How can I extend my C drive with some free space?

[Cyril46520]

Recently, I had updated my operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7. However, after the updating, the computer always says the C drive partition is in low disk space and need to be extended. But, when I tried to extend it in Disk Management, the extend option is grayed out and cannot work. Any solution for me to extend my drive partition? I need your help! Thanks a lot!

 

[office politics]

open the link below and skip to method two

Partition or Volume - Extend - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

[carnageX]

Recently, I had updated my operating system from Windows XP to Windows 7. However, after the updating, the computer always says the C drive partition is in low disk space and need to be extended. But, when I tried to extend it in Disk Management, the extend option is grayed out and cannot work. Any solution for me to extend my drive partition? I need your help! Thanks a lot!

Does your HDD even have any empty space that you can extend the partition into?

Post a screenshot of your Disk Management screen so we can see what you're working with.

 

[Berger844]

It sounds like your free space or unallocated partition space is not exactly adjacent to your C drive. That's often why the “extend” option in Disk Management is grayed out.

But, don't worry! Except that way, you also can try some partition resizing tool to take chances like GParted, IM-Magic Partition Resizer Free and EaseUS Partition Master, etc.

Overall, no matter what tool you will choose to use, you'd better firstly back up all partition data well in case of data loss.

 

[maarten]

In many cases, there is a tiny bit of free space left over on a hard drive after partitioning, such as 8 or 16 MB (yes, Megabyte). This is because NTFS partitions in blocks of 32 MB, and there may just be a tiny bit of space left it can't fit in the partition. Unfortunately, the disk management software doesn't take that into account, and just sees: "oh, there is free space, let me suggest rezising".

I agree with the poster above though, in case you do have more space to work with: Make a backup, because if you lose power, or something else goes wrong, you just lost everything on your hard drive.

Another tip:

In Windows 7, you can move important folders to another drive. For instance, I have my My Pictures folder stored on my D:\ drive, as there is over 70 GB of photos on there, and my C:\ drive is a 180 GB SSD drive for performance booting.