Stupid Win7 Won't Extend A Partition

:wave I am trying to increase the size of a partition ... when I go into win7 disk management and right click on the partition I want to increase the "extend volume" option is grayed out ... what am I missing?:confused rolleyes

 

The free "MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is very good and easy to use, more so than some of the better known ones.

I used it extensively when installing an SSD
My next job for it is in preparing foe a LINUX install.
It's a great little program.

Good Luck with it.

 

Before you can increase a partition's size there has to unallocated space immediately behind it for it to expand into. Unless you have either shrunk or removed the partition behind it the operation can not proceed, so the option will be greyed out.

Care to post a screenshot of disk management?

 

As Falcon7 said you can use MiniTool (the download link is at the bottom of the page). Burn the ISO to CD and boot from it.

If you're trying to extend the System partition, it has to be done pre-OS and I don't believe diskpart supports it.

 

For some reason the swine print screen function won't work ... really pisses me off ... :***

 

Okay ... I figure out why the print screen didn't work ... in win7 you have to hit the FN key with the print screen key together. I'm trying to increase the D drive with 30 more gigs. If I can't get windows to do it I will use the mini tool:wave

 

The print screen needing a Fn key is nothing to do with Win 7, it's the way your manufacturer set the system up. Anyway, the reason you cannot expand C is because the free 10GB you have created is not adjacent. Use Partition Wizard to move E, and then D, to the right as far as they will go. Then expand C.

 

Sorry, that should have been 30GB - your screenshot was rather small. For future reference, when taking a screenshot, paste it first into Paint and then use the Win 7 Snipping Tool to cut out and post just that part of the screen you want to show.

 

We've both messed up with this plodr. I've given him instructions for extending C when it's D he wants to extend, and you advised adding the 30GB to E which would leave no unallocated space at all. He just needs to move E into the unallocated space, leaving 30GB unallocated between D and E. Partition Wizard can do that.

 

How can I make E unallocated when it has important files on it? Will mini tool allow me to move the 30 gigs to D? FYI ... the pronoun is "she" ... not he.:wave

 

No one has asked that you make E unallocated. Just install Partition Wizard and with that you can move/drag E into the unallocated space. Then you will be able to expand D.

 

With any type of disk partitioning I'd highly recommend doing a backup of any critical files.

With that said, I've had great success using gparted on both linux machines and windows computers.

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/gparted_live.html

 

The major issue with windows extending a partition is that the unallocated space must be contiguous. If it is not, Windows will not resize the partition.

 

Minitool has a wide range of tools, so you can move partitions around and free up space adjacent to the partition you want to expand. You can change the partition status if you need to.

BUT. Do a backup first!

Just download and install minitool and you will see a complete image of your disks and the partitions on them. It will then be fairly obvious as to what to move where.
Nothing will be changed until you click the APPLY link at the bottom of the page.
Of course there is an UNDO feature in case it all goes pear shaped.

 

:wave So what you guys are saying is there is a systematic way the partitions have to be moved ... E has to be moved to the right rather than the free space being moved to the right ... :confused

 

You can't move free space, only partitions. It's just like rearranging the furniture - it's the chair you move, not the space at the side of it rolleyes Just get partition wizard installed and all will become obvious.