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I bought a new SSD for my laptop (Windows 10), and after successfully cloning the old SSD to the new larger one, my C: drive is still the old size. I then had a huge unallocated space to the far right on Disk Management (not next to C:).

I then found MiniTool Partition Wizard, which allowed me to move around some of my partitions (without having to reboot). However, my Disk Management looks like this now:

my Disk Management

As you can see, I got the 16 GB one to the right of the unallocated space now. However, the Partition Wizard says that the 11.88 GB space is of file system type "Other" and doesn't even give me the option to move it out of the way.

What do I do from here? Surely someone has dealt with this issue before; the question is all over the Internet, though without any coherent answers.

Please note: I'm not looking for alternatives to the question I'm posing. I don't want an extra drive letter. I'm looking to extend my C: drive.

Edit: What Partition Wizard shows about the 11.88 GB drive -- enter image description here

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    So you have no idea what that 11.88GB partition is? Then you can probably just delete it.
    – Tesseract
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 2:58
  • I mean, I do have a backup, but...I don't really want to test deleting the partition. How do you know it's not system files?
    – user769452
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 2:59
  • Is Partition Wizard able to detect what kind of partition that is? If not you could try gparted.
    – Tesseract
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 3:01
  • I resolved it, you were right. I deleted it and everything was fine. Rebooted to make sure too. Awesome, thank you! I've had this issue more than once, but it's the first time I've ever managed to solve it.
    – user769452
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 3:17
  • That partition was probably OEM recovery.
    – user5226582
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 6:43

2 Answers 2

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My verified solution to dealing with unallocated space on a disk (Windows operating system):

  1. BACK YOUR STUFF UP.
  2. When the unallocated space is not immediately next to the partition you want to extend, Disk Management falls short on the task. Install the free third-party tool MiniTool Partition Wizard, which seems to have good support and is kept up to date. It's a standalone application that doesn't require any booting from a CD.
  3. Run the program as administrator (recommended here).
  4. This step involves moving partitions around. We want the C: partition to be immediately next to the unallocated space.
    1. Right click on the partition currently next to the unallocated space, blocking the way. Select Move/Resize.
    2. In the block labeled Size And Location, there will be a slider. It's unintuitive, but it represents where your partition lives in memory. Drag the center of the slider all the way to the other side (of the unallocated space), making sure none of the byte sizes change (obviously we want the location to change). Click OK.
    3. Changes haven't occurred yet. Click Apply at the top. Follow the instructions.
    4. Repeat these steps for any other blocking partitions.
  5. Go back into Disk Management (or use the wizard...) and extend the volume.
  6. Reboot for good measure to make sure things still work.

Some notes about my solution in particular -- I had a partition next to my C: drive that didn't have any recognizable file system format. I'm fairly sure it was a leftover of un-dual-booting a Linux OS long ago. I deleted it and everything was fine.

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  • I just suggest that you should keep another partition to save personal files and folders.
    – Biswapriyo
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 19:15
  • Thanks for this information, which helped me. It appears that the MiniTool cannot move all partitions; probably it can only move a partition when there is free space equal to the size of the partition. For example, on a 70GB disk where a 50GB partition A precedes two 10GB partitions B and C, B could not be moved before A. I could only move B after C. This is not fatal, but inconvenient.
    – Thagomizer
    Commented Jun 24, 2022 at 17:18
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gparted or partedmagic can move almost any kind of partition.

You will need to make a bootable CD/DVD/USB to utilize these tools.

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  • The CD should be bootable if burned correctly. I suggest CDBurnerXP.se Then select burn ISO from the menu after installation.
    – cybernard
    Commented Oct 5, 2017 at 3:10

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