Resize a Partition for Free in Windows 7 or Vista
Windows 7 and Vista include a built-in functionality in Disk Management to shrink and expand partitions. No more 3rd party utilities needed!
To get to this utility, open up Control Panel, and type in partition into the search box.. you’ll immediately see the link show up:
Shrink a Partition
In the Disk Management screen, just right-click on the partition that you want to shrink, and select “Shrink Volume” from the menu.
In the Shrink dialog, you will want to enter the amount you want to shrink by, not the new size. For example, if you want to shrink your 50gb partition by roughly 10gb so that it will now be roughly 40gb, enter 10000 into the box:
Extend a Partition
In the Disk Management screen, just right-click on the partition that you want to shrink, and select “Extend Volume” from the menu.
On this screen, you can specify the amount that you want to increase the partition by. In this case, I’m going to extend it back to the roughly 50GB size that it was before.
Note that the extend partition feature only works with contiguous space.
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Works great. Thanks!
Nice to have better than nothing, but not much better than nothing.
Very limited in it’s ability especially consider there is no partition
tool that can be accessed during vista install. The work around is to install xp and use the xp partition tool then upgrade to vista. As currently there is no retail vista partition utility available currently.
Hi I read this article with interest, but I’m wondering how I can resize a separate xp partition under vista.
I have C: 149 GB NTFS (Vista)
B; 78 GB NTFS
F: 29 GB FAT32
and 41 GB free space.
How can I absorb that free space into F? When I right click on the partition under disk management, it doesn’t allow me the option to ‘expand volume’. Would be very grateful for any help.
Leigh.
hi. how to format Shrink Partition in vista.
Hi what do you mean by:
“Note that the extend partition feature only works with contiguous space”
I shrink 10GB from the C drive – hoping to expand the D drive with this space. however the expand function is still greyed out. please help. thanks.
I resized my c:\ partition and added and f:\ partition. I put my Windows XP disc in the CD drive hoping to install it to the new partition. But windows says I have no hard drives installed. What gives? I have a new Compaq Presario C5600. Thanks.
thanks
Hi
I have 2 partition C drive with 100GB and D Drive with 10 GB other 10 GB is backup by dell manufacture, and my os is window vista. I was trying to shrink my C drive where Os is loaded. It allow me to shrink using computer manager but when I try to make new volume to this unallocated space it gives me error message ? there is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation ?
will any one help me how to partition in window vista . I don’t mind to reinstall the OS as well.
same problems please help
Everything is fine upto creating the second partition and add OS entry. But when I try to install XP, it gives me error as
please disable BIOS memory option such as Caching and Shadowing. I’m not able to proceed. Please help.
It’s very limited as all microsoft built-in tools. You can resize but you cannot FREE space that is being used for “system files” … the resize should let you should the size you want for the new drive and relocated everything to another space.
when i created new partition by resizing my partition from 80 gb to 69gb+2GB+7.8gb
Now i made 2nd part. active.
& installed xp
from xp i cannot resize my 2gb partiton ,even , partition magic shows following error…
—————————
Error
—————————
Disk 1 (76316MB 10337c 240h 63s) appears to have partitions created using a different
drive geometry (255h 63s). This serious problem can lead to data loss.
No partition manipulations should be made to this disk using this
product or the operating system’s products. You should back up
the data on this disk, delete all partitions, create new partitions under the new
drive geometry, and then restore your data using the backup.
—————————
OK
—————————
what to do???
***********warning while resizing***********
is it due to some kind of specialized partition tech. that vista had done which other cant understand!!!
how can i now resize my xp partition as i have lost my active partition from vista to xp(which i know was not recommended but let’s talk abt partition resize)
Your note about only being able to extend partitions into contiguous space doesn’t seem correct, just shrunk my C: drive using your excellent tutorial on getting around the shrink volume restrictions. I’d hoped to add this free space to my D: drive, but alas, Vista’s free disk manager too won’t let me as the “extend volume” option on the D: drive is greyed out. It will let me re-extend the c: drive into that space though…
I could delete the D volume and re-create it using all the space as a friend suggested, but I’d rather not since I don’t have space to back up the data that’s on there (it’s not critical data, but it’s nice to have). Any suggestions?
A Diagram of my current partitions:
| C: drive | unallocated space | D: drive
I should have written that more clearly… it only works with contiguous space -after- the partition.
Any one of the commercial utilities will allow you to move the partition, or the gparted live cd should also work.
You didn’t say, but I assume this is a distructive procedure (erases files/folders on the partition being resized)?
I cannot manually partition my HDD’s via diskpart.exe or Vista shrink. It states I only have 9MB free space when I have 50GB of free space left on my Main HDD, how can I fix this and have vista recalc my HDD space.
I really want to install Ubuntu on a 6-10GB partition(Vista/Ubuntu *dual boot) but am unable to create a partition even with PartitionMagic which gave me several errors after reboot trying to complete my partition I luckely had a recent restore point from earlier today which allowed me to get out of the infinate partition loop from PartitionMagic.
Wow, I don’t think I have ever said “partition” this many times ever
If you can help please do!
How can i expand my Drive C? It only allows for shrink.
Thanks.
i have 13 gb on c which is almost full and i have 90 gb on d. i use windows xp. should i expand c (and if so, how?) or should i incorporate d into c (again, how?) what is the purpose of having 2 drives? thanks for your input.
Resize a Partition for Free in Windows Vista Inquiries….
Check out this microsoft page for answers to partition creation, shrinking, etc.
Love your forum. Keep up the good work!
http://windowshelp.microsoft.c.....3.mspx#EFB
Thanx for the link. Took me 5 minutes to create a new logical drive.
Thenks i was looking for a program becouse i didnt know that vista had a tool thenk you.
it took me 30sec to done with it.
hi
i got a system with Windows Vista installed on it and ONLY one partition (C:)
of course i want to have at one more partition(D:) but i don’t want to reinstall everything
in this case the best option is to SHRINK system partition C
do you think that is possible with windows disk management ?
thx
emil
The Properties of my C: drive shows 15GB of Used Space and 40GB of Free Space but the Shrink
utility show 0 for the available shrink space!
What is the cause of this?
I have 2 partition C drive with 100GB and D Drive with 10 GB other 10 GB is backup by dell manufacture, and my os is window vista. I was trying to shrink my C drive where Os is loaded. It allow me to shrink using computer manager but when I try to make new volume to this unallocated space it gives me error message ? there is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation ?
will any one help me how to partition in window vista . I don’t mind to reinstall the OS as well.
Wow, what a “great” feature. It allows me to shrink my 188GB partition by a whopping 159MB!
How does Bill do it!!???
Many thanks for the info.
I have 2 partition C drive with 100GB and D Drive with 10 GB other 10 GB is backup by dell manufacture, and my os is window vista. I was trying to shrink my C drive where Os is loaded. It allow me to shrink using computer manager but when I try to make new volume to this unallocated space it gives me error message ? there is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation ?
Please help…
According to M$,Ttat s not an error, but a “feature.”
Enjoy.
I have 2 partitions:
C drive with 220GB – windows vista.
D Drive with 10 GB is backup by dell manufacture
I was trying to shrink my C drive where Os is loaded. It allow me to shrink using computer manager but when I try to make new volume to this unallocated space it gives me error message ? there is not enough space available on the disk to complete this operation ?
This happens if I try and shrink just a 30Gb partition… i can create it but not allocate it as a New Simple Partition.
This has been asked a few times here but no answer?
Im having the same problem as jaybaz. My sys is Dell M1530.
C drive with 220GB – OS
D drive with 10 GB – Recovery by dell manufacture (MS Work)
Hidden drive with 78MB – Primary partition (EISA Configuration)
Hidden drive with 2.5GB – Primary partition
Question1: Cant create new partition with the unallocated space i managed to get after shrinking C:
Question2. When i wanted to delete the 2.5GB hidden drive, i’ve got a prompt: This partition is not created by windows and might contain data recognised by other OS. Can i delete this drive ?
I believe i cant create new partition cz sys only allows 4 primary partition. Correct me if im wrong. Thx in adv.
I have a toshiba with a 200 GB single drive running under Vista OS. I want to add partition the hard drive to three more partitions. I’ll be grateful for your assistance.
I have a toshiba with a 120 GB and after Vista installation size in C :105.71 GB single drive running under Vista OS. I want to add partition the hard drive to two more partitions. I don’t mind to reinstall the OS as well.
Can disk management shrink C (OS disk drive ) safely?
How to do it (new size in C and D disk)?
I’ll be grateful for your assistance.
Understanding the error message “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation? when you create a volume
Shrinking volumes is a cool feature of Windows Vista, but we’re starting to see an interesting side effect—the inability to create a new partition in the newly created unallocated space. Customers who face this problem almost always have a new computer that shipped from the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) with 4 primary partitions on the disk. As you may know, hard disks configured as basic disks are limited to 4 primary partitions or 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition and multiple logical drives. Customers who try to shrink their operating system partition find that they can’t create a 5th partition due to this limit. Unfortunately the error message is not helpful and we are working to correct this in SP1.
Deleting the partitions created by the OEM is often not possible due to the way the OEMs configure the partitions. Therefore, our advice to customers is to extend the operating system partition back to the original size to regain use of the unallocated space. If additional storage is needed, consider adding an external USB hard disk.
Thanks Kumar,
My search for a solution to this problem ends in your reply. If possible include this as a message with in a patch in Windows update and there by helping people who keep trying the same down the line.
I have a single drive of nearly 120gb
i want to create partition using the disk management tool
but i want
to make it sure that my data is not lost
can i please get some information regarding the same
thanks
Hi
I have windows vista operating system.In my harddrive 160 GB in the one desk .I want to make two it into two drive ( 80 + 80 ).Can u guide me to do partition in windows vista.
Thanks and ragadrs,
Ramesh M
I had the same problem with a 120G drive which my son had formatted as Drive C 20G and Drive D as 100G. I also found that whilst the Vista Disc Management allowed Drive D to be shrunk, it wouldn’t allow me to expand Disc C into the space.
Last night I downloaded Paragon Software Partition Manager Version 9 Personal Edition for about £22 and this afternoon resized disc C to 50G with Disc D at 70G (in round figures) with no effort on my part. I’ve achieved what I wanted. The proportions were my choice – Partition Manager appeared to be able to accommodate any ratio to include additional partitions but I haven’t investigated the latter.
Ian
I need help.
Ihave used Partitiom magic with Windows Vista and and one of three deseapered. Whar to do?
Sorry for bad english.
I created an additional drive (volume) by shrinking drive C. New drive is created and is 80GB. On Computer Management screen it shows that new drive is “unallocated”. When i try to allocate a drive name using New Simple Wizard i get the bellow error.
“There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation?
I have tried all the available options of the Wizard but the same error occurs. Since this drive is not allocated, it cannot be seen. pls help me.
Hey there,
Really need ur help… i just bought a MaxtorOneTouch4 250 gb ext hdd. It is in NTFS format and i just transferred 150 gig of media to it so that i can get my PS3 to detect it but i just found out that PS3 only reads in FAT32 format… How do i change part of the hdd to FAT32 format without transferring back the 150 gig into a pc??
Tnx in advance
I am trying to install xp on a computer with vista.I followed your instructions on shrinking the c:Drive and am trying to allocate 20 GB on another drive.Everytime I try to name the drive D and follow the steps it doesnot accept and gives me an error at the end.i would like to take out or del the Unallocated space or assign a da s adrive and I am not able to do so.
1.How do I assign the unallocated space of 20GB as drive D and then partition it or how do I go back to square one and del the unallocated space.
Thanks
great, its working……………
all those who had trouble splitting your partition, try disabling system restore, pagefile, (in advanced settings in computer properties) and hibernate option (in power management). it frred up some of my hard disk. i am still working on it.
don’t forget to turn them on back later.
Need urgent help!!!!!!!!
Iam trying to install lot of applications which cannot work on vista ,so i want to do partition and want to install XP on other drive and make it as a dual Boot ,
I have only one C drive of one 160 gb
Note : please tell me wheter i would lost the data in the C drive or not
Please guide me how can i do that.
Although I have not had any problems with Vista’s Partition Manager, I have heard others who have. I found a great utility online for free…”Partition Magic Live.” After you download the ISO image and burn it CD/DVD, it runs as a boot up disk in a linux kernal. Very nice!
I have Vista Ultimate 64 and I don’t get any search result entering partition in the Control Panel search box
I’m probably repeating what has been said many times in this post but nevermind :
For Extend Partition feature, it is necessary to have the partition to resize and the Unallocated space CONTIGUOUS.
e.g. If you have C with for example 50GB, then D with 20 GB and then 20GB unallocated, you will be able to extend D but not C.
To extend the C drive, you will need to backup or copy to the space unallocated (after formatting it) and then delete the drive D to become an unallocated space.
Then the C and prior D will become contiguous and you will be able to extend the C drive just fine !
Same in here, on 64bit , can’t find any result for the partitioning tool.
I had an IDE drive with 2 partitions. one with data the other newly formatted. I extended the data containing partition to use the whole drive and now can’t access my data! I have done nothing else since I extended this partition.
hi
i m a vista ultimate installed in drive C (25gb).
other three two drives are D (15 gb) and E (30 gb).
i want to merge drive D with primary partition ie drive C, so to have drive C as 40 gb hard drive .
please suggest me ways of accomplshing the same.
The partition mechansim in Windows Vista is very bad. It has many limitations. There is no way to create more than 4 primary partitions. If you try to create more than four primary partions, then we will get an error “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation” which is not at all related to the acual cause. I dont understand what kind of testing has been done before its release.
Why you do you think M$ buys everything instead of producing their own stuff?
Only thing M$ has produced on their own is MS Bob.
i have a desktop with windows vista installed. drive size is 150 GB with three partition(c drive 25GB in NTFS, d drive 15GB in FAT32, and e drive 119GB presently visible as raw primary partition). my problem is that i like to make use of e drive which has the maximum space capacity,but unable to use, denying the access to this drive. i tried to format this drive from administrative templates also but denied. now no format no delete no access what to do. how to make it useable please help
Tnx Brice.
I wondered why no body made partition managers for Vista, I mean I tried Paragon but it doesn’t support 64 bit and I tried Cute but it just couldn’t burn it’s boot disk.
I then stumble across this forum and find that all along Vista had a manager built in. I just used it to partition & format my new (hence raw) slave drive and within seconds I now have a slave drive that Vista can access.
In response to Pras comment I use Linux alot on a second system and GParted is also limited to only 4 primary drives unless extended partitions are used.
And for those who can’t find partition in the search, i couldn’t either; go to administrator tools and select computer management. The partitioner is in there (I also run Ultimate x64)
Great work, keep it up.
Nice one lads,
Martyn
Installing XP on new partition:
For those of you installing XP on a new partition and getting an error that is somthing like “No Drive” found, the problem i am suspecting is in your drive type… Windows XP Install CD’s do not come with SATA drivers… it has no way of seeing these drives and assumes it is installing to an IDE drive unles you go through some pre boot driver install stuff that is more complicated then i want to explain.
it’s even harder to find the drivers needed to do it then actually do it.
have fun…
also keep in mind that XP is not designed to deal with multiple core processors to well… so that might also be another problem for you
I wouldn’t put XP and Vista on the same physical drive. It can cause nightmares…
I have a 160 gb sata drive partitioned into 2 drives, and i have been able to install xp with no problems (other than looking for drivers since no OEM drivers were provided for xp). It is working fine in dual boot and the only occasional error is xp overwriting bootmgr.exe (about once a month). This is easily repaired from the cd though. Its running fine with my T7500 cpu as well. Ill be trying Debian next.
Hi, i had a similar problem on my Dell laptop (creating an extra volume after resizing my drive C). My turnaround was to delete the last partition (which was empty) and it merged with the new volume i created from the drive C. This left me with 3 partitions and an extra unallocated space. Now i was able to create a new volume from this unallocated space
Ok
Maybe this has been answered but I saw a similar problem above and couldnt find the answer.
When I try to create a New Simple Volume I get the error message “There is not enough space available on the disk(s) to complete this operation” I have looked around and found people with the same problem but no solution!!!
Please help!!!
I recently bought a Dell Inspiron 1525 with 250G hard disk storage on it. Apparently they did not partition the way I wanted it to be (not in their policy), but it came with 3 partitions (c: for OS, d: as a recovery of 10gb; a logical partition for media direct). I tried to reinstall the from the scratch as I wasn’t aware of the shrink feature, and got into a problem of this unallocated space when partitioned the C: of 220G into 100 + 120g. I installed the OS (vista premium) on C: and then tried to use the unallocated for d: drive. However, it wouldn’t allow me to do so and i was left with 100g with main drive.
I reached this post and noticed a comment [ http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....ment-31645 ] and realized of installing OS from the scratch again. I deleted a partition (recovery d:) that OEM had created, and combined both unallocated storage spaces and then partitioned as 2 drives as primary. I still have the media direct logical partition, I hope it works ok when I completely install the Premium again.
I hope I have all the drivers required once the installation is complete now. wireless did not work after I reinstalled previously, hope it works fine with this new re-install now.
will update this post, in case it helps any one here.
-Ram
I tried to resize the C: drive of my new Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. I was able create a new partition of 20 GB but could not format it. I restarted the system but could not boot into it. Could anyone help me as I am not interested to reinstall Windows Vista as important data is present on the C: drive.
I understand from the above that Dell sets up 4 partions when it installs Vista and Vista only accepts 4 partitions. I was hoping to add another partition to my gigantic 500 GB hard drive. Is this possible. I like to have all the data files which I create (dbase, spreadsheets, writing, etc.) on a separate partition so I can just backup changes to these quickly to my portable drive. If I crash (which has happened dispite serious surge protectors), I can just reinstall the operating system and software and I’m in business.
greaaaaaaaaaaat…nice post…thanks…solve my problem without third party software:-)
if you wont be able to shrink because windows says you have to less space (when you actually have plenty of space) you just have to put off system recovery, do this with this guide: http://service1.symantec.com/S.....0a004be5b1
me myself couldnt shrink my partition and i followed that guide and tadaa i have 30gb available space to shrink to a new partition.
good luck
I had left a comment here before [ http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....ment-50350 ] –> as i had planned after reading this post, I deleted the extra partition (10G) Dell had made, cleared other partitions except the media center partition, re-created the partitions C: and D: as I needed. Re-installed Windows Vista Dell had sent me along with the computer.
Drivers:
Although Dell support center software on the machine had the list of all the drivers required and had Tickmarked by those items, my assumption was the tool identified all the available drivers on the machine and tickmarked, but that turned out wrong when I called up Dell Tech Support. Dell representative walked me through those drivers, and I installed each one of those as appeared. My system was back to working condition including the wireless, audio, video etc within an hour on that call.
-Ram
Worked for me…………… THANKS
one doubt pls,
if we shrink the drive by this method, can we save the data on drives other than the o.s drive if an o.s fail occurs.to be more clear suppose that the operating system fails and requires a reintall due to some virus attack or some other fault, after the reinstallation will we be able to retrieve the data stored on the disks other than the o.s disk?
pls answer my email id is metomthomas@gmail.com
I have window vista in my laptop with 160GB having 1 partition is it possible to partition my hard disk so that i can have unix & vista.Plz suggest me.
will be very much thankful if anybody could answer to my previous question that is listed above
@Everyone
Please, Please, Please leave questions on the forum, where your threads will actually be seen and responded to.
http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/
i think it was just lovely. it did help me a lot. it was exactly what i was looking for ages ago.
If you want to resize the primary partition (the non-contigeous part)with the operating system on, take the hard drive out and put it in another PC with Vista. As the PC is not booting from this drive you can work this space. I have found you may have delete and re-install extended partitions, but then usually its easy to copy the data to the PC you are working with to carry out resizing.
one question:
i have already got 4 partitions.
knowing that vista only support 4 partitions, if i shrink one of my partition to free up space, can i use that space to install another system such as ubuntu?
have C: 250 GB NTFS (Vista)
C; 270 GB NTFS
d: 13 GB FAT32
and 14 GB free space.
How can I absorb that free space into D? When I right click on the partition under disk management, it doesn’t allow me the option to ‘expand volume’. Would be very grateful for any help.
Thanks Jerry & Gerald
Quote from Nick 25/8/07
“Nick
Your note about only being able to extend partitions into contiguous space doesn’t seem correct, just shrunk my C: drive using your excellent tutorial on getting around the shrink volume restrictions. I’d hoped to add this free space to my D: drive, but alas, Vista’s free disk manager too won’t let me as the “extend volume” option on the D: drive is greyed out. It will let me re-extend the c: drive into that space though
I could delete the D volume and re-create it using all the space as a friend suggested, but I’d rather not since I don’t have space to back up the data that’s on there (it’s not critical data, but it’s nice to have). Any suggestions?
A Diagram of my current partitions:
| C: drive | unallocated space | D: drive”
That’s exactally the same experience that I have had with Vista, @ present C: has 289.02gig and D:Recovery has 9.07. Now all I wanted to expand D: for was to create more space for the backup as 9 gig just ain’t enough and I have sucessfully freed up 50 gig from C: but this tool will not allow me to expand D: with the unallocated disk volume. I have then tried to create a new partition F: with about 50gig on it and then to delete the D: drive, no luck with that either.
I don’t see where the problem lies with this “contiguous space -after- the partition” and would be grateful if “The Geek” could shed some more light on this and yes I have been to the forum looking for answers but there is not one definate one on how to expand when vista does not allow it.
Peace out
Andy
Initial situation
———————
Vista only allows to shrink C: by half (and I want to shrink it by 90% to free up space for Linux)
The following have worked for me:
———————————————–
Tools: I used perfectdisk (note they have a free 30-day trial). perfectdisk can consolidate free space AND it can consolidate free space taken by system files/data AND it shows a map (unused/used/MFT/etc) of your drive (it does not show though which file is taking a particular spot)
“Offline run” below means perfectdisk’s “offline run” mode (which is done when computer reboots BEFORE the main os boots).
Steps
——-
Some of these steps may not be necessary, (and some may eat your data. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK)
0. Disable pagefile and remove pagefile.sys (maybe wasnot necessary)
1. Disable hibernation (maybe was not necessary)
2. Run perfectdisk defragmenter in “consolidate free space” mode: a lot of space in the middle of harddrive is marked as “excluded” and does not move
3. Run defragmenter offline (this is needed to consolidate system files) No perceptible changes
in disk layout
4. Disable restore points, run defragmenter offline. Most of stuff in the middle of the disk is gone, but metadata is still there right in the middle of the disk
5. Now use VIsta’s “shrink the volume”. This shrinks the volume by 50%
6. Run defragmenter in offline mode ONE MORE TIME.
7. And now metadata is again in the middle of the disk, But the disk has shrunk! And so Vista agrees to shrink it by another 50%! (and by 75% from the original size)
I guess, you can repeat steps 6 and 7 as needed
Some obvious conclusions
————————————–
It seems that Vista needs/uses some special-purpose area on the disk. When Vista starts up, it tries to reuse this area, if it’s not there, the area is allocated anew somewhere around the middle of the drive. Offline defragmenter can move this area and forces Vista to reinitialize it.
So it seems likely that just doing: shrink/offline defragmenter run/shrink/offline run, would solve the problem in fewer steps.
keywords: shrink volume, partition, resize, Vista, Linux
i have a Dell M1530
C drive = 220 GB
D drive = 10 GB which is for backup by Dell
i am trying to partition my c drive via disk management, but when i open the shrink volume for drive C. it shows only 21 MB available for shrinking. i have about 140 GB of free space on my C drive. can anyone tell me why is this happening?
hi…
i have (Vista home premium)
C; 120 GB NTFS
d: 20 GB FAT32
and 19 GB free space.
How can I absorb that free space into D? When I right click on the partition under disk management, it doesn’t allow me the option to ‘expand volume’.what should i do? Would be very grateful for any help.
saurav..
I have a toshiba with vista installed.
there are 3 partitions,
1. primary system boot : C
2. primary
3. logical : F
their structure is C | D | F
i want to shring F and extend C by that much space.
C D are full.
Using the windows partition mgr does not help. allows me shring F. but does not even show me the extend option in C or D.
what can I do? I NEED to extend my C partition .
Please help..
Complete information about Windows Vista’s Disk Management tool can be found here:
http://www.vista4beginners.com.....ement-tool
works good
I have 250 GB HDD I have shrink 50 gb from it, when i format that partion i got a error like ‘ You can not create a new volume in the unallocated space because the disk already contains the maximum number of partition ‘.
I tried most site did not see the answer, but many people had faced same problem. Please share steps if anyone have.
PS. I am able to do the same task successfully on XP. Only Vista blocks it.
Unfortunately Vista tells lies, you CANNOT cut a large drive in half creating 2 similar sized partitions in Vista… what you can do is create measly partitions of perhaps up to 20 gb – now who is their right mind will want to create a pathetic 20gb partition on a 250 gb hard drive ?
You simply cannot create “real” large hard drive partitions with Vista, so its really a question of “back to Partition Magic or similar”
Sorry, Vista sucks, and now knowing this it sucks even more…
i have my hard disk 250 GB installed with window vista without any partition it has only c drive i want to make new partitions without lossing any data or formatting programs.please give me solution.
Hi,
Actually iwnted to expand my C:drive ,from D:drive in windows vista, please help…..
Thanks Alot
Hi i tried this thing in vista it shrined the volume that i wanted to do but was not showing the expand option in which i wanted to expand
There are some (lost) files at the end of the harddrive. So you cant shinrk more than few hundrerds.
Try easus it’s free end you can resize your partition.
I call it partitionning for Dummies. No need to know how to boot.
Fantastic!
Thank you for this great resource
To do what writer said in vista follow this orders:
1. click control panel.
2. click administratives tools.
3. click computer management.
4. after step 3, ocmputer management window will pop up. disk management is on the left side of the window.
5. you just have to right click the part you want to shrink or expend volume.
additional: if anyone have problem that saids “not enough disk space” while installing vista, you should follow the order:
1. click control panel.
2. click administratives tools.
3. click computer management.
4. after step 3, ocmputer management window will pop up. disk management is on the left side of the window, click on it.
5. right click any drive you want to clean and click properties.
6. in the general section, you should see pie diagram of capacity and disk cleanup button should be right next to it. click.
7. select the program you want to remove to make extra space.
My vista 64 bit runs on the c drive (65 gb). I have two other partitions 65 gb each. I want to increase the size of c drive. can i do it without formatting the whole drive?
I have a 500 G hard drive that has 455 in C Drive, 10 in D dive Recovery, and an E Drive. I would like to increase the the D Drive Recovery to about 50 G. How do I do it. I have Viata Home Preminum
I want to resize my hard drive but it tells me that size of available shrink space can be restricted if snapshots or page files are enableed on the volume. What will I do?
My 2 cents
My configuratin before extending was C:50GB D:80GB, also i had linux partition resolved by Windows 7 as unkown space.
What i did is to delete linux partition, and after that i did format of newly created partition.
So i had C, D, F(20GB)
I ve tried to extend D, so i can have 100GB on D. But extend option was greyed out.
Then i righ clicked on F, same case. I delted F partition, since it was empty, and when i clicked on D extend became clickable. I clicked and in 2 seconds i got D-100GB
IMPORTANT!!!
DO NOT DELETE any partition if you are not sure tthat there is any data you need!!! Backup files you need first!
how can i make partition in my computer (with xp) without formatting.Presently i am having c drive is 100 gb and d drive is 100gb and now i want to make it c drive as 50 gb and d drive as 150 gb
i am having dell inspirion laptop. i am having 3 drive C drive 220gb, D recovery drive 10 gb and logical drive. i want to partioned my c drive and i partitioned using shrink volume in window vista. and finally a message appear that”You can not create a new volume in the unallocated space because the disk already contains the maximum number of partition”.
this problem is faced by me as well as most of the dell laptop users.
Okay, here is the solution that i found. IT REALLY HELPS
IF u have for example a drive C containing the OS VISTA or whatever and u have another eg E. ANd you want to extend C right? here is what u do?
1. Go to Admins tools – Computer Mgt – Disk Mgt then Format the drive E
2. Then again right click on drive E and again click on “Delete drive”
3. Then right click on the drive C and choose “Extend drive”
4. it will b extended with all the available free spaces which u gained by deleting E
5. u r done.
Hi,
When trying to shrink my volume it says ‘parameter is incorrect’. Also in my overview at the top of disks it says my D drive has a capacity of 90,24GB while in the detailed overview at the bottom it says my D drive is 99,05BG big. When going to my computer it also says 90,24GB while it should be 99,05GB big… any suggestions ?
Thanks Geek!
I keep forgetting where this is located….
I have a partition C: with 200GB with WIN 7 and want to create a partition and install WIN XP on that as WIN 7 doesn’t run with most of the software just coz.. its a news OS.
I need help in creating a partition and installing WIN XP without formating the computer.
Please help!
Worked like a charm… Thanks. Shrinking is a great WIN 7 function.
i have laptop of dell and in this there is a primary partition of 298.89GB and i want to divided it into 2 or 3 part how can I divide it and create new partion.
danke
Awsome help but you should have put in the part about creating an entirely new storage space to put all the shinked space.
hi
i istalled windows 7
now i cant format and have a 117 gigabite from free of my hard
c-d-e-f-g-h = 380 gb and my hard capacity= 500 gb
120 gb i losed i i want to faound it and format it and have 7 drive . now i have 6 drive=380 gb
thx
babak
hi help me i have a pc with OS win7 i have many problem after i cracked my OS (i live in Iran and there isn’t orginal OS in Iran)1) IE in my system can’t open some webpage ex websites that include script code for recognize 2) i want to extend two partition to one partition but i can’t element extend is n’t active help me thx can you send your answer to my Email? please
how to extend c: drive
How can i expand my Drive C? it is full, on D i hav memory, for C It only allows for shrink.
Please help..
Thank you, your post is very very useful!
Thanks
Thanks guys you made partitioning like a walk in the park after I spent a couple of days trying to use “Partition Wizard” and “Partition Magic” with no success.