Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Resize and move partitions

Say you just bought a laptop with an 80 GB hard disk and then discover that Windows Explorer only sees about 70 GB of it. You open Disk Management and discover that there's an extra partition, labeled "Recovery," consuming about 8 GB. How do you get rid of the extra partition and reclaim all that space for your data?

Or, perhaps you've decided to divide a 320 GB hard disk-one that's currently holding an active Windows installation-into two 160 GB partitions. How do you make space for the second partition without deleting the single partition that's currently using the whole disk?

The solution is to resize the partition, which-thanks to some improvements in Disk Manager since Windows XP-is not all that hard to do. And you don't even have to take the data off first. (Of course, despite this confident prose, it's still wise to back up your entire drive before messing with partitions.)

To begin, open Disk Management and expand the Graphical View pane so you can see all your drives.

In the case of the unwanted "Recovery" partition, start by right-clicking it in Disk Management and selecting Delete Volume.

You can't undo Delete Volume, so make sure you can live without the "Recovery" partition before you proceed. In most cases, it isn't necessary to keep this volume unless you plan on wiping your hard disk and reinstalling 7 without the original installation DVD. If you don't have a disc, check with your PC's manufacturer to see whether they can provide you with one before you proceed.

Once the "Recovery" partition is gone, you'll have a swath of empty space marked Unallocated at the end of your drive. (If it's at the beginning, you'll need a tool like Disk Director, discussed in the next section.) Now all you have to do is right-click your primary partition and select Extend Volume to resize the remaining partition so that it consumes the unused space.

If you get an error that says "The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date," use DiskPart, described in the tutorial "The DiskPart Command-Line Tool" later in this tutorial, instead.

If you want to do the opposite-that is, make room at the end of the disk for a new partition-just right-click the primary partition and select Shrink Volume. After a bit of pondering, Disk Management will show the Shrink dialog, which will probably show you less "available shrink space" than you thought you had coming.

Say you have about 150 GB of data on your 500 GB drive, but the Shrink window says you can only reclaim about 75 GB (7,500 MB) of free space. Why so stingy?

It turns out that Windows doesn't necessarily store all your data at the beginning of a partition, but rather scatters it around to help reduce fragmentation. As a result, there may be some data toward the end, serving as a barrier to prevent Disk Management from shrinking your drive past that point.

Use the Shrink Volume window to make space on your drive for new partitions.

The solution is to use the command-line Disk Defragmenter tool (defrag.exe) with the /x parameter, as described in "A Defragmentation Crash Course" earlier in this tutorial. When that's done, return to Disk Management and try Shrink Volume once more.

If the Shrink Volume feature in Disk Management still won't give you as much space as you need, you'll need a more capable program like Disk Director, covered next.