Three Ways to Resize Partition without Losing Data for Free

When using computer, you may need to resize partition. But how to free resize partition without losing data? An excellent partition resizer can be useful for this work.

It is Necessary to Resize Partition

For this problem, here are two cases:

“My computer is Windows 10, but C drive is only 30 GB. Recently the computer runs very slowly and always warns me there is low disk space in drives. The partition E has larger than 50 GB free space. I attempt to increase the size of the partition using Disk Management, but it doesn’t work, and the extend volume grayed out. Is there Any solution?”

“I bought a new laptop with windows 7 64Bit. In the hard drive, there is only one partition C. I need to create 3 partitions to store different data. In this case, I need to resize partition to release some disk space for partition creation.”

From these two cases, we can get that to extend partition or create partition, it is necessary to resize partition. Moreover, when you upgrade system, you’d better to extend system partition for successful upgrade.

Three Methods to Resize Partition without Losing Data

When experiencing the above situations, users may ask how to resize partition. Here are three methods of resizing partition that are using Disk Management, Diskpart and third-party partition management software.

Method 1: Disk Management

Windows provides a built-in disk and partition management tool which is called Disk Management. In general, when you experience low disk space issue or do system upgrade, you may consider using this utility to increase partition size. Please right click “My Computer” and click “Manage” to open Disk Management. But this tool can’t work in some cases and “Extend Volume grayed out” issue occurs.

You may ask “why?” Here are the reasons:

1. Disk Management can only help to extend volume in NTFS and RAW file system.
2. When the unallocated space is on the adjacent right side of the target primary partition, it can work for extending partition.
3. Also the free space must be contiguous and after the logical partition.

 

Method 2: Diskpart Command

Besides, you may choose diskpart command to resize partition. Here is the detailed operation:

Input command prompts: diskpart → list disk → select disk n (n is the disk number)→ detail disk → select volume n (n represents the number of ) → shrink desired=n (n means the partition size you want to shrink)  minimum=250

If you need to extend volume, you can type extend size=n. N refers to the size you want to add to another partition.

However, there must be some unallocated space adjacent and after the target partition when resizing partition size with Disk Management and diskpart.

 

Method 3: MiniTool Partition Wizard

To make up for the deficiency of Disk Management and diskpart command, the third-party partition manager is a good assistant – MiniTool Partition Wizard. As an excellent partition resizer, it is really useful to resize partition without losing data, move partition, expand partition, and shrink partition and so on. Please download this freeware to do partition management.

 

When There Is Unallocated Space Adjacent to Target Partition

If there is some unallocated space which is adjacent to the target partition, do as the following steps list:

Step 1: Please right click the target partition and select “Move/Resize” or click “Move/Resize Partition” in “Operations” drop-down menu.

Step 2: Please drag the slider to occupy the unallocated space.

Step 3: Then click “Apply” to execute operations.

 

When There Is No Unallocated Space

If there is no unallocated space, you are suggested to use its “Extend” feature to increase partition size.

Step 1: Right click the target partition and select “Extend” feature or click “Extend Partition” from “Operations” menu.

Step 2: Then you can take free space from other partition on the same disk. During the process, it allows resizing free space size you want to take.

Step 3: At last, click “Apply”.

In addition, if you need to create partition, you also can use “Move/Resize” to shrink partition to get some free space for partition creation.

Summary

This is what I want to share with you. For more and more computer users, resizing partition becomes so crucial.  In my eyes, these three methods are doing helpful. However, using disk management and diskpart command is not so convenient like MiniTool Partition Wizard.