Windows 10: Extend Volume or Partition in Windows 10

How to: Extend Volume or Partition in Windows 10

How to Extend Volume or Partition in Windows 10


Information In Windows, you can add more space to existing primary partitions and logical drives by extending them into adjacent unallocated space on the same disk. To extend a basic volume, it must be raw or formatted with the NTFS file system. You can extend a logical drive within contiguous free space in the extended partition that contains it. If you extend a logical drive beyond the free space available in the extended partition, the extended partition grows to contain the logical drive.

For logical drives, boot, or system volumes, you can extend the volume only into contiguous space and only if the basic disk can be upgraded to a dynamic disk. For other volumes, you can extend the volume into noncontiguous space, but you will be prompted to convert the basic disk to a dynamic disk.

This tutorial will show you different ways on how to extend a volume or partition into unallocated space on a basic disk in Windows 10.

You must be signed in as an administrator to extend a volume or partition.

CONTENTS:

• Option One: Extend Volume or Partition on Disk in Disk Management
• Option Two: Extend Volume or Partition on Disk in Command Prompt
• Option Three: Extend Volume or Partition on Disk in PowerShell

OPTION ONE [/i] Extend Volume or Partition on Disk in Disk Management
1. Right click on the Start *Start button to open the Win+X menu, and click/tap on Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc).

2. Right click or press and hold on the partition/volume (ex: "F") you want to extend, and click/tap on Extend Volume. (see screenshot below)


Note If Extend Volume is grayed out, then there is not any unallocated space available on the disk to extend the partition/volume into.



3. Click/tap on Next in the Extend Volume Wizard. (see screenshot below)



4. Type in how many MB of unallocated space you want to extend the partition/volume into, and click/tap on Next. (see screenshot below)


Note If you wanted to add all of the unallocated space to the partition/volume, then you type what is shown as the Maximum available space in MB (ex: "10241").

1024 MB = 1 Gb
1024 GB = 1 TB



4. Click/tap on Finish to extend the partition/volume (ex: "F"). (see screenshot below)



5. If you were extending a partition/volume (ex: "D") into noncontiguous unallocated space, then you will be prompted to click/tap on Yes or No to convert the basic disk to a dynamic disk to be able to perform this action. (see screenshot below)


Warning It is not recommended to convert the disk to a dynamic disk unless you are really sure you want to do this.

If this is a disk that Windows is installed on, then click/tap on No.



6. If successful, the selected amount of unallocated space will now be added to the partition/volume (ex: "F"). You can now close Disk Management if you like. (see screenshot below)








OPTION TWO [/i] Extend Volume or Partition on Disk in Command Prompt
1. Open an command prompt at boot.

2. Type the commands below one at a time into the command prompt, and press Enter after each command. Make note of the disk number (ex: "2") that contains the Free space (unallocated space) you want to extend a partition/volume on this disk into. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow diskpart

*Arrow list disk




3. Type the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow select disk <number>



Note Substitute <number> in the command above with the actual disk number (ex: "2") from step 2 above.

For example: select disk 2



4. Type the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. Make note of the volume number (ex: "5") of the drive letter (ex: "F") you want to extend into the unallocated space. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow detail disk




5. Type the command below into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow select volume <number>



Note Substitute <number> in the command above with the actual volume number (ex: "5") from step 4 above.

For example: select volume 5



6. Type the command below you want to use into the command prompt, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
(To extend into all of unallocated space)
*Arrow extend

OR

(To extend into specified size of unallocated space)
*Arrow extend size=<size in MB>



Note Substitute <size in MB> in the command above with the actual size in MB (ex: "10240") you want to extend the partition/volume (ex: "F") into. You will not be able to extend the partition/volume more than the amount of Free space available on the disk shown from step 2 above.

1024 MB = 1 Gb
1024 GB = 1 TB

For example: extend size=10240


Warning If the selected volume (ex: "4") is being extended into noncontiguous unallocated space, then you will get a There is not enough usable free space on specified disk(s) to extend the volume error message below.

You will need to select a volume (ex: "5") to extend into contiguous unallocated space instead.






7. When finished, you can close the elevated command prompt.





OPTION THREE [/i] Extend Volume or Partition on Disk in PowerShell


Note To see more usage options for the Resize-Partition command, see: Resize-Partition - Microsoft Docs

1. Open an elevated PowerShell.

2. Type the Get-Partition command into the elevated PowerShell, press Enter, and make note of the drive letter (ex: "F") of the partition/volume you want to extend on a disk. (see screenshot below)



3. Type the command below into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. Make note of the supported SizeMin (minimum size) and SizeMax (maximum size) in bytes to resize the partition/volume. (see screenshot below)
*Arrow Get-PartitionSupportedSize -DriveLetter <Drive Letter>



Note Substitute <Drive Letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "F") you want to resize from step 2 above.

For example: Get-PartitionSupportedSize -DriveLetter F



4. Type the command below you want to use into the elevated PowerShell, and press Enter. (see screenshot below)
(To shrink by size in Bytes)
*Arrow Resize-Partition -DriveLetter "<Drive Letter>" -Size <Size>

OR

(To shrink by size in KB)
*Arrow Resize-Partition -DriveLetter "<Drive Letter>" -Size <Size>KB

OR

(To shrink by size in MB)
*Arrow Resize-Partition -DriveLetter "<Drive Letter>" -Size <Size>MB

OR

(To shrink by size in GB)
*Arrow Resize-Partition -DriveLetter "<Drive Letter>" -Size <Size>GB

OR

(To shrink by size in TB)
*Arrow Resize-Partition -DriveLetter "<Drive Letter>" -Size <Size>TB



Note Substitute <Drive Letter> in the command above with the actual drive letter (ex: "F") you want to resize from step 2 above.

Substitute <Size> in the command above with the actual size (ex: "64425958912" in Bytes) you want to resize the partition/volume (ex: "F") by. You will not be able to resize the partition/volume more than the supported SizeMin (minimum size) and SizeMax (maximum size) given from step 3 above.

If you wanted to add all of the unallocated space to this partition/volume (ex: "F"), then you would use the SizeMax (maximum size) for <Size> in the command.

1000 Bytes = 1 KB
1024 KB = 1 MB
1024 MB = 1 Gb
1024 GB = 1 TB

For example: Resize-Partition -DriveLetter "F" -Size 64425958912



5. When finished, you can close the elevated PowerShell if you like.

That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Format a Disk or Drive in Windows 10
• How to Erase a Disk using Diskpart Clean Command in Windows 10
• How to Delete Volume or Partition in Windows 10
• How to Shrink a Volume or Partition in Windows 10
• How to Rename Drive Label in Windows 10
• How to Change a Drive Icon in Windows 10
• How to Change and Assign Drive Letter in Windows 10

:)

 

How to extend OS drive volume in Windows 10.?

, just right-click on the partition that you want to shrink, and select “Extend Volume” from the menu

I want to extend so your answer is really frustrating ans. I want to extend so why should i shrink and select extend? Extend option is already Dim or unavailable?

 

How to extend C partition

Hi Kevin,

Thank you for the information provided.

Please to inform you that you need to have an “unallocated disk space” to the right of the Partition\Volume you wish to extend on the same drive. Only when “unallocated disk space” is available “extend” option is highlighted.

I suggest you to try these steps and check if they helps.

Step1: Press Windows + R and Diskmgmt.msc and try the following

a. Right click the basic volume want to extend.

b. Click extend volume.

c. Follow the instruction on the screen.

Step2: Open a command prompt and type diskpart.

At the DISKPART prompt, type list volume. Make note of the basic volume you want to extend.

At the DISKPART prompt, type select volume <volumenumber>. This selects the basic volume volumenumber that you want to extend into contiguous, empty space on the same disk.

At the DISKPART prompt, type extend [size=<size>]. This extends the selected volume by size megabytes (MB).

Hope this helps. If the issue remains unresolved, please get back to us and we would be happy to help.

 

How to extend OS drive volume in Windows 10.?

Hi Smruti,

Thank you for posting the query on Microsoft Community.

I understand your concern and will assist you to resolve this issue.

I suggest you to follow the steps below

• Run Disk Management. Open Run Command (Windows button +R) a dialog box will open and type "diskmgmt.msc".
• In the Disk Management screen, just right-click on the partition that you want to shrink, and select “Extend Volume” from the menu
• Locate your system partition — that’s probably the C: partition. Right-click on it and select “Shrink Volume.” If you have multiple partitions on your hard drive, you could also choose to resize a different partition to free up space.

Hope this helps. If the issue remains unresolved, please get back to us and we would be happy to help

 

How to extend C partition

I don't understand stemp 2. What's the volume number for C:? What do I put for [size=<size>]?

 

extending the volume of a partition

hi,

My laptop has one tera hdd and three partition in it. All of them are in basic partition mode, that means I can install os to any of them. Recently I have deleted one of them and tried to extend one partition's volume. But it said that it will convert the
basic partition mode to dynamic so that I can't install os in it. But I want that partition to remain in basic mode after extending its volume. How can I do that without losing any data?