How to Extend Partition Size on Windows 7/10/11 – Three Methods

When to Extend Partition Windows 10/11

A hard drive is one of the most essential components of a computer. It functions as the storage device and all the data you are dealing with on the computer is stored in the hard drive.

For better data management, most users would like to divide a hard drive into several logical drives to use. Unfortunately, it is common to see the drive is running out of space after a period of time.

Once there is no free space, you cannot store any new files on the drive. If your system drive is full, your computer might slow down and even run into certain problems.

To solve the problem, it is brilliant to extend the partition, which adds free space to the existing drive. And there are various tools to be used to increase disk partition. In the following content, three of them are introduced.

How to Extend Partition via MiniTool Partition Wizard

MiniTool Partition Wizard, available on Windows 7/8/10/11 and Windows Server, is a popular and reliable disk manager which can help you create, delete, recover, move, and resize partitions. It is designed with a user-friendly user interface and you can extend partition with it easily.

And there are two features for you:

Move/Resize Partition

If there is unallocated space after the target partition, you can use the Move/Resize Partition feature to extend the partition. And here is how to use this feature:

  1. Run MiniTool Partition Wizard and get its main interface.
  2. Select the partition that you want to extend and click the Move/Resize Partition feature from the left action panel.
  3. In the pop-up window, drag the slider to occupy more unallocated space and extend the partition. Then click OK.
  4. Click Apply to execute the operation.
Alt=move/resize partition

Extend Partition

The Extend Partition feature allows you to increase disk partition by taking space from other partitions or unallocated space on the disk. You can follow the tutorial below to use this feature.

  1. In MiniTool Partition Wizard, select the target partition to extend and click the Extend Partition feature.
  2. In the pop-up window, select another partition or unallocated space to take free space. Then drag the slider to decide how much free space to take and click OK.
  3. Click Apply.
Alt=extend partition

How to Extend Partition via Disk Management

Alt=Extend Volume

Disk Management is a built-in tool in Windows. It can also be used to extend partition Windows 10/11 but there are some rules you should know:

  • The file system of the partition to extend must be NTFS or RAW.
  • There must be unallocated space following the partition if the target partition is a primary partition.
  • To extend a logical partition, there must be free space after it.

If your disk doesn’t meet the above requirements, you will be unable to extend partition with Disk Management.

If your disk meets the requirements, you can open Disk Management. Then right-click the target partition and select Extend Volume. In the pop-up window, select the disk and input how much space you want to add. Then click Next > Finish.

How to Extend Partition via Command Prompt

Command Prompt is another tool pre-installed in Windows 7/10/11. If you want to use this tool to extend partition, your disk has to meet the same requirements as the last part.

Compared with MiniTool Partition Wizard and Disk Management, Command Prompt might be more difficult to use for common users. If you have never used this tool, please be careful and make sure you type every command correctly.

You need to press Win + R, type cmd, and press Enter to access Command Prompt. Then input the commands listed below one by one and press Enter after each:

Alt=diskpart
  • diskpart
  • list volume
  • select volume * (* refers to the drive number of the target partition to extend)
  • extend size=# (# refers to the size in MB to extend)

Which method do you prefer? As mentioned, there are some requirements if you want to use Disk Management and Command Prompt and the latter one is not easy to use. MiniTool Partition Wizard is better.

Leave a Comment

Exit mobile version