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Windows 10 volume does not shrink. How to shrink a volume or partition in Windows

how to expand c drive

Hello everyone, today we’ll look at how to expand the C drive in Windows 10. There are situations when you need to add disk space to the local system disk so that you can continue to install programs, or update Windows 10, the situations may be different.

You can only expand a partition on drive C by using another local drive located on the same physical drive, for example under the letter D, other options are not possible, RAID is not taken into account. Unfortunately, built-in Windows methods 10, you won’t be able to do this without data loss, let’s look at this in more detail.

Shrink an additional local disk

And so the first step that needs to be taken in order to expand drive c is to free up the required amount of space on the donor drive with the letter D. As you can see, I have very little space left on my system disk.

For this purpose, Windows 10 has compression functionality. Right-click on Start and select Disk Management

As you can see, there are two local drives C and D.

Right-click on the donor drive D and select Shrink Volume. Compression means freeing up free space and turning it into unallocated space.

Shrink Volume Windows 10

Let's set the size of the compressed space, I'll enter 10,000, which is about 9.77 GB.

As a result, we ended up with 9.77 GB of unallocated space.

And if you right-click on drive C, the Expand volume item will not be active.

And if on drive D, then the item is active, which confirms that this is not possible with built-in tools.

Extend Partition C: Using AOMEI Partition Assistant

You can increase the capacity of drive C using the AOMEI Partition Assistant utility. Launch PartAssist.exe. A program window will open. We select a non-system drive, for me it is drive E.

Right-click on it and select resize partition.

As you can see, we now have 15 GB of unallocated space

Now right-click on the system local drive C and select resize partition from the context menu

Here, to expand drive C, you also have two options: either you drag the slider to the right to the desired size, or we set the required space for expansion in the unallocated space after field.

You will be warned that it would be a good idea to make a Windows 10 system recovery image, either backup copy by third party means. Click ok.

And to complete our task, click apply in the upper left corner.

You will be informed that there will be several reboots, during which the C drive will be merged with unallocated space. Click go.

PREOS mode

When you first boot you will be taken to AOMEI Partition Assistant PreOS Mode

The process of completing the task will begin.

We open my computer and look at the list of local drives, and voila local drive C is enlarged without data loss

This is how easy it is to expand a disk in Windows 10, read the second part for two more free ways to increase the system disk.

pyatilistnik.org

How to enlarge the C drive in Windows 10. Part 2

Hello everyone, I previously talked in the first part about methods for expanding the C drive in Windows 10, now we’ll look at more free methods on how to increase the size of the C drive. Let me remind you that we will expand using another local disk located on the same physical disk as the system one. It is a very common situation that a user has one physical SSD or HDD, which, if planned incorrectly, is not partitioned quite correctly.

Extend disk partition using MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free free a utility for working with Windows 10 partitions and disks. The program’s functionality is very large, and we will talk about it someday in a separate post, but in this post we are only interested in disk resizing. Installation of the program is carried out in the form of a regular wizard, where you just click next. Let's get started. Select launch Application.

The program interface is English only; a list of your local drives will appear in front of you.

First, let's take some space from drive E; it may be a different drive for you. Right-click on it and select Move/Resize from the context menu

For release the right place either move the slider to the right or set the Unallocated Space Before parameter and click ok.

I freed 5 GB from the Windows donor partition

Now let’s increase the size of drive C, right-click on it and select Move/Resize again

There are also two options here, either drag the slider to the right to the desired size or set Unallocated Space After.

We see that the disk has become the required size in the program

And to apply our settings, click Apply in the upper left corner

You will be warned that you will need to reboot, click Yes.

Windows 10 will start expanding the C drive.

After waiting a little while your Windows 10 boots up, you will see the expanded system drive C in Explorer.

As you can see, it’s no more difficult than with AOMEI program Partition Assistant.

How to enlarge drive C using standard Windows 10 tools

In Windows 10, there is also a method to increase disk space WITH your own means, but there is one thing, the data from the donor’s disk will have to be deleted, but I think it’s okay if you copy it somewhere before. Open Disk Management, or press Windows + R

and enter diskmgmt.msc or right-click on the start button, where select Disk Management

As a result, the Disk Management snap-in will open. Here you will see all your partitions and disks.

I will delete drive E, right-click on it and select Delete Volume.

You will be warned that deleting the volume will destroy your data, double check that you have a backup copy. Then click Yes.

As a result, you will end up with unallocated free space.

Now let's start expanding drive C, right-click on it and select Expand Volume.

We still have everything left, only drive C, expanded to the maximum. As you can see it was not difficult.

In the future, we will talk in more detail about the used utilities MiniTool Partition Wizard Free and AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Material from the site pyatilistnik.org

pyatilistnik.org

How to expand a disk in Windows 7 in a few steps: tips, instructions, recommendations and cautions

Editing partitions and volumes helps out with thoughtless disk layout at the beginning Windows installations. Any shortcomings made during installation can be easily corrected.

Why do you need to change hard drive partitions?

Due to the large number of programs and games occupying almost all the free space, Windows begins to slow down, and defragmentation of partition C is carried out with errors.

The main reason for changing hard disk partitions is the lack of space on the system partition C.

At this time, up to several hundred gigabytes are empty on partition D, but moving some files to partition D forces you to reconfigure many third-party applications. In this case, it is easier to expand drive C at the expense of D.

How to expand C drive

Expanding drive C is possible using both Windows tools and third party programs.

Extending the C drive directly in Windows 7

If you want to expand the disk using standard means Windows, then do the following:

Now there is enough space in C for normal Windows operation and your programs.

If desired, you can use third party applications, for example Acronis Disk Director or Partition Manager. But it should be remembered that in the hands of inexperienced users, alternative programs often become not a “magic wand”, but a means of destroying the user’s files, and only a computer service center will be able to restore your lost data.

Video: Extending a volume using Windows 7 tools

Expanding the C drive when reinstalling Windows 7

When installing Windows, you will not skip the stage of changing disk partitions. During the reinstallation process, the program will ask which partition to install the system in and will suggest redistributing the hard drive space.

There are two types of Windows installations: upgrade and full installation. The update is carried out on top existing system, saves everything installed programs, but resets system parameters. Full installation- installation with formatting of the system partition, or installation on another partition of the hard drive. If you want to change hard disk partitions, then you need to choose the second installation type.

If you really need a “clean” installation of Windows, do the following:

After formatting, Windows will continue to be reinstalled. Section C has been successfully modified.

Video: Resizing partitions in progress Windows reinstallation 7

Why can't I expand a volume in Windows 7?

A situation where the “Extend volume” option is inactive is possible. For example, we take the extension of the same C drive.

A situation where the “Extend volume” option is inactive is possible

a spanned volume was created as D, which includes, for example, disks D and E. Transfer files from these partitions to other media. Remove this spanned volume;
you forgot to delete all subsequent volumes, including drive D. Expanding the previous volume only works when deleting the next one.

How to delete a volume

You can only add an unallocated partition to a disk, which appears after deleting a volume.

Deleting a volume in Windows 7

To delete a volume:

You will be left with free space the size of this volume, which can now be attached to another partition.

Why can't I delete a partition or volume?

In some cases, removal may be difficult.

The reasons are as follows:

How to remove the swap file

To make volume deletion available, do the following to eliminate the Windows page file:

Go back to Disk Management and try to delete the volume again. Check if it is connected this volume with an adjacent volume in the same partition.

How to shrink a volume

The disk can also be expanded by compressing it. As a result of compression, free space will be obtained, which can be used to create a new partition or volume.

Features of volume compression in Windows 7 are as follows:

compression works only for main and additional partitions, as well as in file NTFS system. If the partition or volume is formatted in FAT32, move the data from it and reformat (or convert) it to NTFS. To do this call context menu disk and click “Format”;
if a partition or volume has many bad sectors, it will not be possible to shrink it;
The page file, hibernation files, and recovery point data present an additional challenge to compacting partitions and volumes. Compression will not proceed beyond the second area of free space, counting from the beginning of the volume.

Shrinking a volume using Disk Management

If you want to shrink a volume using standard Windows tools, then:

Shrinking a volume using the command line

If the option to shrink a volume in Disk Management is no longer available, use the command Windows string. It can bypass the inactivity of some actions that are hidden by the graphical Windows shell. The instructions are universal for Windows 7/8.x/10.

When volume compression is complete, the command line will display a message indicating that the volume was successfully reduced by the specified megabytes. Using the Disk Management application, make sure that there is free space in which you can create new volume.

Video: Shrinking a volume using the command line

Expand, compress, delete, add new partitions and volumes using standard utility Windows is not difficult. The main thing is not to lose valuable data that you have been collecting and creating for many years.

dadaviz.ru

How to expand a hard drive partition in Windows

So, let's look at the problem of lack of free space on the main local disk, usually this is the C:\ drive where our Windows system. And as we know, if we don’t have enough free space on our disk, our system starts to slow down. In this article I would like to tell you how to increase the capacity of a local disk at the expense of another local disk.

We see that we have two local drives, in my case it is the drive "C:\" and "E:\". We are going to transfer all the memory from the E:\ drive to the C:\ drive.

To do this, open the Computer Management console. Right-click on the “My Computer” icon -> “Manage” and select “Disk Management”. As we can see, our disks are located here, right-click on the disk that we want to merge (connect) with the main drive C:\ and click "Delete Volume".

Attention: This function will delete all data from this volume. Therefore, I recommend transferring the data you need to another medium. Click "Yes".

And as we see, our disk is not allocated, now we need to transfer this space to the main disk (C:\).

To do this, right-click on the disk that we want to expand and select "Extend Volume".

The "Volume Expansion Wizard" window will open, click next.

In the new window, we leave everything as it is, since we want to transfer all the space to our disk and click next.

The next window shows us the parameters that we specified before, we are happy with everything, click Finish.

The volume merge (expansion) was successful. And as we see, the disk capacity is no longer 20.99 GB, but 24.90 GB.

Leave your opinion about this article, and of course, ask your questions if something suddenly went wrong for you.

Thank you for your attention!

ITremont.info

How to shrink a volume or partition in Windows

Since Vista and 7, operating system Windows has a feature that allows you to shrink (or expand) the size of your primary partition and logical drives. This feature can be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need an additional partition and don't have enough additional disks. By shrinking the volume, you will free up disk space; this unallocated space can then be used to create other necessary partitions. Today we will learn how to shrink a basic volume or partition using GUI Windows, and for more advanced users we will also describe a method using the command line.

Shrink a volume or partition using Disk Management

If you have Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type “disk management” in the search box and press Enter. If you are a Windows 8.x user, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen (or press Win+X) and select Disk Management.

Disk Management is where you will find all the drives connected to your computer ( hard disks, USB sticks, CD/DVD, etc.)

Select the primary partition you want to compress, right-click on it and select Compress.

As a result, the operating system will begin the process of determining available space for compression.

Specify the amount of space you would like to regain and click "Compress". Remember that the amount of space is entered in megabytes: for example, 1 GB is equal to 1024 MB.

You can use the space freed (or unoccupied) in this way to create a new partition.

Shrink a volume or partition using the command line

To open Command Prompt in Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type "cmd", right-click cmd.exe in the search results and select "Run as administrator". On Windows 8.x, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen and select " Command line(administrator)". Type diskpart and press Enter.

You may be interested in: How to find out your Windows 10 product key

In the DISKPART line, enter list volume. This command will display a list of all drives on the computer.

Now enter the select volume command and the volume number you want to shrink. For example, type select volume 1 and press Enter.

Type shrink querymax and press Enter. This command will allow Windows to determine the maximum amount of space that can be compressed.

Now you have two options: first, you can simply type shrink, and then Windows will shrink all available space; secondly, you can specify the desired volume to be compressed. In the second case, you need to enter the command shrink desired=volume_in_megabytes (for example, shrink desired=2048). You can enter any number that does not exceed the value specified in the "Maximum number of reused bytes" line. So with this command you can specify the exact amount of space to be compressed.

If you do everything correctly, after the operation is completed you will see a message:

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: number_in_megabytes

That's all! To properly exit DISKPART, type exit and press Enter.

Things to consider:

When you try to shrink a primary partition or logical drive, you will not be able to shrink the partition beyond the area where non-movable files are located (for example, the shadow copy storage area, hibernation, page files, etc.) Let's assume if there is a "first" empty space on the Windows drive and then there are non-movable files followed by a "second" empty space, you will only be able to shrink the partition to the end of the second empty space since there are non-movable files in the middle.
If found a large number of damaged clusters, compression will fail.
You can use compression for primary partitions and logical drives or partitions with the NTFS file system.

Good day. Today we’ll look at a fairly popular topic for beginners: working with already created sections hard drive(Have you already bought a new hard drive? :) and we will look at such operations as reducing the volume (compressing) of the hard drive and expanding it using unallocated area. To do this, we will not use any third-party programs, but will use the Disk Management utility built into the Windows operating system. So, why might we need this knowledge? Suppose you initially had it on your hard drive, but over time you decided that one is enough to store movies, music and photos, it’s easier to search :) Or another case, you have two local drives on your hard drive (let’s assume 2Tb), one for system (local drive C), the second for personal data (drive D), but when you partitioned them, you left too little space for drive C and this constantly creates discomfort for you. It is to solve such situations that this article was written.

In this article I will do, sequentially:
— Compression (reduction) of the local disk,
— Expansion (increase) of the local disk due to a new unallocated area.

This is what we need.

1) The first thing we need is to open the Disk Management utility. For the lucky owners of Windows 8.1 and 8, just right-click on the “Start” button (or in the lower left corner of the desktop for Windows 8) and select “Disk Management”. Everyone else needs to go to “Control Panel → System and Security → Administrative Tools → Computer Management → Storage Devices → Disk Management.”

3) Right-click on the partition on the right side of the window and select “Shrink Volume”.

4) A dialog box will open asking you to select the volume to compress. This window shows the current partition size, available (unused) space for compression, and the size of the local disk after compression, in megabytes. To maximize disk compression, you must defragment the partition before this operation. I'm using an empty disk, so I have almost all of its capacity available for compression. Enter the required number of megabytes in the “Size of compressed space” line and click “Compress”.

6) Now we will expand the partition using this unallocated area. To do this, right-click on the partition and select “Extend volume”.

7) The “Volume Expansion Wizard” will open, click next.

This page shows the available and selected unallocated areas, and you can also specify how much of the unallocated area should be used to expand the local disk (item “Select the size of the allocated space”). I use the entire volume, you look at your circumstances.

Default majority hard drives are accompanied by two volumes: C and D. These are the main partitions on the hard drive (volumes or root directories), which are strictly separated from each other. First of all, they are made so that the system does not have to wander in the wilds of heavy films and games on the way to vital files. For ordinary users ideal placement of programs, games and files: everything light and frequently launched is on the system drive (C by default), everything heavy and unimportant is on the second disk, an alternative OS is on the third. And in order to most efficiently distribute space between volumes or change their number, you should be able to manage disk space.

How to open hard drive management

Like most windows Windows settings, disk management has many doors and you can get to it different ways. The simplest ones: right-click on the start menu and find the required item there (not available on all versions) or type in “Create and format partitions” in the search.

In Windows 10, “Hard Disk Management” is called “Creating and formatting hard disk partitions,” but in the window signature the name remains the same, and “Disk Space Management” is a completely different window with limited functionality.

If for some reason this method does not suit you, here is the path to disk management, which has not changed since XP:

Right-click on Start and open Control Panel. If it is not there, you can find it through the search.
Open the "System and Security" category when categorized.
Scroll down and click “Create and format hard disk partitions”, under the “Administration” group.

You cannot access control via the command line. There is only a separate set of disk management commands as a fallback, but this is quite complex and pointless.

If it doesn't open

If the system does not allow you to manage disks, the issue is a limitation of user rights, since for this you need to have administrator rights. Most likely, the root cause of the problem is a virus on your computer and after following the instructions, be sure to scan everything and everyone with an antivirus.

Before proceeding with the method described below, try disabling your antivirus and try again.

Search the Start menu and find and open “regedit”.
On the left side of the window, go to the path “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control” and click once on the “Windows” folder contained there.
On the right side of the window, open the “CSDVersion” option.
Expose null value parameter and confirm the changes.

Disk space management

So-called disks are correctly called partitions or volumes (you only have 1 disk, most likely), but given that even Windows calls them disks, this is not important.

To make one volume larger, you must first make another volume smaller. Can't take free place out of nowhere and you must first find a donor. It is worth saying that in Windows 10 there is no function for merging volumes. If you want to merge, you will have to use the standard methods described below and copying information from disk to disk.

There is one very important non-obvious rule that imposes a strong limitation on disk management, and before you start wasting space, you need to consider the most popular mistake.

Why is "Extend Volume" inactive?

Pay special attention to the order of the volumes in the lower half of the window.

In our case, the order is: C, J, D. After we pinch off a piece of space from one of the disks, it will appear behind the donor volume. For example, if we take a piece from drive J, the order will be: C, J, Free space, D. Free space can only be filled into adjacent partitions. That is: return to the donor volume (J) or expand next disc(D). We cannot expand drive C, since there is an obstacle in the way in the form of drive J.

To expand the C drive, you need to completely remove J and make it a remote space. But if this doesn’t seem enough and you want to expand to include drive D, you’ll have to delete it too.

Expansion of the first volume is possible only with the help of an individual multi-pass or specialized programs.

For example, in this case, to expand drive C at the expense of D, you can do the following multi-step:

Creating a new volume using drive D.
Moves all files from drives J and D to a new volume.
Removing the J drive and expanding the C drive using the freed up space.
Removing drive D and expanding drive C using the freed up space.
We call the new volume disk D.
We move from C to D as much space as needed.
We create drive J at the expense of C and move old files from drive D to it.

It all depends on the order of the disks, their volume and the availability of free space, so the multi-pass is individual.

If the disk with the system is not the first, then expanding the ones in front of it is impossible, since the disk with the system cannot be removed.

Compression

Right-click on the partition you are interested in and select “Shrink Volume...”.
Set the donor space size and click Shrink.
Free space will appear behind the donor volume.

If you cannot compress the volume, you must either moderate your appetite or delete part of the contents of the volume.

Removal

Right-click on the volume and select "Delete Volume...".
All its contents will then be deleted.
The freed space will appear in the place of the deleted volume.

Extension

The system disk expands just like all the others. But due to the error described above about the impossibility of expanding the volume, this is not easy to do. Before expanding your disk, be sure to read the first part of this chapter, which covers the most common disk management error.

Creation

Windows 10 does not recognize the difference between a local disk and a simple volume. In principle, there is no difference between them. The difference between volumes and local disks used on older operating systems and was purely a conditional limitation. By creating a simple volume, you create a full-fledged local disk.

Right-click on the unallocated space and select Create Simple Volume.
Select the size of the allocated space. You will not be able to use non-adjacent free space.
Select a letter for the new volume.
It is better to leave all settings as default.
A new volume will appear in place of the used space.

Video: Disk Management in Windows 10

Defragmentation

The entire contents of the hard drive are divided into many small fragments, and when new information is entered, these fragments are located taking into account their best position for sequential reading, one might say side by side. However, when they change, new information is recorded and existing information is moved, a well-ordered structure gradually tends to become more chaotic. Moreover, there appear bad sectors, where the reading process is greatly hindered. The process of optimizing this entire structure is called defragmentation and is recommended for periodic execution at least once every six months.

Checking the disk for errors is also included in the optimization process.

Defragmentation is intended exclusively for HDDs. For SSDs, it is not only dangerous, but also harmful. If you don't know what you have:

HDD - The computer turns on for 10 seconds or longer, and HDD looks like a box with a round part.
SSD - Windows starts in less than 7 seconds, and the drive looks like an electrical contraption, just like the other components.

Cleaning drive C

In addition to simply cleaning the desktop and deleting unused programs, it is worth getting rid of files that are actually called junk. Windows 10 has a very specific place for collecting junk and junk files - this is the Temp folder. Everything in it can be deleted without any regrets and the slightest risk of harming the system.

Cleaning the C drive through its properties in Explorer is less complete and does not affect some temporary files.

Go to settings.
Open the "Privacy" section.
In the General tab, disable Ad ID and Start Tracking.
Go to the “Speech” tab handwriting and text input" and turn off speech services if they are active.
In the “Feedback and Diagnostics” tab, select the main method of data collection, disable the only switch and disable the generation of reviews.
In the Background Applications tab, turn off the main switch.

Programs

As mentioned above, regular Windows tools for managing hard drive space are very limited in capabilities. If you are faced with an insurmountable problem or are simply too lazy to bother with moving space multiple times, you can always use help special program, which will do all the dirty and mental work for you in just a couple of buttons.

Proper distribution of disk space is a simple and very far-sighted action, and timely defragmentation is the key to order on your computer. You should only change the size of volumes or their number after carefully considering your future plans for using the computer and distributing priorities between heavy games and programs. The main thing is to always leave at least 10 GB of free space on each volume, especially on the system one, and do not forget about defragmentation.

Starting with Vista and 7, the Windows operating system has a feature that allows you to shrink (or expand) the size of the main partition and logical drives. This feature can be useful if you find yourself in a situation where you need an additional partition and don't have enough additional disks. By shrinking the volume, you will free up disk space; this unallocated space can then be used to create other necessary partitions. Today we will learn how to shrink a basic volume or partition using the Windows GUI, and for more advanced users we will also describe a method using the command line.

Before you begin, make sure you have backed up all your important data.

Shrink a volume or partition using Disk Management

"Disk Management" is where you will find all the drives connected to your computer (hard drives, USB drives, CD/DVDs, etc.)

Select the primary partition you want to compress, right-click on it and select Compress.

As a result, the operating system will begin the process of determining available space for compression.

Specify the amount of space you would like to regain and click "Compress". Remember that the amount of space is entered in megabytes: for example, 1 GB is equal to 1024 MB.

You can use the space freed (or unoccupied) in this way to create a new partition.

Shrink a volume or partition using the command line

To open Command Prompt in Windows 7, go to the Start menu, type "cmd", right-click cmd.exe in the search results and select "Run as administrator". In Windows 8.x, right-click in the lower left corner of the screen and select Command Prompt (Admin).
Enter diskpart and press Enter.

In the DISKPART line, enter list volume. This command will display a list of all drives on the computer.

Now enter the select volume command and the volume number you want to shrink. For example, enter select volume 1 and press Enter.

Enter shrink querymax and press Enter. This command will allow Windows to determine the maximum amount of space that can be compressed.

Now you have two options: first, you can simply enter shrink, and then Windows will shrink all available space; secondly, you can specify the desired volume to be compressed. In the second case, you need to enter the command shrink desired=volume_in_megabytes (for example, shrink desired=2048). You can enter any number that does not exceed the value specified in the "Maximum number of reused bytes" line. So with this command you can specify the exact amount of space to be compressed.

If you do everything correctly, after the operation is completed you will see a message:

DiskPart successfully shrunk the volume by: number_in_megabytes

That's all! To shut down DISKPART correctly, enter exit and press Enter.

Things to consider:

When you try to shrink a primary partition or logical drive, you will not be able to shrink the partition beyond the area where non-movable files are located (for example, the shadow copy storage area, hibernation, page files, etc.) Let's assume if there is a "first" empty space on the Windows drive and then there are non-movable files followed by a "second" empty space, you will only be able to shrink the partition to the end of the second empty space since there are non-movable files in the middle.
If a large number of bad clusters are detected, the compression will fail.
You can use compression for primary partitions and logical drives or partitions with the NTFS file system.

Have a great day!

We are used to using conditional on our computer separation of hard disk into two partitions: C and D, respectively. The system is installed on the first, and the user data is stored on the second. This is done so that when next installation We could perform a clean installation of Windows and format the partition without losing user data. The article will discuss the question: how to partition a disk on Windows 10 and all the nuances associated with it.

Very often there is a need not just to divide a physical disk into logical ones, but to change the size of existing parts - this will also be discussed below. It should be noted that it is possible to achieve a positive result using the system itself, but this will not be as easy as, for example, when using a third-party software. For completeness, we will describe both methods.

The first option that we will talk about today is an already working system in which there is a need to split the disk into 2 partitions. You can complete the task without using third-party software. Let's get started.

Right-click the Start button and select Disk Management.

You can launch the same tool in another way: simultaneously press two Win + R keys and enter the command diskmgmt.msc in the window that opens, and then click the “OK” button.

The upper part of the window displays a list of all disks and their partitions installed in the PC or laptop. Here you can see the file system type, size and status. In this case, physical disks are designated by numbers, and logical disks by the letters we are familiar with.

A partition map appears at the bottom of Disk Management. Thanks to rectangles, we can roughly estimate the ratio of partition sizes. In our case, we can see that the system partition is 500 MB in size, drive C is approximately 68 GB, and the user partition D takes up the rest of the space.

You cannot make any changes to drives that are missing letters. Most often these are system-reserved areas that contain system or boot files. If you edit such a section, the system may become damaged or even permanently fail.

We continue our instructions. In order to partition a disk, you first need to determine the free space. To do this, we compress the disk that needs to be divided. In our case, this is user section D. Right-click on it and select “Compress”.

A small window will open in which we need to indicate how much the partition should be compressed. The space here is measured in megabytes, so we write 10,000 MB, which corresponds to 10 GB, and click “Compress”.

The volume is being compressed. There is no progress bar here - we do not see how much is left until the operation is completed. The fact that the process is underway is indicated only by a circle of waiting. On our computer the compression took about 3 minutes.

Now you can create a new partition. Share system Windows disk 10 are not possible with standard tools, so we will create an additional section. How to increase the system volume will be discussed below. So, right-click on the unallocated space and select “Create simple volume”.

In the volume creation wizard that appears, click “Next”.

Specify the size that the new partition will receive and click “Next”. We will use all the space.

The system will offer us a letter for the future volume - we agree and click “Next”.

In the next step you need to select file system partition (we will use NTFS) and specify the volume name (it will be displayed in Explorer). When the necessary settings have been made, click “Next”.

This completes the volume setup. All we have to do is press the button labeled “Done”.

There is no need to squeeze the shrinkable disk to its limit. If you do not leave space on it, the section will not be able to fully function. It will not be possible to defragment, and the speed of the volume will drop critically, which will affect the performance of the entire system.

How to partition a disk during system installation

You can divide a physical disk into partitions by clean install Windows 10. But here you will have to lose all your data. This option is suitable for those who bought new computer or a laptop and wants to install an OS on it, or for those who have securely stored their files in another location. One way or another, let's proceed to the instructions for partitioning disks when installing the system.

The process of installing Windows 10 is discussed in detail on our website. We are specifically interested in the moment of working with disks. Once the installation reaches the desired stage, you will see the following window.

Let's say we need to increase the size of the first partition and reduce the second. Our disks are called “2” and “3”, you may have other names. All of them are located on physical device"0". Let's start partitioning the disk. Initially, you need to delete both partitions. To do this, select each of them in turn and click “Delete”.

As a result, we should end up with unallocated space. Select it and click on the “Create” button.

Specify the size of the new logical disk and click “Apply”. We set it to 40,000 MB, which is equal to 40 GB. You have the right to choose the volume you need - the figure given is only an example. For normal operation of Windows 10 you need to allocate 80 GB or more.

The system will warn us that for proper operation it is necessary to create an additional partition. It will store drivers and other important Windows components. We agree and click “OK”.

As a result, we received one system partition with a size of 500 MB, a disk for the system with the size that we specified (we have 40 GB), and unallocated space. This is what we will use to create a section for user data. Select free space and click on “Create”.

Click the “Apply” button, thereby taking away all the remaining space for drive D.

All that remains is to format the disks. We'll show you how to do this in the first section, and you'll do the same with the rest. Select the volume and click on “Format”.

Windows will warn us that all data on the partition will be permanently deleted. Click “OK” to start the formatting process.

After a few seconds, the process will be completed and the drives will be formatted. Now you can proceed to installing the system. To do this, simply select the system drive (on which you planned to install the OS) and click the “Next” button.

We use third-party software

In addition to the standard system tools for disk partitioning, there are many third-party utilities that offer better functionality and ease of use. We have selected 3 leading programs and will describe in detail the sequence of actions with each of them.

Minitool Partition Wizard Free

This convenient application for working with hard disk partitions. All standard operations are also supported here: expansion, division, creation and deletion. Present step by step wizard, which will prevent beginners from getting confused in the process.

You can download the utility. After the file is downloaded, proceed to the instructions for its use.

Installing the utility is quite simple - first you need to accept the license.

Select the directory in which our application will be installed and click “Next”.

The program is being installed. When it is completed, all we have to do is click the “Finish” button.

Once the utility is installed, you can proceed to use it. Launch the program and follow the instructions.

In the window that opens, click on the rectangle, which we have outlined with a red frame.

Right-click on the desired drive and select the item that we indicated in the screenshot with the number “2”.

Using the slider, change the size of the disk to the value by which it will be reduced. The rest will be cut off from the disk and will serve as a place to create a second partition.

Click on the resulting free space with the right mouse button and select “Create”.

Since we are going to create a new volume with the size of all the free space, we don’t change anything in the next window and just click “OK”.

Apply the changes using the button indicated in the screenshot.

Since we are working with drive D, a reboot is not needed. If the actions were carried out on the system partition, Windows would reboot.

As a result, the changes were applied and our disk was divided into parts of the size that we specified during the setup process. You can also merge disks in the same way.

Acronic Disk Director

This professional tool, which can be downloaded on the official website of the program. The application is paid, but there is also a demo version. Let's look at the process of working with Acronic Disk Director:

First, let's install the program. There is nothing complicated here. Once the file is downloaded, run it. Click on the entry indicated in the screenshot.