Cannot extend drive "There is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation"

Question

In Windows 10, I want to change my unallocated space by combining it with my 731.17 GB drive. Both are on the same drive. When trying to extend the H: drive it shows a message: There is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation.

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Answer 1

That's right, because that drive is formatted as Dynamic. You must convert it to Basic first, a process fraught with risk.

Make a backup, then verify the files in H: match what was backed up elsewhere.
Lather, rinse, repeat; make another backup to a different disk or cloud, and verify that backup matched what is on H:. Then, follow the instructions at Converting dynamic to basic disk

Now that you have converted the Dynamic Disk to a Basic Disk, you can choose a third party tool, such as are listed here, use Windows PowerShell, or Windows 10 Disk Manager. To start Disk Manager, right-click on your Start button, and click on Disk Management.

Your Recovery Partition is in the way, and you have two choices to deal with that:

A) You will need to move that to the left, so click on that to move it. Remember to commit the action, and wait for it to complete, before you can make use of the space where it was, by then clicking on your data partition you wish to expand, and selecting Expand Volume.

B) Easier, you can delete it, then create a new NTFS Recovery Partition at the end of the drive and assign it an unused drive letter. If you do that, then reboot into Windows after completing the ext4 expansion. Click the Windows start key and type Recovery Drive. Under Settings, click Create a recovery drive. Your computer may ask you whether you would like to open Recovery Media Creator. Click Yes, and tell it to use that new drive letter for Recovery purposes.