The disk space of all partitions are allocated while installing Windows or by OEM manufacturers, but the free space may be exhausted, especially to system C drive. In this situation, it can't be better if you can increase disk space of C drive with free space in other partitions, so you can solve this problem without reinstalling Operating System and tons of programs. In this article, I'll introduce how to increase disk space in Windows 10/8/7 laptop/desktop with detailed steps. Select the corresponding method according to your own disk partition configuration.
Content:
- How to increase disk space of a partition
- How to increase space of entire hard disk
How to increase disk space of a partition without software
Windows 10/8/7 native Disk Management has Shrink Volume and Extend Volume functions to help change size of allocated partition without losing data on the fly. However, it can't extend a partition by shrinking another one, because it has limitations:
- When you shrink a partition (such as D:) with Disk Management, Unallocated space can only be made on the right, but to increase C drive space with Disk Management, Unallocated space must be on the left side of D (next to C drive). That is to say, you cannot extend C drive by shrinking D.
- Disk Management can only shrink and extend the partitions that are formatted with NTFS file system.
So the only way to increase disk space of a partition in Windows 10/8/7 Disk Management is by deleting the adjacent partition on the right. For example how to increase D drive space:
- Transfer all files in drive E to other partition.
- Press Windows + X hot-keys on keyboard and then click Disk Management.
- Right click drive E: and select Delete Volume.
- Right click drive D: and select Extend Volume.
- Click Next to complete the Extend Volume Wizard.
If you installed programs in D: drive, do not delete it to expand C drive.
If you cannot or do not want to delete any partition, you have to run third party software.
How to increase disk space of C drive with another partition
With NIUBI Partition Editor, you can increase disk space of a drive in Windows 10/8/7 with free space in another partition without losing data. Comparing with Disk Management, it has many advantages such as:
- Much easier, you just need to drag and drop on the disk map to repartition hard drives.
- It can shrink and extend both NTFS and FAT32 partitions.
- It can make Unallocated space on either left or right when shrinking a partition.
- It can merge Unallocated space to any contiguous and non adjacent partition on the same disk.
- Besides resizing partition to optimize disk space, it help you do many other operations.
Comparing with other disk partition software, NIUBI has unique 1 Second Rollback, Virtual Mode and Cancel-at-will technologies to protect system and data. It has free edition for Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP home computer users.
Download the free edition and you'll see all storage device with partition layout and detailed parameters on the right.
How to increase disk space of C drive in Windows 10/8/7 laptop/desktop:
Step 1: Right click D: drive (the contiguous partition on the right of C) and select "Resize/Move Volume", drag left border towards right in the pop-up window.
Then part of free space in D drive is converted to Unallocated on the left side.
Step 2: Right click drive C and select "Resize/Move Volume" again, drag right border towards right to combine this Unallocated space in the pop-up window.
Then C drive disk space is increased.
To avoid wrong operations, this software is designed to work in virtual mode. To change real disk partitions, click Apply on top left to take effect.
How to increase partition space with a larger disk
If you want to increase a 256GB physical disk to 512GB, it is impossible, because the size of a physical hard disk is fixed. If the entire disk becomes full, you can copy this disk to a larger one. While cloning disk, all partitions inside of it can be extended with extra disk space.
Watch the video how to increase disk space of a partition in Windows 10/8/7 with a larger disk:
How to increase VM disk space of a virtual machine
If you use VMware/Hyper-V virtual machine, it is much easier to increase partition/disk space. When there's available free space on a disk, follow the steps in the video to shrink and extend partition. When the entire virtual disk is full, follow the steps to increase virtual disk size in VMware or Hyper-V.
Besides change disk space in Windows 10/8/7/Vista/XP, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other operations.
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