Extend system partition Windows 10?

Question

I had three OSes installed: Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10. I only use Windows 10, and that drive is now running low on space. I have deleted the Windows 7 and 8.1 installations (deleted those partitions). I have a screenshot of the current situation.

Is it possible to extend the Windows 10 partition for more space? The option to extend this volume is currently greyed out.

Answer 1

Windows Disk Management is very limited in feature and can't do this. You need some 3^rd party partitioning tools to resize partitions freely. Some suggestions:

• MiniTool Partition Wizard
• AOMEI Partition Assistant
• EaseUS Partition Master
• Macrorit Partition Expert
• fixparts

GParted is also capable of doing this, but in my experience it's the worst partitioning tool because it moves all data while changing the start offset of a partition like in this case, hence extremely slow and introduces more risks of losing data

Answer 2

If you want to extend a basic volume in windows disk manager, the 'free space' must follow the partition you want to extend. In short, it must be the next sector of the disk.

You can find the reference below from microsoft website:

Remarks

On basic disks, the free space must be on the same disk as the volume or partition with focus. It must also immediately follow the volume or partition with focus (that is, it must start at the next sector offset).

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-server-2008-R2-and-2008/cc770938(v=ws.10)?redirectedfrom=MSDN

You may be do so however with other 3rd party software.

Answer 3

If you want to just get it done, then you can use a third-party software. It is the easiest way to do it. EaseUS partition master (free trial) is one of many solutions, I use it for such occasions.

To do what you want you first will need to remove the partition (the one with free space) so it becomes an unallocated space (as the one to the left is). To do that -> right click on the partition and click "Remove partition" and confirm. Then you need to choose the system partition (that you're interested in) and then on the bottom of the window by extending it to the side of unassigned space (to the left in your case). Then in the left upper corner you click on the tick icon to apply changes. This will cause a pop-up to show asking to confirm actions (it should be: removal of a partition and resizing of another partition). Applying the changes will require system restart (so as the data can be moved to another sector of the disk). After the work is done, you should end up with something like:

100 MB NTFS system reserved ::: 931.42 GB Win10 (C:)

in your Computer Management console.

Check the screenshot for reference.