Extend Or Expand Volume Of Windows Partition In Windows 7/Vista

By Nakodari on Dec 13 2008 67 Comments

Do you have Windows 7/Visa installed on C Drive(or any other drive) and are looking for a way to extend it? After reading different blogs and forums I have found that most people are looking for it’s solution. My friend recently asked me the following question,

I have Windows Vista installed in C drive, my D drive is almost free and I don’t use it much. I now want to extend my C drive, and the “Extend Volume” feature is grayed out too. I don’t know what to do, please help !

If you are beginner or a pro, it doesn’t matter, today I will clear all misconceptions and solve this problem once and for all.

I will solve this problem using Windows build-in Disk Management tool. Go to Start Menu and right-click on Computers, select Manage, and finally click on Disk Management on the let sidebar. In my case it looks like the screenshot below.

Disk Management

When you right-click on Windows partition(in my case it is drive C), you will find that Extend Volume options is grayed out(not highlighted), the reason for this is that there is no unallocated space yet. To create an unallocated space, delete any drive that you don’t need anymore.Since my friend want to merge D drive with C, therefore I am going to delete the D drive and create some unallocated space.

Note: Backup all of your data and move them to USB or some other drive before you delete the partition.

To delete drive D, right-click on it and select Delete Volume just like its shown in the screenshot below.

delete volume

It will then ask for confirmation, just click Yes.

delete simple volume

Now you will see Free Space been written on the space where you deleted the volume. Remember, you have just deleted the volume not the partition, to create an unallocated space you will have to delete the partition. Now right-click on this Free Space and select Delete Partition.

delete partition

You will now again be asked for confirmation, just click Yes.

delete partition forever

Now you will see the unallocated space which is ready to be added into any other volume. Now right-click on C drive and select Extend Partition as shown in the screenshot below.

extend volume

Now when the Extend Volume Wizard opens, click Next.

extend volume wizard

It will select the maximum number of unallocated space itself. But you can set any amount yourself too, keep in mind that it is calculated in MB not GB. After you are done here, click Next and then Finish.

Now you can see that C drive has been extended, see the screenshot below.

Extended c drive

That’s all, and you don’t even need to restart your computer. I hope this handy guide helped everyone out there who were facing the problem same as my friend. :)

Note: This only works with contiguous space after the partition, which means that the unallocated space must be immediately next to the primary drive where windows is installed.

Got a question, feedback or trouble? Leave a comment.

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  • David Staudenmeir

    Have Windows 7
    Had C and D (which Windows 7 upgrade did automatically without asking when originally uploaded onto laptop).
    Finally got rid of Vista and now have only Windows 7, but still have C and D.
    Moved all files from D to C.
    D is now empty.
    Through Disk Manager, deleted Volume D.
    Space was immediately labeled “unallocated” not “free space”.
    Right-clicking on “unallocated” space did not produce “delete partion” option at all; it did produce “extend volume” option, but it is grayed out.
    The chance to “delete partition” is never even presented.
    So stuck with no way of unpartitioning empty D and absorbing it into C.
    We have tried your instructions and everything else we can think of.
    Computer is not behaving as instructions here says it should.

  • David Staudenmeir

    One thing I forgot to mention in previous post (because I didn’t think it was an issue, but now realize that it is probably THE problem):
    Somehow in the graphical display of the drive space, C (which has everything on it, including Win 7) is to the RIGHT of D (which has been cleaned to nothing. Thus, when Volume D is deleted, it probably does not turn into “free space”, but goes directly to “unallocated” because it even though it is adjacent to (touching) C, it is on the WRONG SIDE of C. Not sure how the two drives (while they were partitioned) got flipped in order.
    So my question is, can they be flipped back to C being first, followed by D? Currently empty D is only approx. 15 GB, where as C is much larger, and only has 20% free space on it — thus, there is not nearly enough unallocated space on empty D on which to move/copy all of the files from C, and then somehow rename the two partitions to the correct order.

  • Sujee

    i still dont understand its not working huhh this is frustratin -_- please help me with your kind hearts my email adress is killlankan@hotmail.com here is a screen prnt of what im saying http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/7438/helpcw.jpg

  • Standford

    Thank for the nice screen capture. In fact, I found another useful command steps from http://www.brain-cluster.com/blog/orange/2011/03/26/extend-partition-size-windows-server-without-reformat also

  • ted

    it works bro!! i didn’t deleted the partition, after deleting the volume, it directly became unalloted!! and then i extended c!!! thanks bro!!! :) god bless u

  • Harendra Dhiman

    Dear sir,

    I very thankful to you for the solution.
    it’s really works.

    Thanks And Regards
    Harendra Dhiman
    Bajaj Capital Limited

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