Need to expand C drive using W7 utilities no room for add software

[drcwks]

I have an old all in one ASUS PC with Windows 7. I have no idea why the manf partitioned the hard drive as they did. I only have 29 Mb of space left so I can't load Acronis Disk Management software.

I would like to shrink my D drive and then use that space to expand my C drive. Can I do that with W7 tools?


See uploaded pic.
Thanks for your help.
Dean

 

[file3456]

If you right click C drive below, do you have an option to expand?

 

[iko22]

You need to have Unallocated Disk Space to the right of the C: volume, in order to be able Expand the volume.

This means that you cannot immediately Expand the C: volume because the disk space to the right of this volume is occupied by the D: volume. If you shrink the D: volume, then Disk Management will automatically shrink from the right of D:. This means that Shrinking D: is not a solution.

Instead, what you can do is Shrink then Backup D: volume, then Delete D:. Doing this will create the Unallocated Space to the right of C:, which you can then use to Expand C:. Once you have Expanded in this way, you can recreate D: volume, and restore your Backup onto it.

 

[SIW2]

You could use bootable media which contains Partition manager.
17514x64v22.iso

extract the iso to create bootable usb stick using this View attachment Usb7ice.zip

 

[drcwks]

If you right click C drive below, do you have an option to expand?

expand option is grayed out

 

[drcwks]

You need to have Unallocated Disk Space to the right of the C: volume, in order to be able Expand the volume.

This means that you cannot immediately Expand the C: volume because the disk space to the right of this volume is occupied by the D: volume. If you shrink the D: volume, then Disk Management will automatically shrink from the right of D:. This means that Shrinking D: is not a solution.

Instead, what you can do is Shrink then Backup D: volume, then Delete D:. Doing this will create the Unallocated Space to the right of C:, which you can then use to Expand C:. Once you have Expanded in this way, you can recreate D: volume, and restore your Backup onto it.

I was assuming I had system backups on D drive and also possible program files on D drive. Let's say I shrink D drive as much as possible. Then should I save a restore point for D drive? I'm a little mixed up on restore points. I thought restore points restored all partitions on the drive. Or are you saying once I delete D drive and I'm able to expand C drive. Then when I create D drive partition it will remember files I had on that partion.

What about an option to just merge or combine D partition with C partition and just get back to basically one large partition for C drive? Thanks for your help.

 

[drcwks]

You could use bootable media which contains Partition manager.
17514x64v22.iso

extract the iso to create bootable usb stick using this View attachment 412448

Thanks for another solution. I will use that for backup if I'm unable to do this with w7 functions.

 

[iko22]

I was assuming I had system backups on D drive and also possible program files on D drive. Let's say I shrink D drive as much as possible. Then should I save a restore point for D drive? I'm a little mixed up on restore points. I thought restore points restored all partitions on the drive. Or are you saying once I delete D drive and I'm able to expand C drive. Then when I create D drive partition it will remember files I had on that partion.

What about an option to just merge or combine D partition with C partition and just get back to basically one large partition for C drive? Thanks for your help.

Unfortunately there is no MERGE command in Disk Management, so the OS wont allow you to create one large portion for C: that way.

Woh! Hold on! I think you might be confusing 'Restore Points' with 'Restoring your Backup'. That could be an expensive mistake, so I'd advise to forget about 'Restore Points', for the moment.

Follow this:

If you could shrink D: as much as possible, then that would make way for a smaller Backup.

After shrinking D: then Backup that drive using Windows Backup and Restore.

Once you have Backed Up D:, then you are safe to Delete D: using Disk Management.

Then, use Disk Management again to Expand C: into the newly created unallocated space.

And Create a new D: volume using the remaining Unallocated Space.

Use Backup and Restore to Restore the Backup of D: into the new D: volume.

Note:- D: would have to be the same size as the backup or larger for this to work.

 

[drcwks]

Not enough space to do back up or even delete programs on C

Unfortunately there is no MERGE command in Disk Management, so the OS wont allow you to create one large portion for C: that way.

Woh! Hold on! I think you might be confusing 'Restore Points' with 'Restoring your Backup'. That could be an expensive mistake, so I'd advise to forget about 'Restore Points', for the moment.

Follow this:

If you could shrink D: as much as possible, then that would make way for a smaller Backup.

After shrinking D: then Backup that drive using Windows Backup and Restore.

Once you have Backed Up D:, then you are safe to Delete D: using Disk Management.

Then, use Disk Management again to Expand C: into the newly created unallocated space.

And Create a new D: volume using the remaining Unallocated Space.

Use Backup and Restore to Restore the Backup of D: into the new D: volume.

Note:- D: would have to be the same size as the backup or larger for this to work.

I've been trying to free up space on C drive. I was able to copy folder over to backup drive and then delete and shrink D but I cannot do a back up just on D drive with system image. I can't uncheck C and System volumes.
ALso tried to uninstall programs but not enough space on C to even do that. I made a mistake of connecting to internet and windows update took even more space. I was down to Kb on C but did gain a little back.

Now in a catch-22. Not sure what do do. I guess I could go ahead and delete D drive without back up.

I was trying to get into the System Volume folder where I believe the large restore point files are at and wanted to delete them but access denied.

Main reason I'm trying to get this PC going again is I want W7 to use on a scanner. Long story...

Any ideas on how to free up more space on C drive so I can keep deleting programs?

Can I do this with the shell cmd window to uninstall programs or maybe in safe mode?

Thanks in advance. I will upload 4 pics with text.

 

[SIW2]

I was trying to get into the System Volume folder where I believe the large restore point files are at and wanted to delete them but access denied.

open an administrator command prompt and type:
vssadmin delete shadows /all
then press enter

with system image. I can't uncheck C and System volumes

If you are trying to make an image backup of your D partition, you need somewhere to store the backup image.
For Example:
To backup partition D and store the backup image on partition F, open an administrator command prompt and type
WBADMIN START BACKUP -backupTarget:f: -include:d:
then press enter


It seems you only have about 8gb of data on D.
Instead of making an image, you could just copy it into a folder on F.
Command prompt:

[B]xcopy "d:\" "F:\from-D" /cheriky[/B]

then press enter

 

[iko22]

I've been trying to free up space on C drive. I was able to copy folder over to backup drive and then delete and shrink D but I cannot do a back up just on D drive with system image. I can't uncheck C and System volumes.
...

Any ideas on how to free up more space on C drive so I can keep deleting programs?

Can I do this with the shell cmd window to uninstall programs or maybe in safe mode?

Thanks in advance. I will upload 4 pics with text.

If the data on D: is unimportant to you, then you can just go ahead and delete the volume without backing up.

Otherwise, if the data on D: is valuable then you will want to create a backup. To create a backup, follow the instructions :ar: Backup User and System Files .
When you reach step 9 (of that tutorial), unckeck Include a System Image of drives, and uncheck any tick under Data Files. Then, add a tick to the checkbox for drive D:, and everything should be good to go.

If you still wish to free up more space on C:, then use Windows Disk Cleanup utility :ar: Disk Cleanup - Open and Use .

 

[drcwks]

Partition D Drive unable to delete

If the data on D: is unimportant to you, then you can just go ahead and delete the volume without backing up.

Otherwise, if the data on D: is valuable then you will want to create a backup. To create a backup, follow the instructions :ar: Backup User and System Files .
When you reach step 9 (of that tutorial), unckeck Include a System Image of drives, and uncheck any tick under Data Files. Then, add a tick to the checkbox for drive D:, and everything should be good to go.

If you still wish to free up more space on C:, then use Windows Disk Cleanup utility :ar: Disk Cleanup - Open and Use .

I decided to just delete D drive partition but just found out I guess since there shows system info the DELETE function is grayed out. I have no idea if these system files folders were original to the PC.

I just tried to copy the system files over and page file says I can't copy because file is open and sys volume says I can't copy because of permissions. So I guess I'm stuck again.

If I were to gain permission to delete volume file would that keep me from booting back up? I thought sys files were usually on C drive.

 

[SIW2]

You could switch the pagefile to your windows partition and set a small size temporaraily.

You need to free up more space before you do that.

It is showing almost 80gb used on your windows partition. There must be stuff in your user folders you can move elsewhere e.g. to F for the time being.

Alternatively use boot media to delete disk0 partition4. You could do that with diskpart from booted media.