Partition or Volume - Extend

How to Extend a Partition or Volume in Windows 7​

   Information

This will show you how to extend a hard disk partition or volume into a empty unallocated space on the same hard disk to make it larger using Disk Management or Diskpart in Windows 7.

   Warning

You must be logged on in an administrator account to do this tutorial.

If you disable the Disk Defragmenter service, then you will get the error below when you try to do anything in Disk Management. If you get this error, then make sure that the Disk Defragmenter service is set to only Manual.

OPTION ONE

Using Disk Management

1. If you have not already, you will first need to delete the partition or volume that you want to extend into to make it unallocated space.

2. Open the Control Panel (icons view), and click on the Administrative Tools icon. then close the Control Panel window.

3. Click on Computer Management in Administrative Tools, then close the Administrative Tools window.

4. In the left pane under Storage, click on Disk Management. (See screenshot below)

5. In the middle pane, right click on the partition or volume directly adjacent (left) of the unallocated space that you want to extend into, and click on Extend Volume. (See screenshot above)

6. Click on the Next button. (See screenshot below)

7. Type in how many MB (1 GB = 1024 MB) you want to use from the unallocated space to extend the selected partition (step 5) into, then click on the Next button. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If you want to use all of the unallocated space to extend into, then type in the maximum available space shown for the unallocated space.

8. Click on the Finish button. (See screenshot below)

9. The partition or volume has now been extended into the assigned unallocted space (step 7). (See screenshot below)

10. Close the Computer Management window. (See screenshot above)

OPTION TWO

Using Diskpart in a Elevated Command Prompt

1. If you have not already, you will first need to delete the partition or volume that you want to extend into to make it unallocated space.

2. Open a elevated command prompt, or a command prompt at boot.

3. In the elevated command prompt, type diskpart and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

4. In the elevated command prompt, type list disk and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: This is to help you ID the disk that has Free space that you want to extend into, and to see the disk size to make it easier to ID it's volume number in step 5. For example, Disk 1.

5. In the elevated command prompt, type list volume and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: Look for the volume number that has the same Size as from the size in step 4 minus the Free space. For example, Volume 2.

6. In the elevated command prompt, type select volume # and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: You would substitute # for the volume number listed that you want to extend. For example, I want to extend the listed volume 2 since, so I would type select volume 2 and press Enter.

7. To Extend into All of the Unallocated Space
A) In the elevated command prompt, type extend and press Enter. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: The unallocated space will be removed and added completely to the selected partiton or volume (step 6).

B) Go to step 9.
8. To Extend into the Unallocated Space by a Specified Size
A) In the elevated command prompt, type extend size=(# in MB) and press Enter.
NOTE: You would substitute (# in MB) for how many MB (1 GB = 1024 MB) you want to use of the unallocated space (free space shown in step 4) to be extended into. For example, if I only wanted to extend into 5 GB of the unallocated space, then I would type extend size=5120 and press Enter.
9. In the elevated command prompt, type exit and press Enter. (See screenshot below)

10. Close the elevated command prompt.

11. The selected partition or volume (step 6) has now been extended into the unallocated space to make it larger.
NOTE: If you did step 8 instead of 7, then you can use the rest of the unallocated space to create a new partition with if you like.
That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

---

• Data Partition
• How to Delete a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Shrink a Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Create a New Partition or Volume in Windows 7
• How to Create and Attach a Virtual Hard Disk in Windows 7
• How to Unattach and Delete a Virtual Hard Disk in Windows 7
• How to Setup Windows 7 to Boot from a VHD (Virtual Hard Disk)
• How to Fix Missing Vista Hard Disk Partition Letter in Windows 7
• How to Convert a FAT or FAT32 Volume to NTFS in Windows 7
• How to Convert a MBR Disk to a GPT Disk
• How to Convert a GPT Disk to a MBR Disk
• How to Convert a Basic Disk to a Dynamic Disk
• How to Convert a Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk
• How to Clean or Clean All a Disk with the Diskpart Command
• How to Quick Format a HDD or USB Drive
• How to Mark a Partition as Active in Windows 7
• How to Mark a Partition as Inactive in Windows 7 and Vista

 

[Brink]

That's great news Dawnz. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

 

[bennygan]

Help in extending C drive

To all the Windows 7 master out there, can you kindly advice me on how to extent my C drive.

Basically, what i have done is shrunk my D drive by 100GB. But when i want to extend it C, i'm not able to do it. I right click on C but the Extent Drive option is grey out.

I've attached a screenshot of my Disk Management and would greatly appreciate any help.

Cheers

 

[Brink]

Hello Benny,

Since you are at the 4 primary partition limit on a disk, you will only be able to extend D: into the free space with this setup in Disk Management.


To be able to add the free space to C: in Disk Management, you would have to delete both the D: and "Free Space" to be "Unallocated space", then extend C: into how much of the "unallocated space" you want for C: and create D: again with what is left of the "unallocated space".

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[whs]

1. I would highly recommend to use the bootable CD of this program to accomlpish your task.
2. As a first action, I would convert the C partition from "primary" to "logical" so that you do not bump against the limit of the 4 primaries when you want to create additional partitions (if you wanted to create an additional partition right now, you would end up with "dynamics" which are a mess). You can do that because the active partition is your small 100MB partition.
3. With Partition Wizard, you can shrink your D partition to the left. Then it is easy to add the free space to C.
4. Make sure you backup your Data on D - just in case there is a problem.

 

[mjf]

WHS,
you lost me at step 3. Does this achieve the goal?
Can't you absorb the free space into D: then extend C: to the right?

 

[whs]

WHS,
you lost me at step 3. Does this achieve the goal?
Can't you absorb the free space into D: then extend C: to the right?

I think we are both saying the same thing. I guess I left out the step to "reinclude or absorbe" the free space into D before shifting the left boundary of D. Good catch.

 

[Jeff1]

Hello,
I am new to the forums so please bear with me as I get use to forum processes.

I was trying to follow your step 2 as the partition I wanted to extend was to the right of the unallocated space. Instead of going to Command I went to CMD and did this process, which did not work. (It said it did though because I did it in the wrong place) I tried to re-do it with Command and it gives me an error message now that there is not enough useable free space on the disk to extend the volume. Is there a simple way to rectify this situation? I just want to put the hard drive back to its original un-partitioned state.

 

[Brink]

Hello Jeff, and welcome to Seven Forums.

Could you post a screenshot of your Disk Management showing all of your HDD's layout?

We'll be happy to take a look at it to see what we can do to help.

 

[Jeff1]

Thank you for your reply. I've also attached a screen shot of the Command screen.

View attachment Forum 1.docx

 

[Brink]

Jeff,

You should be able to use the free program Partition Wizard Home Edition to extend the D: partition into the unallocated space on Disk 0. If it asks you to convert to a Dynamic disk, then be sure to DO NOT allow it.

You just will not be able to in Disk Management or the command prompt without having to delete the D: partition to make it all unallocated space on Disk 0, then create a new one large partition.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[Jeff1]

Is it the Move/Resize Partition feature that I use Shawn? (shown below) I thought it might be the Merge Partition but that gave me an error message that that feature wasn't available in this version. Thanks, Jeff

View attachment Forum 2.docx

 

[Brink]

Move/Resize may be able to do it since Merge is not available.

 

[mjf]

Yes merge is a feature in the paid version. You will need to drag the handle all the way to the the left and apply.
Also I suggest you run check file system (over on the left).

 

[Jeff1]

The Move/Resize seems to have done the trick. There is a good video tutorial on the Partition Wizzard webiste that I suggest everyone watch who is thinking of doing this. I found it very helpful as there is a right way and a wrong way to do it.

As suggested, I also ran the check file system on both my drives. I have since restarted my computer and everything appears to be working as desired. Thank you both for your help and your quick replies.
Jeff

 

[Brink]

That's great news Jeff. I'm happy that we were able to help.

 

[JerometheGiraff]

Hi, using this method can I extend two partitions outside of one partition. In other words

Partition A
Partition B
Partition C

I want to take space from Partition B which has the extra space and give some to Partition A & C is this possible without loosing any data using the method in this tutorial? Yes, it is literally in that order on my PC

 

[Brink]

Hello Jerome,

Yes, but you will need to use a free program like Partition Wizard Home Edition to be able to though. Disk Management is to basic for that, and will not be able to do it.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[JerometheGiraff]

I see without having to reboot and loosing data ? Superb

Brink what makes you suggest this program over others ?

 

[Brink]

Yes, without having to reboot and loosing data.

That free progam is just one that I liked. If you have another disk management type program that you prefer, then it'll probably work just as well.

 

[mjf]

Partition Wizard is popular with many forum members (inc. me).
Like any program it may fail for a range of reasons. I suggest:
1) Never use it unless you have a full backup or if you have nothing to lose if it fails.
2) In the past the Bootable version of the same product has been more robust for major partition operations since the Windows OS is out of the way. Version 6 mini Tool may have improved here.