Drive C does not expand on Windows 7. How to increase the size of drive C at the expense of drive D without losing data. How to enlarge drive C at the expense of D without programs

As soon as the Windows 7 operating system is installed on a computer, the hard drive is divided into separate partitions. This applies to all versions. The default division is not always correct. For example, too little space is allocated for drive C, which is the main one. Free space allocation has been provided, so shrinking or expanding the volume is not difficult.

Note! It is worth considering the most effective method, which involves expansion through built-in utilities. In the Windows 7 operating system, such an application is already installed; you do not need to download anything.

You need to click on “Start” in the lower left corner, enter “Run” in the search bar and click on this application.
In the window that opens, you need to write “diskmgmt.msc”, and then click the “Ok” button.
This will take the user to the “Computer Management” section. Here he can familiarize himself with all media and hard drives, as well as the partitions into which these hard drives are divided.
It is not recommended to delete small partitions (those partitions whose volume does not exceed 1 GB). Usually they store important system data, namely other programs, which in another situation may be useful to the user.
The next step is to determine the unallocated space, which is the amount of disk space that does not already belong to any of the volumes. It is this that can be distributed between existing hard drives. You can also view it in this window.
There are situations when such a place simply does not exist. In this situation, you can either delete one of the sections (in which case the user risks losing all the information that was on it), or shrink a specific section that takes up a lot of space. To delete, you will need to right-click on the partition and then click on “Delete Volume”. All data stored on it must be saved in advance, otherwise it will be irretrievably lost.
The system will display a warning “Delete simple volume.” The user must agree to the action being taken by clicking “Yes”.
But to compress a volume, just right-click on the desired volume and select “Shrink Volume”.
In the window that opens, you need to carefully examine all the data, namely the total volume and available free space. After which the user must write how much space he wants to remove for his needs. The volume must be specified in MB. Experts do not recommend taking up absolutely all the space, as this will lead to a lack of memory for applications. 2-3 “spare” GB will be enough.
To save the changes you have made, you will need to click on “Compress”.
Now a separate block “Not allocated” will appear in the window.
The user must right-click on the volume that requires expansion and select “Extend volume” from the list that opens.
The Extend Volume Wizard window appears. To start the process, you must click on “Next”.
Next you will need to indicate how much space the disk already occupies and how much unallocated space there is. Then you need to specify the volume that the user wants to additionally allocate for this volume. Having inserted the required values, you must click “Next”.
The process will not take much time, when finished you should click on “Finish”.

All changes have now taken effect. There should be less unallocated space, and the required volume should increase. For correct operation of the system, it is recommended to restart the computer.

If you can't expand the volume

In some cases, the “Extend Volume” function is not available to the user. It cannot be clicked because it glows with a neutral light.

This is a common case when the user does not have enough space to allocate free space to one of the volumes. There is simply nothing to give away, since there is free volume.

The concepts of “free space” and “unallocated space” are different. To do this, you need to completely remove or shrink one disk. This can be done according to the instructions described above using the built-in Windows 7 utility.

Cannot delete

Some users may find that it is simply impossible to delete a volume. This occurs due to several reasons:

Volume compression

To achieve unallocated space, you can resort to shrinking a volume that has free space.

There's nothing complicated about shrinking or expanding volumes. The process of completely cleaning them is also simple. The only caveat is a few GB, which are recommended to be left in reserve.

Video - Creating and deleting hard drive partitions

Let me start by saying that for a long time I used an old laptop with the Windows XP operating system installed, I never had any problems, except for one and the main one! This is the laptop itself, which was weak and could not cope with most of the tasks I needed. It was decided to purchase a PC that would meet all modern requirements. Having allocated 50 GB for the operating system and installed “seven”, I thought that this space would be enough. But this was only for the time being.

Soon I noticed that the free space on drive C was decreasing, and there was absolutely no longer enough space... After a while, I found a way to expand drive C at the expense of drive D on Windows 7, without losing any data and without using third-party programs. The fact is that the system itself provides users with such an opportunity! We want to tell you about it!

We increase drive C at the expense of drive D without programs

In this article, you will learn how to increase the size of the system disk without reinstalling the system. BUT, you may encounter one problem that we will help you avoid!

If your system is Windows 7, then you need to go to the settings! Start -> My computer (right mouse button ) -> Control

After this, a new window will open called “Computer Management”. In the left column, you need to select "Disk Management". After which all disks on your PC will be displayed.

In order to enlarge drive C, you need to find free space, or, more precisely, pinch off free space from an adjacent drive. To do this, right-click (RMB) on Disk D, and compress the volume to the volume that needs to be increased. Let's say 1000 MB.

And now the problem itself!

An unallocated area of 1000 MB will appear, and logically we need to right-click on drive C and click “Extend volume”, but this option will not be available! Many people try to find answers on forums or somewhere else, but in most cases, they cannot cope with the problem on their own!

How to properly expand C drive

Let's say you have two disks (C, D), determine how much information occupies on disk D (for example, the total volume is 800 GB, and 300 GB of space is occupied)
You will need to delete volume D without losing data. How to do it? You need to expand it by more than 300 GB, turn the unallocated area that appears into volume G. Now you will have three disks (C, D, G)
Copy all information from drive D to drive G.
We delete volume D, after which an unallocated area of 500 GB will appear
Expand drive C to the required volume, say 50 GB
The remaining 450 GB are converted back into Disk D.

Anyone who has their own website will find our next article useful, in which we described how to fill out the form correctly.

Now let's take it in order!

1. We expand volume D, in my case by 360 GB, and an unallocated area of 351 GB appears. Please note that expansion takes 10-15 minutes.

2. Right-click (RMB) and select “Create simple volume”. Now go to “My Computer” and you will see 3 drives: C, D, G. To avoid losing all files, copy them to drive G.

3. Removing volume D

4. Now we can “expand volume” C by the required amount. As you can see, C has increased to 127.93 GB.

5. From the unallocated area we create volume D. You can leave everything as is, or return the PC to its previous form, that is, leave 2 disks: C and D. To do this, transfer back all the information from G to D. After which, delete volume G, and volume D is expanding.

The presented process will take time, but it will 100% protect you from data loss, and most importantly, you will not need to learn a bunch of third-party applications that can damage your hard drive.

If you have any questions or encounter difficulties, write to me in the comments or in “ “.

The problem of lack of free space on the system partition has always been a common problem among users. Due to ignorance, many simply reinstalled the system or abandoned some programs by deleting them. To avoid reinstalling Windows, the article will consider the option of how to expand drive C with another partition. For this, different methods are used: using standard tools and third-party programs.

The only remark– the system partition and the one from which a certain amount of space will be used must be on the same physical HDD or SSD drive.

How to enlarge drive C using Disk Management

To expand the system partition, you can use standard Windows tools. The utility is called “” and you can get into it as follows:

In the window that opens on the left, go to the “” subsection.

We perform the following series of actions:

This completes the process of expanding drive C. This way you can enlarge any partition without losing data.

Attention! It should be kept in mind that the volume from which a certain amount of space is taken must be deleted, and this is already a serious drawback of the method.

Using Aomei Partition Assistant

This is a third-party program for working with information storage devices. To expand drive C from an HDD or SSD, you need to download the tool from an official or other source. There is support for Windows 7, 8 and 10.

You need to make sure that the user is doing everything correctly and that there are no problems with the power supply. Only then can you start the procedure, otherwise you will lose most of the files on the media.

After installing the program, change the interface to Russian from the settings. We carefully look through each section and find the system one. To resize partition C, do the following:

You will have to wait for some time, it all depends on the speed of the drive and the selected volume. This will be followed by one or two system reboots.

EaseUS Partition Master to increase disk size

After downloading and installing the utility, run it. The interface will be somewhat similar to Aomei Partition Assistant, so many users will not have any difficulties.

After reboot device, the volume of volume C will be increased, and the files located there will remain in their places.

Enlarge drive C using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

There is another option for increasing the system partition - using the MiniTool Partition Wizard Free program. After installation, we immediately move on to specific actions:

Four methods were considered to expand the system volume. The procedure should be carried out very carefully, since an incorrect action will result in the loss of important data.

Quite often, users are faced with the need to increase the size of the system disk. This is mainly due to the fact that the standard path for downloading and installing various applications is located in this directory. Most PCs remind you to increase disk space using alerts. Be vigilant, as a critically full root directory can significantly reduce the speed of your computer.

How to increase disk space

Regardless of the version of Windows you are using, all steps to add volume are carried out in a similar way. Please note that memory is not taken from anywhere, but simply transferred from one directory to another. That is, it is extremely important that the entire procedure is carried out within one hard drive, and that there is spare free space on the computer. Let's look at ways you can use to restore your system to its former performance.

Method 1: Use the Aomei Partition Assistant app

Today, quite a lot of programs have been released aimed at compressing and increasing disk space. One of the high-quality utilities of this kind is the Aomei Partition Assistant application. The key advantage of this program is the availability of Russian translation. It is also important that when downloading this software, no third-party applications are downloaded. Naturally, the download resource should be the manufacturer’s official website.

Don't forget to back up all important information on your PC. This will help protect yourself from data loss if the procedure does not go as planned. Working with the program is carried out as follows:

Based on the results of the operations performed, your PC will reboot automatically, after which the changes made will take effect.

Method 2: Use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

This is a small utility that is almost a complete analogue of the previous application reviewed, but, unfortunately, it does not have a Russian translation. Let's take a closer look at working with this program:

Method 3: Using standard system capabilities

You can increase disk space without downloading third-party software, but this method comes with some difficulties. When using this option, all existing information on the disk will be deleted, so before performing all actions, you must make a copy of the data. The procedure itself is done as follows:

The next step is to return drive D. This procedure is quite simple. All you need to do is right-click on a free area in the main window and select "Create Simple Volume". The new disk will automatically use all available free space.

As you can see, using third-party applications is a much more convenient option than standard system tools. Do not forget to make a backup copy of important information, since when using any method, you are not insured against data loss.

When resizing a partition on a computer's hard drive, the user may encounter a problem that "Expand volume" in the Disk Space Management tool window will not be active. Let's figure out what factors may cause the specified option to be unavailable, and also identify ways to eliminate them on a PC running Windows 7.

The problem studied in this article can be caused by two main factors:

The file system is of a type other than NTFS;
There is no unallocated space on the disk.

Method 1: Changing the file system type

If the file system type of the disk partition you want to expand is other than NTFS (for example, FAT), you need to format it accordingly.

Attention! Before performing the formatting procedure, be sure to move all files and folders from the partition on which you will perform the operation to external media or to another volume of the PC’s hard drive. Otherwise, all data after formatting will be irretrievably lost.

Method 2: Create Unallocated Disk Space

The method described above will not help you solve the problem with the availability of the volume expansion item if its cause lies in the lack of unallocated space on the disk. It is also important that this area be in the snap window "Disk Management" to the right of the volume being expanded, rather than to the left of it. If there is no unallocated space, it must be created by deleting or shrinking an existing volume.

Attention! It should be understood that unallocated space is not just free space on the disk, but an area not assigned to any specific volume.

You can also create unallocated disk space by shrinking the volume you plan to expand. In this case, it is important that the partition being compressed has the NTFS file system type, since otherwise this manipulation will not work. Otherwise, before performing the compression procedure, follow the steps indicated in Method 1.

In most cases, when a user is faced with a situation, the option "Expand volume" not active in snap-in "Disk Management", you can solve the problem either by formatting the hard drive to the NTFS file system, or by creating unallocated space. Naturally, the method of solving a problem must be chosen only in accordance with the factor that caused its occurrence.