How to Resize Partitions in Windows.
If you 're interested to resize a partition's size on your Windows PC, then you 're on the right place to learn how you can do it, easily and without losing any data. When you own a large hard drive, you may need to create additional partitions on the disk, to separate your personal files from the system files of for your own reasons. In the latest Windows versions (Windows 7, 8 or 10), resizing partitions has become an easier task, because you can easily extend or shrink the partitions or volumes, using the built in Windows Disk Management utility.
Although Windows Disk Management tool is a very powerful utility to manage the size of Volumes or Partitions, sometimes the tool fails to manage disk Partitions or Volumes as expected, because it has limitations to performing some actions. For example you cannot resize the partition size in volumes that contain data or you cannot use unallocated space which is located on the left side of the drive that you want to extend its size. To bypass these limitations, you have to use third-party disk management utilities to accomplish the needed operations (look Method 2 or Method 3 below).
This article contains detailed instructions on how you can resize Partitions (Shrink or Extend Partitions) on a Windows 10, 8 or 7 based computer, by using the Windows Disk Management tool and other third party Partition Manager applications.
How to Resize, Shrink or Extend Partitions or Volumes in Windows 10, 8, 7 or Vista.
Suggestion: Always backup your important data, before making changes to the Partitions/Volumes.
Method 1. Windows Disk Management.
Method 2. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Free.
Method 3. EaseUS Partition Master Free.
Method 1. Windows Disk Management.
The first tool that you can use to change the size of a Partition/Volume and/or to create a new Partition on your disk is the Windows Disk Management tool.
To open the Windows Disk Management utility:
1. Press the “Windows” + “R” keys to load the Run dialog box.
2. Type diskmgmt.msc and press Enter.
In a standard Windows installation, you will see that your main disk (Disk 0) has one (or more) small size partitions (below 1024 MB), that are used by the OS (System Reserved Partitions) and one big partition that contains the Operating System, the installed programs and your files and is marked as drive (C:).
How to decrease Partition size with Windows Disk Management:
If you want to create a new partition, on your main disk, you must shrink first, the size of the C: drive, in order to allocate free space for the new partition. To do that:
1. Right click on the C: drive and select Shrink Volume.
2. After selecting the "Shrink Volume" option the Disk Management utility will query the selected volume for the available shrink space.
3. Then you will see on your screen, the available shrink space in MB (1024MB=1GB). At this point, you can press the "Shrink" button, to start shrinking the size of drive C:, or to decrease more the available size of the free space for the new volume/partition.
4. When the Shrink operation is finished, you will see an unallocated space, next to drive C:.
5. To create a new partition, right click on the "Unallocated" space and select New Simple Volume.
6. Press Next at the New Simple Volume Wizard screens, to create the new volume and you 're done!
How to increase Partition size with Windows Disk Management:
Notes:
1. To increase the size of a existing Volume, with Windows Disk Management tool, you should have unallocated space available at the right side of the volume that you want to increase its size.
2. If you don't have unallocated space, but you already have a secondary Volume on the same disk (e.g. the Drive D:) and you want to use it's space to extend the size of another volume, you must delete first the secondary Volume (backup the data first) in order to create Unallocated space.
1. Right click on the Volume/Drive that you want to increase it's size. (Disk C: in this example) and select Extent Volume.
2. Press Next at the first screen of New Simple Volume Wizard.
3. At the next screen, click Next if you want to use all the available unallocated space to extend the size of Drive C:, or specify a smaller space (size in MB).
4. When done, click Finish and wait until Windows extend the size of the selected disk.
Method 2. AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Free.
The second tool, that you can use to manage partitions (Resize, shrink, move, extend, merge, split, create, delete, format, and wipe partitions) is the Freeware AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. The tool has similar features with the Windows Disk Management utility, but is more flexible, easier in usage and can bypass the limitations of the Windows Disk Management utility.
To resize a partition with AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard:
1. Right click on the volume (drive) that you want to resize its size and select Resize.
2. Then put your mouse at the right side of the size bar, and drag the "ball" to change the partition size or simply type the new Partition size in GB.
3. When you make the desired changes, press OK.
4. Finally, at the main window click Apply to apply the changes.
5. Then click Proceed and if asked to reboot your PC, then restart it to finish the operation.
Method 3. EaseUS Partition Master Free.
The next disk management utility, that you can use to resize partitions on a Windows PC, is the EaseUS Partition Master Free. The tool has similar features as AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard and of course it can bypass the limitations of Windows Disk Management.
To manage partitions with EaseUS Partition Master Free:
1. Right click on the partition that you want to Resize, Move or Merge and select the corresponding option.
2. Make your changes, and click OK.
3. Finally click Apply at the main window to apply the desired changes.
That's it! Let me know if this guide has helped you by leaving your comment about your experience. Please like and share this guide to help others.
We're hiring
We're looking for part-time or full-time technical writers to join our team! It's about a remote position that qualified tech writers from anywhere in the world can apply. Click here for more details.
- How to Easy Update to Windows 11 23H2 on Unsupported Hardware. - November 29, 2023
- How to Record in a PowerPoint presentation Audio & Video. - November 27, 2023
- How to fix: Microsoft Edge won't open, hangs, unresponsive, etc.. - November 22, 2023