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
[TABLE=class:-grid,-width:-700][TR][TD]
Partition Type
[/TD]
[TD]
Description
[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]
Primary Partition
[/TD]
[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
[/TD][/TR]
[TR][TD]
Extended Partition
[/TD]
[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)
[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]

   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

​

​

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:\ ) 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.​

​

​

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:\ ) 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)​

​

​

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

Related Tutorials

---

• 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

 

[Brink]

Hello Gezza, and welcome to Vista Forums.

Could you post a screenshot of this in Disk Management? This will help us make sure that we are helping you properly.

Shawn

 

[gezza]

Hello Shawn,

How exactly do I do that???

Sorry, I have seen screen shots, but never posted one before.

If you could explain how, I will post for you to see.

Thanks,

Gezza.

 

[Brink]

This tutorial will help show you how to with the Snipping Tool.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/148532-how-use-snipping-tool-vista.html

 

[gezza]

Thanks for that,

Please see information attached,

Looking forward to your reply,

Thanks,

Gezza

 

[Brink]

Gezza,

For a logical partition, you would need to right click on the D: partition and click Delete Volume, then right click on it again and click on Delete Partition. Afterwards, it will be a unallocated partition where you can use STEP TWO to extend C: into all of D: .

 

[gezza]

Thank you I will try that today.


I will let you know how I go, thanks


Gezza.

 

[gezza]

Thanks very much, worked just like you said,

Cheers,

Gezza.

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Gezza. I'm happy to hear that you got it all sorted now.

Shawn

 

[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?

View attachment 5621

after emailing western digital and asking then if this was part of there design
the responded back that the thought it might just be a partition that had been created threw the upgrade process and deleted afterwards... still i and the guys from western digital were not totally sure
anyway i decided... my pc is not its best so what the heck if i loose some data
following the second half of this tutorial from the point just after the deletion process of a partition i went ahead and followed the instructions to extend my drive...
with all the luck in the world it all went without a hitch and i have now gained back that 1.47GB of un allocated space

so once again brink i thank you for your tutorials and now after all that im off to back up the rest of my pc and start on a fresh install

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Ripbox. I'm happy to hear that you got your unallocated space back.

Shawn

 

[GeneYuss]

Hi Brink,

Good tutorial. I have deleted D: drive . But I see it is on the left side so I will not be able to extend it to C: drive? What do you recommend? I'll include screenshot.

p.s. I extended Drive C: an extra 9mb like another poster mentioned. Do you know why 9mb is unallocated?

 

[Brink]

Hello Gene, and welcome to Vista Forums.

I'm not sure why you extended the C: drive by 9 MB. It would be unallocated because you did not create a new simple volume with it.

Could you post back a updated image of Disk Management, and let me know how you wanted it be? I'm assuming that you are wanting the C: drive to be one large drive again????

Shawn

 

[GeneYuss]

Hi Brink,

When I bought the computer, it had;

C: Drive - ~107GB
D: Drive - 4.25GB
9mb unallocated

On the D: Drive was XP Recovery but I deleted that since I now use Vista and I would like D: Drive merged into C: Drive. But once I get to step 6, the "extend volume" is grayed out.

 

[Brink]

Gene,

If you feel comfortable with this, you can see if using the Diskpart command to try and expand the C: drive's volume number into the 9MB unallocated space.

Then Delete the D: partition, and expand the C: drive's volume number into the 4352MB unallocated space from it.


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 you are not comfortable doing this, 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, or use a 3rd party disk management program to extend C: into the other unallocated partitoins.

Hope this helps,
Shawn
Hope this helps,
Shawn

 

[ripbox]

wudnt it just be easyer to re creat the partition say for example D:
then change the drive letters..... swap D: for C:
move all the content over from D to C then delete D and then extend C

its just a wild guess....

 

[Brink]

Hi Ripbox,

You wouldn't be able to that in the Vista Disk Management. It will not let you change the C: drive (system or boot).

 

[GeneYuss]

Hi Shawn,

I tried Diskpart with no avail Does it matter if the unallocated space is on the left side?

I can do a clean reinstall now. How do I merge the drives in advanced disk management option?

 

[Brink]

GeneYuss,

While in the Drive (Advancded Options) during installation, you will just need to select each partition and click on the Delete option. At the end you should only have one partition left to select to install Vista on.

 

[GeneYuss]

Thanks Brink,

It worked Thanks for your support and quick replies

 

[Brink]

You're welcome Gene.