I urgently need to extend my Local Disk C but when O shrink the other disk (E), the unallocated space appears after disk E
so I'm unable to extend disk C to the unallocated space.
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2Create new volume (assume X:) in unallocated space. Move everything to X: from E:. Remove E:. Change letter from X: to E:. Extend C:.– AkinaCommented Dec 12, 2018 at 16:42
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3 Answers
If the E disk does not have software installed, we can try this method:
Create a partition for 292.97GB.
Then copy the data of the E disk to this new partition.
Delete the E drive.
Expand the C drive.
Tip: Please backup the data of the E disk in advance.
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If drive E is easy to backup and restore from external media (or is empty), this approach will be very much faster than my answer which moves the partition.– JoeCommented Dec 18, 2018 at 10:46
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I feel it's riskier though since those E is likely a Recovery Partition, etc. My answer shows how to do it in GParted within minutes.– LWCCommented Sep 19, 2022 at 17:56
Joe's answer is correct but it felt more of a comment since it lacked the actual solution, which is (yes, you'll need to do it again every time your disk grows - you might also want to back up your hard drive first). Don't worry, it's a pretty easy and quick process if you follow it like this:
- We are talking about a situation in which Windows' own Disk Management's Extend option is disabled, and turns out it's because the unallocated space is not adjacent to drive C.
- Download the free (GPL2) GParted as ISO, run it as a live CD and approve its initial screen.
- Just agree to the default of GParted's keymap.
- Just agree to the defaults of both GParted's language and GUI.
- Finally, choose the partition that caused all this trouble, i.e. the one is that is so stubbornly "stuck" between C and the Unallocated space.
- Drag it all the way to the right or alternatively from Free space following (MiB) to Free space preceeding (MiB), click okay and then approve (also to warnings).
- Behold! This caused the Unallocated space to move adjacent to C. BTW, despite what was claimed, this took me 4 seconds for 10GB unallocated space. So just exit Gparted and tell it nicely goodbye since you don't need it anymore.
- After re-launching Windows, a miracle awaits! Disk Management's Extend is suddenly enabled. Just click it and approve everything it asks, and your C will take over the previously unallocated space.
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If you have or get a partition manager live CD/flash drive, you can tell it to move partition E to the end of the disk so the free space will be between it and partition C. Then, you can tell it to expand partition C to use the free space.
You don't want to be doing any of this from a system which is running on the same disk! That's why you need the live CD/flash drive.
The nice thing about this is that you may be able to schedule both tasks (to run one after the other) at the same time. Moving and resizing partitions often takes several hours so you can let it run when you are going out or overnight.
This is a fairly safe operation, but when doing anything like this, you should make sure you have backups of all your personal data and anything else you cannot afford to lose if this operation fails.
I use gparted (on a live CD) for all such things (it knows about NTFS and Windows partitions and works fine with them and is easy to use).
The great thing about gparted (aside from the fact that it's free) is that after you tell it all the steps you want it to do, it shows you the final results before doing anything. You can back out of steps or start over as many times as you need to without having touched the actual partitions. When you're happy with the tasks, then you tell it to go ahead and apply your changes.
