Vista Tutorial - Disk Management - Delete and Extend

**Brink** · **Type of Partition** **Description**

How to Delete and Extend a Partition with Disk Management in Vista

Information

When you Delete a hard disk partition (volume) you turn that partition into a unallocated (unformated) partition. You can then use this unallocated partition to Extend another partition to a larger size. For more information, see: Windows Help and How-to: Partition and Understanding Disk Partitioning

Type of Partition

Description

Primary Partition

A type of partition created on a hard drive that can host an operating system and functions as though it were a physically separate hard drive. Also called a volume. Only up to four primary partitions, or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition can be created on a single hard drive. Primary partitions can be used to install and start an operating system. If you want to create more than three partitions, the fourth partition is created as an extended partition. See: Windows Help and How-to: What are system partitions and boot partitions? and The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog : Understanding the error message "There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation" when you create a volume

Extended Partition

A type of partition on a hard drive that should be used if you want to create more than four Primary partition. Extended partitions can contain multiple logical drives that can be formatted and have drive letters assigned to them. An extended partition is a container that can hold one or more logical drive. Logical drives function like primary partitions except that they cannot be used to start an operating system. This optioin has been removed in Disk Management for Vista. For how, see: The Storage Team at Microsoft - File Cabinet Blog :How to create an extended partition in Windows Vista (Click Yes for Security Information)

NOTE

This can be handy, for example, if you have one hard drive with two partitions and would like to Delete the second partition and Extend the first (boot) partition with Vista back to one large partion (volume).

Tip

The default location for Disk Management is C:\Windows\System32\diskmgmt.msc.

WARNING

You will not lose any data on the partition (volume) that you are Extending. The partition you want to delete and use to extend another partion must be to the immediate right of the one you want to extend. You can cannot extend a partition from a deleted partition two or more partions to the right of it.
All data on a partition will be lost when you Delete it. Be sure to back up any files that you want to save to a different location before you continue.

RELATED LINKS:

EXAMPLE: Before and After

STEP ONE:
To Delete a Partition

1. Open the Control Panel. (Classic View)
A) Click on the Administrative Tools icon.

B) Click on Computer Management.

2. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.

3. In the left pane, click on Disk Management under Storage. (See screenshot below step 4)

4. Right click on the volume (EX: E:\ ) your want to delete and click on Delete Volume.
NOTE: If your hard disk is currently set up as a single partition, then you cannot delete it. You also cannot delete a system partition (OS isntalled on), boot partition, or any partition that contains a virtual memory paging file, because Vista needs this information to start correctly. You will have to use the Vista installation disk to delete it.

5. Click on Yes to the confirmation prompt. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: This will leave the partition as unallocated (blank) with no drive letter.

STEP TWO:
To Extend a Partition

6. Right click on the partition (EX: C:\ ) you want to Extend into the now unallocated partition and click on Extend Volume. (See screenshot below)

7. Click on Next for the Welcome to the Extend Volume Wizard window. (See screenshot below)

8. Select the amount of space in MB you want to use from the unallocated partition to use to Extend this partition. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: If you want to make one partition again, then select all of the available space for that one disk. If there were other drives with free unallocated space, they would be shown under the Available selection.
WARNING: It is advised that you do not extend a volume on one disk with free space from another disk. If one of the drives has a hardware failure, then all the data on that partition (volume) will be deleted.
A) Click on Next.

9. Click on Finish in the Completing Extend window. (See screenshot below)

10. You will now see the Disk Management console with the new Extended partition volume ready to be used. (See screenshot below)

11. Close Computer Management.

12. Click on Computer in the Start Menu and see your new Extened partition volume. (See screenshot below)
NOTE: In this example, we will have one large partition from the same hard disk now.

That's it,
Shawn

Morphene · 10-13-2007

This method would not let me extend the volume with Vista on it (C:\) the Extend... was grayed out, but it would let me extend the D:\ that has my XP installation on it... ALL are on the same disk!
how do i get around this? I followed the instructions to a T.

Thanks

**Brink** · 10-13-2007

Hi Morphene,

If everything is on the same hard drive, then this would be normal for Disk Management since D:/ is already an extended partition from C:/. Disk Management can only change or use the part of the hard drive that is free at the end of the last unmovable file (allocated space) on the hard drive. (EX: XP installation, Vista Page file, System Restore Cache File, etc.)

The only way around this is to use a 3rd party disk management program like Symantec Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Partition Manager.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

shahnawaz · 01-05-2008

hi,
I am a learner... new to computer. While Extending my drives i have deleted D dive (one of the two drives in the pc) where nothing was saved. how can i rtrive that drive. pls suggest asap.

Thanx

**Brink** · 01-05-2008

Hi Shahnawaz,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

If you want to remove the D:\ partition and add it back to the other partition to make one large drive again, then you can start at step 6 above in this tutorial.

If you want to maintain the separate D:\ partition, then start at step 8 here to add it back.

How to Shrink and Create a Partition with Disk Management in Vista

Hope this helps,
Shawn

zoltaaaan · 02-13-2008

	Quote:	Brink
	The only way around this is to use a 3rd party disk management program like Symantec Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Partition Manager. Hope this helps, Shawn

I also wish to extend my primary drive since it's only 20GB large, and my free space is dwindling even though i install every single program to another drive...
Symantec claims that their Partition Magic is not yet compatible with Vista, any other suggestions on a third party disk manager?

**Brink** · 02-13-2008

Hi zoltaaaan,

Welcome to Vista Forums.

I would recommend Acronis Partition Manager in the Acronis Disk Director Suite. It does a great job in Vista. You can download a free trial version of it to see if you like here.

Hard disk drive management software, partitioning manager and partition recovery utility

Shawn

zoltaaaan · 02-15-2008

Acronis worked perfectly, thank you so much!

**Brink** · 02-15-2008

Your welcome zoltaaaan. I'm glad that it worked for what you wanted.

Shawn

migrui7903 · 03-04-2008

hello, i need some help. i am new to this forum. by the way this is a great site. back to my situation, i am following your instruction on extending my hard drive. i am on step where i need to click on extend, but it is grayed out. what do i do now. i have the lenovo y510 which has a 30 gb main partitioned drive and the rest is 188gb.
thank you

miguel