and mount it to some folder on the first partition. The first disadvantage is that the partition size will be displayed the same as the first partition. The second minus is that the space of the second section will belong to one specific folder (but it is simple and done in half a minute).
The second minus can be leveled by creating a bunch of folders on the second partition and creating symbolic links to these folders on the first partition (but also complicating the entire structure).

Answer 2

on Windows, in my opinion, no... on linux, you could use lvm...