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How to Extend C Drive/System Partition in Windows 7/8/10?

When Windows warns you that you are running out of disk space, it can be rather annoying. Especially, if you are a computer science student, you need to install heavy softwares, such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Dream Weaver, Photoshop, Dev C++, Coral Draw, local server, virtual machine, and many more.

These softwares occupy large disk space. The C drive is the storage of temporary data, where the local files of all softwares save automatically. Hence, soon, your C drive is full and you cannot install a new software any more. Sometimes, you want to install a second operating system, such as Ubuntu, but your drive space does not allow you. Also, the performance of your PC is affected when there is little space.

Low Disk Space

Luckily, there are several solutions to this problem. First of all, consider removing the unnecessary softwares from ‘Add or Remove Programs’ option in the Control Panel. Clean your computer daily and use a good anti-virus software. You will be able to save enough space, but alternatively, you need to extend the partition of your C drive. Sometimes, you have space in your D or E drive, but you cannot make it your default drive, because the windows installation was in C. (C is not necessarily the system drive. The drive in which you will install windows will be your default system drive.)

So, the best solution is to extend your C drive and lessen some other unused drive. There are 3 ways to do so:

Solution- I

Using Windows Built-In Disk Management

Computer Management

There is a built-in feature in Windows 7, 8, 10 and Windows Vista namely Disk Management Tool. There, you will see the option “Extend Volume”. Follow these steps for this solution:

Step 1:

Find the option “Manage” on right clicking the ‘My Computer’ or ‘This PC’ icon.

Manage

Step 2:

Click on the Disk Management, which is the subhead of “storage”.

Stroage

Step 3:

Now, right click on the unused drive, where you think, there are no data. But if it is not completely free, move its data to some other drive and free it. Click on “Delete Volume”. That partition will delete from your system.

delete volume

delete vol

Step 4:

This is the step, in which you can extend your C drive. Right click on it and select “Extend Volume”. Click “Next”. Lastly, mention the size of the system partition and then, click “Next”. Click “Finish” and you are done.

Solution- II

Using EaseUs Partition Tool

EaseUs is a disk management tool that allows you to resize the partitions. Hence, you can shrink the other unallocated drive space and extend the C drive in its replacement. For example, your D drive is 75 GB and C drive is 100 GB. When you use this tool, you can add 50 GB of D drive to C and increase its space up to 150 GB. The procedure is pretty simple! Follow the steps one by one:

Note: Before you make a partition of your drives, consider having a backup of all necessary files, so that you might not lose it, afterwards.

Step 1:

First of all, install EaseUs partition tool and launch it. After that, right click your D drive and hit the option of “Resize/Move Partition”, as you see in the image.
EaseUs

Step 2:

Now, you will see the partition size. Position your pointer on it and resize it by dragging the handle rightward. It will extend the C drive (system partition).

New Partition Size

Step 3:

Now, click apply and see the changes.

Note: if the unallocated space is leftward, you have to drag the handle leftward to resize it. You can also extend NTFS. It is a system partition for which you do not require a reboot.

Solution- III

Using Windows Built-In DiskPart Command

Diskpart

List Volume

You can use the Windows Built-In DiskPart command on the Windows XP, Vista, Serve 2003, Server 2008 and Windows 7 or 8, in order to extend the C drive. For this, take the C on Disk 0 and follow the steps:

Steps and Commands:

Go to the Command Prompt and type the following commands one by one and press enter:

  • diskpart (press Enter)
  • list disk (Enter)
  • select disk (any disk you want) (Enter)
  • detail disk (Enter)

You will see a list of the present volumes on the disk, you select.

  • Select volume (any volume, you want) (Enter)
  • Extend

And you are done!

Solutions 1 and 3 work only in case of unallocated space in disk partitions. If there is no space available on your actual hard drive, you can try solution 2.  You can also use this software to convert FAT 32 in Win XP and Win Vista.

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