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
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Partition Type
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[TD]
Description
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[TR][TD]
Primary Partition
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[TD]
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
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[TR][TD]
Extended Partition
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[TD]
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)
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   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

 

[hasan_hzl]

Hi Hasan_hzl,

You can make Free a separate partition and copy the data from D: over to it, then delete D: and extend C: into D: to have C: - (new Free with letter) - E: .

It's a bit of a shuffle, but it will work.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Thanks. I will try

I did not try because I installed many programs on D: hence it is impossible to move folders to other drives. Is not there any other way to do my stuff by using some programs? I tried to use Paragon Partiton Manager but it did not help me. I know this is not a big problem but I want to learn if ther is any programs.

Thanks for your helps again.

 

[Brink]

Acronis Disk Director is a good one to use. I do not know if the trial version will do what you want, but the full version should.

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

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[hasan_hzl]

Acronis Disk Director is a good one to use. I do not know if the trial version will do what you want, but the full version should.

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

Hope this helps,
Shawn

Acronis Disk Director Suite is not working. I think it is not x64 compatible

Thank you.

 

[hockeymansp]

I would like to delete a partition on my harddrive but it is located on the LEFT of the partition I would like to extend. I was about to delete and extend as described in this forum but I noticed the directions are for deleting partitions located on the RIGHT of the partition you want to extend. Can I follow these instructions without losing data?! I would really appreciate any help! Thanks in advance.

 

[ripbox]

does it matter what side the partition is displayed on?
and out of curiosity i took a look at my Disk management and noticed that although i don't have any partitions i do have 1.47GB of un allocated space, what's all that in aid of?

 

[Brink]

Hi Ripbox,

To extend a partition, you must use a unallocated partition (deleted) directly to the right of the partition you want to extend and not to the lefft or two or more over to the right.

To shrink a partition to create a new one, you can use any partition that has enough free space to do so with. It will create the new partition directly to the right of the partition you are shrinking. However, the you can only create up to 4 partitions per drive.

In your case, I'm not sure what the 1.47 GB of unused space was setup for. You can pick up at Step Two in this tutorial to Extend C: into the 1.47 GB partition so it will be one drive again and gain that space back.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[stlhkr]

This method worked out fine. As I had one primary partition and 2 logical drives on same disk C:\. I deleted both the logical drives D: & E: It gave me green marked new volume. The C:\ Extend Drive feature was grey then. I dleted the new green volume and then tried Extension of C:\. It worked out fine and now full volume of C:\ is dedicated to Vista.

This method worked beautifully. Took less than 5 minutes on a Lenovo Y410.

 

[bobcorn1990]

Thank you very very very much
you have saved my life,
I've been searching for 2 month for that, and in just 20 sec , i was able to solve my problem with that
thanks again

 

[Brink]

Your welcome Bob, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Shawn

 

[bennys]

Hello !
OK, this might be unimportant but it's been bothering me for awhile.
I have two drives, C:(for Vista OS), E:(XP OS). and an unallocated space next to my E: drive.
Although it's only 9MB, I cannot put it to use nor get rid of it. Neither C: or E: could be extend(greyed out).
Can you please tell me what the solution to my problem is?
Thanks. Here are my partitions:

 

[Brink]

Hi Bennys,

If you feel comfortable with this, you can see if using the Diskpart command to try and expand the E: drive's volume number into the 9MB unallocated space. This MS article will help explain how to.

How to use Diskpart.exe to extend a data volume in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, and in Windows 2000

If not, then I would just wait until the next time you do a clean reinstall, then use the advanced disk management option while installing Vista to sort the partitions.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[bennys]

Thank you Sean.
It was pretty intimitaing at first but I followed the steps and successfully accomplished the task.
Thanks.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Bennys. I'm happy to hear that you got it sorted.

Shawn

 

[tom8152000]

hi
the method is not working in my addition. i have 4 drives and i want to combine two of them into one drive, but after i deleted one and i can not extend any of the other of three
can u help me please

 

[Brink]

Hello Tom, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Could you post back a screenshot of Disk Management with all of the drives to help determine what may help?

If they are separate physical hard drives and not partitions, then you cannot combine (extend) them like that in Disk Management.

Shawn

 

[tom8152000]

here is the screenshot:

 

[Brink]

Tom,

You can use the same method I descibed above for Bennys to do this.

If you feel comfortable with this, you can see if using the Diskpart command to try and expand the D: drive's volume number into the 10MB unallocated space. This MS article will help explain how to.

How to use Diskpart.exe to extend a data volume in Windows Server 2003, in Windows XP, and in Windows 2000

If not, then I would just wait until the next time you do a clean reinstall, then use the advanced disk management option while installing Vista to sort the partitions.

Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[tom8152000]

i go try it thanks

 

[Brink]

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

Shawn

 

[gezza]

Hello There,

I could use some help please.

I show the following.

1. Primary Partition 9.7mb

2. Vista OS C 149.09mb

3. Data D 139.28mb - says Logical Drive - not used.

Can I delete the D partition, then increase the C to 288.37mb??

Your help would be appreciated,

Thanks,

Gezza.