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
• How to Change a Drive Icon in Vista
• How to Add, Change, or Remove a Drive Letter in Vista
• How to Change the Default Boot Partition in Vista
• How to Show or Remove Drive Letters from Displaying in Vista
• How to Rename a Drive in Vista
• How to Disable or Enable Low Disk Space Warning in Vista
• How to Increase Hard Drive Performance in Vista
• How to Restrict or Unrestict Drive Access in Vista
• How to Hide or Unhide a Drive in Vista
• How to Create a Drive Shortcut in Vista
• How to Mount or Dismount a Drive or Partition to a Folder in Vista
• How to Convert a FAT or FAT32 Volume to NTFS in Vista
• How to Recover Deleted Partitions in Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8

 

[SIW2]

Hi emil,

It will help you if you give the hidden partitions drive letters - D and E will do if your dvd drive is not already D , otherwise use E and F.

Are the hidden partitions on the left or the right as viewed in Disk Management ?

If you post a screenshot of Disk Manangement it will help.

You shouldn't have trouble booting as long as you don't move the Vista partition ( C ).

Hope it helps

SIW2

 

[Emil Musayev]

Hi emil,

It will help you if you give the hidden partitions drive letters - D and E will do if your dvd drive is not already D , otherwise use E and F.

Are the hidden partitions on the left or the right as viewed in Disk Management ?

If you post a screenshot of Disk Manangement it will help.

You shouldn't have trouble booting as long as you don't move the Vista partition ( C ).

Hope it helps

SIW2

I didn't assign any drive letter and I can't to do it.
It is system / hidden/ not active partition in the beginning of disk.
My Vista running on the same disk (drive letter C).
It is factory settings.

 

[SIW2]

You should be ok to delete that if you really need to -it will then be unallocted space.

You could make another partition from that unallocated space to use as you wish.

You will not be able to use Disk Management to incorporate it into the same partition Vista is on.

SIW2

 

[Brink]

Emil,

You can use METHOD TWO in the tutorial below picking up at step 2 to extend the C: partition into that bit of unallocated space so that you have just one disk again.

Partition or Volume - Extend - Windows 7 Forums

 

[helodude]

Need help extending partition C. I have run out of space. I deleted Partition D and I still cannot extend partition. It now says free space. I have a lenovo y510.

 

[Brink]

Hello Helodude, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Can you post a screenshot of your Disk Management to better see what may be going on?

Shawn

 

[Arashiou]

I'm having some trouble merging my hard drives.
My computer came with 2x500gb hard drives and i have already filled the first one. So i'm basically trying to use the second 500gb hard drive to extend the first one. following me?

I've already followed the intructions, but the "extend" option is grayed out. so intead i tried to use a 3rd party program - Acronis Disk Director Suite.

Tried to merge with the program, but evrytime i try it takes forever and laggs and the programs tells me that it has to quit.

here's a screen shot of my Computer Management:

If you can help me then thats great. If not can you give me any suggestions?

 

[Brink]

Hello Arashio, and welcome to Vista Forums.

With the default MBR disk you can only extend a partition into unallocated space on the exact same disk # (ex: Disk 0) and not onto another disk# (ex: Disk 1).

If disk 0 was not a system disk (with operating system installed on it), you could have converted Disk 0 and Disk 1 to be a "dynamic disk" instead of the default "MBR disk". This is not a option for you due to the above reason though.

About the only thing you can do is to format Disk 1 to make it a "New Simple Volume".

Hope this helps some,
Shawn

 

[kewl1]

HP Blackbird 002
Quad core Q6600
Striker extreme mobo
2 x 150 gig Raptors in RAID 0 array
8 gigs Corsair Dominator RAM

For the first year and a half I had terrible problems with this rig. I blamed it a lot on Vista when in fact I finally learned that a significant amount of the problem may have been due to a mismatch between version numbers of the 4 x 1 gig sticks of Dominator that I was using at the time. I did have to replace the RAM as well as the hard drives that failed.

In any case after all this time finally everything was working perfectly. Then along comes Windows 7. I got a copy immediately, 64 bit version. I doubled the ram but decided to partition my HD and dual boot with the 32 bit Vista. This worked amazingly well. My purpose was safety. After so many problems I didn’t want to wipe my drive which was now working perfectly with Vista and then find that Win 7 sucked and had new problems.

So what I have been doing is gradually deleting programs from the Vista partition and installing them on Win 7. I then decided it was time to start shrinking the Vista partition and expanding the Win 7 one. This was difficult at first. Because Vista was the first OS on the drive, in Windows disk management you can not shrink the one on the right (Vista and expand the one on the left as loony as this sounds. I did however find a disk partitioning program that easily let me to this. It’s from EASUS and is something like Partition Magic that we used with XP. So now my Vista partition is way smaller, my Win 7 much bigger and I’m about ready to take the big step.

So here is my big question (sorry to be so long winded). What is the safest way to get rid of Vista and have a single unpartitioned RAID0 drive? Can I just delete the Vista partition? Just reformat it? What I am afraid of is that this partition may have some kind of boot info that if deleted will make the computer unbootable. I have wrecked my MBR recently several times and I blame it on using Acronis TrueImage 2010 which seems to be a great program for cloning or restoring a disk but at the same time extremely dangerous for making your rig unbootable

 

[theog]

Common installation problems - Windows 7 Forums

Tutorial quick reference list for Installing Windows 7 - Windows 7 Forums

Questions to use for help with Installation Issues - Windows 7 Forums

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version - Windows 7 Forums

 

[momolai]

Hi Brink,

I have a HP 520 with 15.70GB drive C, 49.02GB drive D and E, and 35.31GB drive F. I ran out of space and wanted to extend drive C by deleting D and E. I followed your instruction, deleted volume drive D, but it now says free space, and extend volume on drive c is grayed out. What should I do now? Please help me!!! Thanks,

 

[Brink]

Hello Momolai, and welcome to Vista Forums.

You would just need to delete the "Free space" one more time before it will become "Unallocated space". Afterwards, you should be able to extend C: into it.

 

[momolai]

Thanks for your quick reply. But when I right clicked the free space, everything was grayed out (incl. delete partition) except for "new simple volume" and "help"... Looking forward to your reply. Sorry, I have to go to bed now. good night! Thanks in advance!

 

[Brink]

In that case, you will need to use a 3rd party program instead like the free Partition Wizard Home Edition to delete the free space and extend C into it.

 

[momolai]

Thank you sooooooo much!!! It worked out exactly as what you said! Im soooooo glad that I finally got rid of the low space problem that bothered me almost a month! Thank you!!!

momolai

 

[Brink]

You're most welcome Momolai.

 

[melt]

hi,

My name is Melt and I am running Windows Vista Home Premium.

Right now i have 4 partitions (read top to down as left to right in Disk Management):

C: (Windows Vista Home Premium) NTFS, 20GB - Already getting the dreaded not enough disk space message
D: (FreeDOS) 20GB - i know, what the heck am i thinking.....
E: (Program Files) NTFS, 20GB
F: (Data) NTFS, 100GB

(Sorry for not putting up a screencap of disk management, i don't have access to the affected PC at the moment)

This is how i intend it to look like after i am done:

C: (Windows Vista Home Premium) NTFS, 50GB - is this enough, you reckon?
E: (Program Files) NTFS, 20GB
F: (Data) NTFS, 74GB
D: (FreeDOS) 16GB - i know, what the heck am i thinking.....

I'm aware that i have a lot of partition shuffling to do to create the contiguous unallocated space next to C:

My concerns are this:

1. I have programs installed into both E: and the F: - can i just copy out the entire files and folders as per normal, into external storage then after all the partition shuffling and renaming the new partitions to E: and F: just copy them back from the external storage and have them work as per normal? are there hidden/system files or anything else that might prevent this method from working?
2. i have used the original drives D: E: and F: for paging files - i have since disabled paging on all drives except for C: and restarted my PC. will i be able to delete the old D: E: and F: partitions?

Thanks in advance for your patience and assistance!
Melt

 

[Brink]

Hello Melt, and welcome to Vista Forums.


Q1) The programs will need to be reinstalled on C instead. They cannot be copied over into C from E.


Q2) Yes, now that you only have the page file on C, you will be able to delete D, E, and F.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[melt]

Thanks for your quick response, Shawn.

I do not intend to move the program files from E: and F: to C:

I just want to extend C: so that I do not get the dreaded "Not enough space on local disk" error message

Initially I thought it was a paging file issue but then realised that there isn't enough free disk space on C: for the temporary files of software installers etc hence the decision to extend C:

Do you think 50GB will be sufficient? I usually install all other software on either drive E: or F: and intend to continue doing so in the future. the only reason why I am moving the files around is to juggle the partitions around so I can extend C:

The plan is to use the Vista Installation CD to boot then open a command prompt and robocopy /COPYALL E: and F: into external storage, then do the partition shuffling and copy them all back afterwards. i.e. make 2 temporary partitions on an external drive, say N: and O: then robocopy E: to N: and then delete partitions D: E: and F: , Extend C: , then re-partition drives D: E: and F: and robocopy N: back to E: and O: back to F:

Will this work?

 

[Brink]

You might see if you can use a 3rd party program like Partition Wizard Free Edition to shrink one of the other partitions for unallocated space, then extend C: into the unallocated space instead. This would be a lot easier. 50 GB should be fine.