Windows 7 has been released with a built-in feature in Disk Management that you can shrink or extend an existing partition. In fact, this feature has been provided in Windows Vista. With this feature you can shrink a large partition and create new ones, or extend a partition to be larger.

How to extend Windows 7 partition in Disk Management?

Right-click “My Computer” > “Manage” > “Storage” > “Disk Management”, you’ll see all existing hard disks and partitions.

Extend Windows 7 partition in Disk Management

Extend Windows 7 partition in Disk Management

You can shrink any existing partition or extend a partition with unallocated space behind it.

Extend Windows 7 partition

What is the shortage of Windows Disk Management to extend Windows 7 partition?

Follow the steps above, you can extend Windows 7 partition easily, but there is a problem you may ignore. Please note that there is unallocated space behind partition F. What about the partitions without unallocated space behind it? Let’s continue.

Extend Windows 7 partition in Disk Management

From the screenshot, you may believe that you can extend Windows 7 partition without unallocated space, but please notice the following steps.

Extend Windows 7 partition warning

If you try to extend partition E, using the unallocated space before it, there will be a warning box. It means that if you continue the step, the basic disk will be converted to dynamic disk. If you converted the disk to dynamic, you cannot convert dynamic disk back to basic without data loss, except using Copy Dynamic Volume.

After these steps, you’ll have the conclusion, too. Only when there is unallocated space behind a partition, you can extend Windows 7 partition directly in Disk Management. Is there another better solution to extend Windows 7 partition? The answer is yes and I’ll introduce a free professional Windows 7 partitioning tool – Partition Wizard Home edition.

How to extend Windows 7 partition with free partition software?

1. Launch Partition Wizard, right click the data partition that behind the system partition, and then choose Resize/Move.

Partition Wizard Resize

2. In the pop up window, drag the partition rightwards, after that, this partition will be shrinked.

Shrink Data Partition

Data Partition Shrinked

3. Right click the system partition and choose Resize/Move. In the pop up window, drag the right boderline of the system partition, after that, this system partition will be extended.

Extend System Partition

System Partition Extended

4. Remember to apply the operations.

The advantages of Partition Wizard:

1. It provides snapshot feature, even if power off when you resizing the partitions, Windows will not crash.

2. If the system partition is NTFS, you can extend the partition without rebooting. It is especially useful for Servers.

With this free partition software, you can resize or move partition discretionarily.

Conclusion

Windows 7 Disk Management has the ability to shrink or extend a partition, but it is half-baked; and inconvenient to operate. With Partition Wizard, you can extend Windows 7 partition easily, it also helps you copy disk/partition, format partition, delete partition, etc. Why not download to try?

Acronis Disk Director 11 Home

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