Solved How do I delete the free space to make it unallocated space

Disk Partition Problem - not able to reclaim free space

I know that the above thread title has already been addressed in the past but none of them have solved my problem till now.
I have already read following threads-

http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/109301-can-t-delete-free-space-partition.htmlhttp://www.sevenforums.com/hardware-devices/109301-can-t-delete-free-space-partition.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-discussion/183502-can-t-delete-free-space-disk-management.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/performa...-management-can-t-delete-14gb-free-space.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/general-...sk-management-although-free-space-exists.html

The problem is that the free space in the screenshot below cannot be deleted to make an unallocated space nor can it be used to create a new volume. Also the c: & d: drives are not able to extend from the free space available thus rendering those 92.89 GB useless.

I have also tried the help in the second link given above; i.e by using the partition wizard (i used a bootable usb for the same) i tried to convert the free space to primary partition, but that option(convert to primary) too was greyed out in the partition wizard when i tried to do so. The other option to resize the partition was also greyed out in the same partition wizard.

I also executed the chkdsk /f in an elevated command window as suggested in the first link. But no error was encountered and my laptop is working fine. I just want to recover that free space.

PN1: Previously I had ubuntu(root) installed on the partition which now is the free space of 92.89 GB. As I no longer required ubuntu i removed it as per the instructions in the given video, which i was successful in doing.


But the only problem is that the guy in the video easily deletes the free space converting it to unallocated(Actually he deletes two partitions see video at 3:27; one is of the root & the other might be the home folder, to get one free space which inturn gets converted to unallocated space after deleting). And the same is not happening in my case.

PN2: I too had two partitions for ubuntu; one for the /root & the other for the home folder. The /root is the now free space in the screen shot below & the home folder was successfully deleted and merged in the d: drive

I hope that i have been clear in explaining my problem.
Thanks in advance.

Hello apple byte and welcome to Seven Forums.

If I missed this in your post, I apologize. But what happens if you assign a drive letter to the free space? Can you then delete and use disk management or partition wizard to extend the C partition?

Thanks very much for your reply to my first post.

I cant assign a drive letter as i am unable to create a new simple volume out of it. As you can see in one of the screen shots it gives me error while trying to create a new simple volume

I guess I'm a little confused. Wouldn't be the first time.

In your first screenshot (immediately under the YouTube video) it appears that the "Change Drive Letter and Paths" option is available. Are you not able to click on that and add a drive letter? (Option One, Step 6)

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows.html

The selected drive in the first screenshot just below the youtube video is the c:/ drive and not the free space. Hence the change the drive letter option is visible to you. And i am talking about the free space( the 92.89 GB block which i am trying to reclaim ) of which i am unable to create a new volume, or delete it or merge it with either c: or d: drive.

Refer to the second and the third screenshot in which the free space is selected and i am trying to create a new volume out of it but shows me an error in the third screenshot.

Also please do tell me if i am not making myself clear as i am new to forum writing and hence have no experience in placing the problem explicitly.

Sorry for my confusion. My fault, not yours. I've asked one of the Forum experts to take a look at this. Hopefully he'll respond.

I'm not sure why you are not able to create a new Logical sub-partition in the Extended partition's Free Space. Remember that it is a container shown there within the green box, designed to hold as many Logical sub-partitions as you want. But Free Space may not be deleted without deleting the whole Extended partition which also contains your D drive.

What I would do is use the Partition Wizard feature to Extend partition easily with Partition Wizard - video help. You may have been trying to do this from the free space but you'd instead want to do it from C or D. I would extend C if I were you so that it doesn't eventually become cramped which you never want on an OS partition. But you can also Extend D into the Free Space if you'd prefer, or you can split the space between both.

If you absolutely want a new partition there, then instead use Partition Wizard to Resize Partition - Video Help. Drag the left border of the Free Space to the right up against the D volume which should give you unallocated space that might better create a New partition.

I would use the Partition Wizard boot disk which never fails, since all others except Disk Mgmt can fail with data loss. But you should always have your data and a System Image backed up against drive failure anyway.

I frankly don't know why you can't create a new Logical partition there, but we had a lot of problems with the older version of GRUB requiring its partition or the entire HD to be wiped to overcome its inteference with Win7, the boot sector and partition table.

Thank you marsmimar and gregrocker very much.

I was successfully able to extend the c:/ drive from the free space using partition wizard(actually windows showed this as free space and partition wizard showed it as unallocated).

I am attaching here the result of your help

Once again thank you very much for your valuable inputs to my thread.

Glad to hear it.

PW views Unallocated and Free Space interchangeably for resizing or extending purposes, so it's often the better tool to use since Disk Mgmt segregates them until you delete the free Space (if you can).

The Extend function allows borrowing to/from any partition type no matter whether it is contiguous or not.

Yes partition wizard is very simple and easy to use. At first i had a doubt whether this will work or not (hence i had a system image on an external HD before running through the procedure) but the actual process took less than 15 seconds to complete and that too without any data loss or any errors while booting windows. Very good piece of software.

And thanks for the above information.

We've used Partition Wizard to help here tens of thousands of times without a single failure, as long as the boot disk is used. So it's no longer guesswork.

Glad to hear things worked out for you, apple byte. Greg (gregrocker) is one of the most knowledgeable people on this Forum. He's our go-to guy when it comes to fixing hard drive and/or operating system issues.

Yes definitely.

This forum is of great help to me not just in solving my problems. But also to know what different kind of problems may arise and how to handle them.

Really good work by all of you.