Can I enlarge my Windows 7 partition?

My hard drive is divided into a primary partition and an extended partition sub-divided into two partitions. Windows 7 is installed in the first, primary partition (C: drive). Most of the software I run is installed in the first partition of the extended drive (D: drive). At the moment there is nothing installed in the second partition of the extended drive. As I do upgrades to Windows 7 I am running out of space in the C: drive where it is installed. Can I use a tool like Parted Magic to move the extended drive to the empty partition thus creating empty space between it and the C: (primary drive), and then enlarge my C: drive to use the space I've created? Or will I cream my installation?

In order to increase the partition size, there must be free space available.
To create free space, you may be able to shrink the partition adjacent to the one you wish to increase. Easeus Partition Master may helps.

So now that you can see it, the plan would be to shrink the 39.91 primary partition, move the extended drive to the right, expand the 34 GB C: drive. My question is, will windows 7 still boot after moving all of this around?

lcharles said:

So now that you can see it, the plan would be to shrink the 39.91 primary partition, move the extended drive to the right, expand the 34 GB C: drive. My question is, will windows 7 still boot after moving all of this around?

Yes. It will still work fine. No effect on Windows boot integrity.

Please use MiniTool Partition Wizard to accomplish the (a) shrink of the 39.91 partition, (b) move the two logical partitions to the right (which will effectively move the complete extended partition to the right, and (c) expand the 34GB C partition.

Note that since you're going to be manipulating the size/location of C, this will have to be completed by Partition Wizard while not running under Windows. So you start the operation under Windows (i.e. push the "apply" button), and it will do as much as preparatory work as it can. But then it will advise you it needs to reboot to complete the operation, and you will give it the OK. At reboot time Partition Wizard will kick in to complete the remainder of what has to be done (including the growth of C). When finished it will return to the Windows boot process.

When you finally get back to the Windows desktop everything will have been completed, and all partition adjustments will be done exactly as you want.

It does appear there are more partitions than necessary.
A common problem with multiple partitions is that one becomes too small while others have space to spare. Even experts have this problem. Unless dual booting I would find it hard to justify more than 2 user partitions, one for the OS and applications and another for data. This does not include system created partitions. Folders are better for organizational purposes as their sizes vary dynamically according to need.

Before resizing partitions it is a good idea to have a full backup of everything on the drive. Usually things go smoothly and nothing is lost. But sometimes things go wrong and the results of that are unpredictable.