How to extend system partition in Windows 7/Vista/XP, Server 2003/2000 and Server 2008?

Why do we need to extend system partition?

As applications continue to be installed into the Windows system, one day, suddenly you will find that the system partition do not have enough free disk space, and when every time the system starts, Windows always prompts the following information: You are running out of disk space on SYSTEM (C:), To free space on this drive by deleting old or unnecessary files, click here

In this case, we have to delete the unwanted file to get more free space in order to ensure the normal operation of Windows. However, deleting files is not the best way, because my system disk have a total of 250GB, the system boot partition (C:) is only 20GB, and 230GB was divided to data partition (D:), it is clear that (D:) space is large enough, and now the best approach is that distribute 60GB from the (D:) to (C:) to extend system partition, so that you can permanently solve the problem by using the Extend Partition Wizard of the "Partition Assistant". Here is the layout of my system disk before extend system volume as shown below:

Expand system partition by using extend partition wizard of Partition Assistant.

Extend Partition Wizard is specially designed for extending your system boot partition and other partitions on a disk. It can fully utilize the free space and unallocated space on the disk to meet your needs. The program will automatically shrink large partitions and moves them to release more space to increase the size for the your appointed partition. It's easy and safe without loss of data, without reformatting partition. Besides, the Partition Manager can help you to realize more advanced partition operations.

Step 1:
Start the Extend Partition Wizard of Partition Assistant as administrator privilege, and select the partition that you wish to extend (eg. "Extend system partition") shown below:

Method #1 - Extending the system partition by using the GUI

1. Log on as an Administrator. 2. Go to Control Panel > System and Maintenance > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. You can also open the Computer Management application by using the Computer context menu. Select Computer Management.

In fact, you can go directly to the Disk Management MMC snap-in by typing diskmgmt.msc in the Start's search box or on the Run command.

If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation. 3. Expand the Storage section, and in it go to the Disk Management console.

4. Select the disk you want to extend, for example Drive C. 5. Right-click the disk and select Extend Volume.

6. Click on "Next".

7. Windows 7 will tell you how much space can be added to the existing partition. You can manually enter the amount of space you want to add by changing the "Select the amount of space in MB" values. Note that you cannot enter a higher value than the value already present. Click on "Next".

8. The process will finish quite quickly, and a reboot is NOT required. You can notice the new partition size.

Method #2 - Extending the system partition by using the command line

Extending a partition or volume can be done via the CLI, or command line interface. In order to do that perform the following steps: 1. Click Start and type CMD, then press Enter. It is best to run the Command Prompt as an Administrator. To do so, right-click CMD and select "Run as Administrator".

When prompted to allow the Command Processor to run, click on "Yes".

BTW, you can also hover over the CMD line and press CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to invoke the "Run as Administrator" shortcut. 2. In the command prompt type Diskpart 3. Select the right disk drive and partition to work on. Typically, in Windows 7, this should be disk 0 and partition 2, but please make sure you do select the right disk and partition before continuing. You can do so by performing a LIST operation to view your existing disks and partitions BEFORE attempting to expand the wrong partition. List disk Select disk 0 List partition Select partition 2

4. When the right disk and partitions were selected, run the EXTEND command. If you don't specify the size to extend by, then the command will extend the partition by using all of the contiguous space available on that disk. Extend size=500 The above command will extend the partition by 500 MB. Extend The above command will extend the partition by using all of the contiguous space available on that disk.

BTW, do not confuse the extend command with the expand command, which, in Windows 7, is used to expand the size of virtual disks. 5. You may check the new partition size by running the list command, again. List partition

6. You must now exit DISKPART by using the Exit command.

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