Disk Management - Delete and Extend

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

Partition Type	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 option 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.

EXAMPLE: Before and After

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STEP ONE

To Delete a Partition

1. Open the Control Panel. (Classic View)​

A) Click on the Administrative Tools icon.​

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B) Click on Computer Management.​

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2. Click on Continue in the UAC prompt.​

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

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4. Right click on the volume (EX: E:\ ) you want to delete that is just to the right of the partition that you want to extend, 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.​

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5. Click on Yes to the confirmation prompt. (See screenshot below)​

NOTE: This will leave the partition as unallocated (blank) with no drive letter.​

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STEP TWO

To Extend a Partition

6. Right click on the partition (EX: C:\ ) the is just to the left of the unallocated space that you want to Extend it into, and click on Extend Volume. (See screenshot below)​

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

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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.​

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

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

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11. Close Computer Management.​

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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.​

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That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

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• How to Shrink and Create a Partition with Disk Management in Vista
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• How to Show or Remove Drive Letters from Displaying in Vista
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• How to Create a Drive Shortcut in Vista
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• How to Convert a FAT or FAT32 Volume to NTFS in Vista
• How to Recover Deleted Partitions in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Fresco. I just copy and paste them myself.

 

[ICit2lol]

Hello Shawn I am trying to extend a partition on a 500GB drive that I cloned to and it has three partitions. C: 138GB Recovery D: 10.5GB and one other 317GB that I am formatting now. Thing is I cannot get to extend the C: as the extend is greyed out.

 

[Brink]

Hello John,

Could you post a screenshot of your Disk Management window just to be sure of what options you may have?

 

[ICit2lol]

Shawn sorry mate no snipping tool, print screen and now the forum upload not working so photo instead.

 

[Brink]

Ah, ok. The problem is that you have the Recovery D: partition inbetween the C: partition and the 316.73 GB RAW partition. You will not be able to extend C: into the RAW partition in Disk Management because of that.

First you would need to use the free program Partition Wizard (Home Edition) to be able to delete the 316.73 GB RAW partition until it is "unallocated" space, then extend/move C: into the unallocated space to add it all to the C: partition.

 

[ICit2lol]

Ah, ok. The problem is that you have the Recovery D: partition inbetween the C: partition and the 316.73 GB RAW partition. You will not be able to extend C: into the RAW partition in Disk Management because of that.

First you would need to use the free program Partition Wizard (Home Edition) to be able to delete the 316.73 GB RAW partition until it is "unallocated" space, then extend/move C: into the unallocated space to add it all to the C: partition.

Thanks Shawn will do.:D

 

[Brink]

You're welcome. Please let us know how it went.

 

[ICit2lol]

Thanks nShawn am "playing" with it now am just trying to get the hang of getting the recovery at the front so I can move the C: into the large unallocated section the other side of it. I did it once but ended up with 14 pending operations so am head down right now lol!!

 

[dfried]

Need help rearranging the space on my disk drives - something I haven't done before and want to do it correctly.

i've attached a word doc w/screenshots of my computer management screen and a shot of my computers hard disk drive space.

my questions is:

on the screenshot of my computer management screen - there are 2 partitions (one to the left and one to the right) beside my c: drive. what are these?? they don't show up when looking at my computers hard drive space.

one to the left says 1.46GB Healthy (EISA Configuration) and the one on the right says 8.72GB Healthy (Primary Partition).

my original problem is that I'm constantly losing space from updates on my c: drive and this is slowing the performance of my pc. i need to expand this drive. from reading in here in order to do that the space I will use must be to the right, in this case to the right of the c: drive is the 8.72GB.

before I reallocate that space to the c: drive - how do i determine if anything is on there since it does not show up under my disk drives?

also, can anything be done with the 1.46GB space?

Also, from reading here and please correct me if I am wrong. I will need to use a 3rd party software in order to take drive space from the D: drive or my 48.83GB unallocated space I partitioned from the D: drive and move it to the c: drive correct??

if that is so, why wouldn't vista build this capability in?

would appreciate your thoughts on this, let me know if I need to provide you with anything further for your review/comments.

thanks,

Don

 

[Brink]

Hello Don, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I'm sorry, but you will not be able to add space from one physical HDD disk (ex: D ) to another physical HDD disk (ex: C ) with your setup. You can only arrange space within the same physical HDD.

You would also not want to mess with any of the partitions on your Disk 0 since both the 1.46 GB and 8.72 GB partitions on it are what is used to be able to reinstall Vista back to factory conditions with. Messing with them could leave you without a way to be able to reinstall Vista.

Here are some things that may help save space on C.

• Depending on what all you have installed or saved to your C: partition, you might be able to move and files (ex: pictures, music, documents, etc....) to be kept on D: instead.
• If any programs you install have the option to let you select where to install them, you could select to install them on D: instead.
• You could move the page file to be on D:.
• You could adust the max size of restore point disk usage to free up some space. Just be sure to leave yourself enough room to keep a few restore points in case you may need it one day.
• Hard Disk Space - Free Up and Recover - Windows 7 Forums

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[dfried]

that's unfortunate. i have moved what programs i can over to the D: drive and am constantly having to free up and run disk cleaners. just receive constant updates frm vista, browsers, and virus protectors, etc and it eats away at what free space (few gb's) i have.

i haven't moved the page file over yet and will also look at the restore point usage for now though I think its time to look into upgrading my laptops hard drive and learn cloning!

so frustrating...

thanks for the prompt response and new tips, will let you know how it goes!

 

[darlenecunich]

hello, i have two drives one called Vista (C), the other called XP (D), my uncle built my computer and put both on it, now i want to delete the XP and all its storage as i dont use it and move the GB into the Vista one..
I tried following your instuctions but when i went to delete D drive it said "Windows cannot delete the active system partition on this disk"

What do i need to do?
Thanks Darlene

 

[Brink]

Hello Darlene, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Please go ahead and post back with a screenshot of your Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) window showing the full layout of your HDDs first. This will allow us to be able to give a more specific solution for you.

 

[darlenecunich]

im doing this from vista, but i was thinking maybe i need to sign into XP and do it from there??

thanks

 

[Brink]

Darlene,

Well, it shows that you have XP and Vista on separate partitions, but on the same hard drive (Disk 0) though.

An "active" partition or volume is the one from which the computer starts up. On a basic disk, the active partition must be a primary partition.

You could mark the Vista partition as Active, and may need to do a startup repair up to 3 times on the Vista partition if Vista will not boot. Once Vista is booting fine, you could then delete XP to use that space how you like.

However, it may be easier and less trouble to boot from your Vista installation disc to do a clean install of Vista by deleting both XP and Vista to have "Disk 0" as "Unallocated Space", then select it to install Vista. This way you have all of the HDD space available for Vista without having to mess with repairing the Vista MBR as above. Be sure to backup anything you do not want to lose first though.