How to increase partition size in Vista manually

[Paisley007]

I need to increase the partition size of one of my drive on my Windows Vista system as free space is running too low. But i want to do that manually rather than using any third party software or applications. Please let me know if there is any way available to increase partition size manually in Vista ?

[SalVatore]

Luckily, we do not need any 3rd party utilities to increase or shrink partition in Windows Vista. It’s very easy resize partition by using Disk Management Console right there in Vista. To increase your partition size with the help of Disk Management, just go through this steps:

• Right click on My Computer in the Start Menu and select Manage from the context menu.
  
  
• Now expand Storage branch in the Computer Management console to open Disk Management console.
  
  
• Here select and right click on the partition you need to increase the size and select Expand.
  
  
• Now on the next screen you need to specify the amount that you want to increase the partition by.
  
  
• Once done, close the Disk Management Console and reboot the system.

And you are done.

You can resize the partitions without any data loss with the help of Disk Management Console. Also you do not need to delete and remove the existing partition and recreate the partition with new size. You can also shrink any partition with the help of Disk Management console. To know how, see this:

Once you get in the Disk Management Console, just right click on any of the partition or volume and select Shrink Volume. Now in the new dialog box opened, enter the amount you want to shrink by, not the new size. Once done close the console and the partition is shrinked.

[Paisley007]

Thats really nice of guiding. Keep it up mate. Its gonna help me lot in future as well. Fortunately there is no requirement of any third party app as well. But i have heard somewhere that one can use a utility called Partition Magic for doing the same job. Is it a good utility ?

[Michael Sabin]

yeah, Partition Magic is quite good for doing this job but it is not compatible for Windows Vista. Here are some required system and supported OS:

Windows® XP Home Edition/Professional

• 233MHz or higher processor
• 128 MB of RAM

Windows 2000 Professional

• 150MHz or higher processor
• 64 MB of RAM

Increasing size of partition

[jim10]

Solution 1: Windows Vista built in Disk Management--"Extend Volume".

Solution 2: Windows Diskpart command--"extend".

But the two solutions have a huge disadvantage: there must be unallocated space next to the partition which you want to extend.

[Quijote]

The option to extend the C drive is grayed out. I have 100M unallocated that I can put back to D drive, but don't have the option for C. As far as I know I am signed on with full administrative controls. Any input? Thanks.

[youknowita]

You can increase partition with the partition manager software, it is much easer and efficient,. Based on my own experience, the MiniTool partition manager software is a good one, you can have a try. There are several ways to start Move/Resize operation:

1. Select the partition you would like to increase» click Partitions in the top menu » click Resize./click the Move/Resize Partition button in the Tool Bar. /click the Move/Resize Partition button under Partition Operations in the Action Panel.

If the space of the partition is not enough, you can shrink the free space in other partitions to enlarge the capacity of this partition. In this case, the security of data is ensured.

Your data would not be destroyed or go missing when extend partitions around.

What's more, under Enhanced Data Protecting Mode, you can execute the extend operation to system partitions or boot partition without harming the data.



wish do much work for you.

[youknowita]

The detais as follow

the MiniTool partition manager software is a good one, you can have a try. There are several ways to start Move/R esize operation:

Select the partition you would like to extend» click Partitions in the top menu » click Resize./click the Move/Resize Partition button in the Tool Bar. /click the Move/Resize Partition button under Partition Operations in the Action Panel.


For example: Disk is configured as 2 partitions. Partition C & F. C is system partition. Goal is to extend 4 GB free space to partition C.

Step 1: Create 4GB free space
Shrink drive F to get 4 GB free space between drive C and drive F. Please select drive F from Partition Wizard, and click Move/Resize button from the toolbar. You will see the popup window like the following screenshot. And then drag the left border of the partition to the right to shrink this partition. And then click "OK" button.

Step 2: 4 GB unallocated space is created between drive C & drive F. And then please select drive C, and click "Move/Resize" button from the toolbar again.

Step 3. Position the mouse pointer to the right edge of the partition. Please drag mouse to the right to extend C partition when the mouse pointer changes to a double-headed arrow. And then click "OK" button.
And then you could see your drive C is extended.

Step 4: Click "Apply" button.