Windows 10: Format unused space on primary disk

Some time ago I had to format my hard drive (a nominal 1 TB spinner) and re-install Windows 10. At the time I was considering setting up a dual-boot configuration, so I left about 290 GB unallocated for later use by the alternative OS. Since then I have changed my mind, and now I run Linux as a guest within a virtual machine in the Windows 10 host. Thus the 290 GB is still unused and unformatted.
What is the safest way to bring it back into use, either as an extension to the C: drive or as a new D: drive?
Disk Management shows a breakdown of the 931.51 GB storage as:
System reserved 100 MB NTFS,
638.01 GB NTFS for boot, page file, crash dump & primary partition,
450 MB recovery partition,
292.7 GB unallocated.
I see that if I right click on the last entry, I have the option to create a new simple volume. Presumably this would become my D: drive. Is this the best solution? I am hesitating because this is a feature that I have never used before, and the consequences of a mistake could be most unpleasant.

:)

 

Windows tells me I don't have enough space to download updates.

If you look at the listing above it says that you have 3.28GB unused space on the Win 7 64 EN (C drive This is the System drive.

The Free space is on the disk and is unallocated. You need to extend the (C drive in to part of this space.

When we talk about free space we mean unused space on the System drive not disk.

 

Unallocated space vs free space

I know that disks with the partition style of MBR have 4 primary partitions then logical partition. When you shrink logical partitions, you get free space. You get unallocated space while shrinking primary partitions and GPT disks. All I want to know is
that is the difference between free space and unallocated space please!!

 

Hi, If you only have one drive, then creating a data partition is an excellent idea.

Move your personal data away from the OS.

My Windows partition is about 76Gb on a 256Gb SSD.

I don't use the default library folders- they get filled with folders some programs create when installed. I have my own 'My Files and Folders' 'Videos' 'Photos' 'Music' on other partitions/disk, also my emails, contacts etc for Thunderbird.

This means I have relatively good control (as far as one can with the way MS mixes OS and user files etc) of what's on C:, and the space used stays relatively constant.

I prefer not to relocate the default folders
a. for the reason above
b. 'cos I've seen some of the difficulties some have experienced having done so and wish to avoid that.

Hope that gives some ideas.

 

Adding to dalchina's excellent advice...
For some time, I have been "telling" all programs to save to, copy to, re-write/edit to, log to -- my created folders on my data partition which is my "d drive" as many call such. I too have never moved Libraries' directories elsewhere.
This strategy pays off when having to restore an OS partition suddenly; and the data partition could not care less what happens to the OS partition.

 

Ditto on telling programs what to do and leaving Windows defaults alone. I have a month-old computer with 150GB on C: and 750GB on D: for Data.

 

Many thanks to dalchina, RolandJS and Berton for their suggestions which I will certainly follow. However, outstanding is the question in the last paragraph of my first post:
if I right click on the last entry (shown in Disk Management), I have the option to create a new simple volume ... Is this the best solution?
I am still hesitating because I have never used this option before, and a mistake in formatting my hard drive could be rather disastrous.

 

If Windows 10 is like Windows 7 -- creating a new volume out of the unallocated space and formatting said new volume is not a bad thing.

 

Hi, yes. A series of prompts follows. Go slowly.

You would find a properly supported 3rd party partition manager clearer and easier to follow. These let you set up a series of actions, and let you see the changes in terms of an updated picture of your partitions.

At that point you can choose to cancel or apply the changes.

Disk Management (MS) is not properly supported with Help - just try it. MS has drastically reduced such support.

On a different topic: Using disk imaging routinely is strongly recommented e.g. Macrium Reflect (free) + its boot medium + external storage for images. If you have images, you can restore your disk after a disaster, non -bootable PC, failed drive, ransomware....

That gives a sense of security.

 

Thanks again to RolandJS and dalchina. I have now used a third party partition manager and successfully formatted the unused space on my hard disk. I will also install Macrium Reflect and explore its options.

 

I'm late to the party but just wanted to mention for future use. Always backup your entire hard drive before trying anything you are unsure of. If you haven't been doing backups already, then suggest making it priority 1 on your list of things to do.

When doing backups, suggest doing "Image" backups and not "Clone" backups. Image backups will allow you to store many backups from one or different computers on the same backup drive. Like if you have a 4TB backup drive, you will be able to store like 10 or more backups on it depending on the size of the "used" space on your source drives. ----- I actually recommend having two backup drives. Then alternate backups on the two drives. If a backup drive should die, (extremely rare if the backup drive is being stored in a safe, rather than left connected and running all the time), you will have the other backup drive to fall back on.

Clone backups are useful for businesses that have to come back up immediately if a hard drive fails. But only one backup can be saved per backup drive using the clone method. For a home user, it's really not necessary to do clone backups since one has time to wait for a restore of an image backup to complete.

Just $.02,