Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 October 25

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October 25

Changing Windows partition size

I've just bought a new Windows laptop (an HP) and one of the first things I did, because I've been told it's a good practice, was to partition my hard drive. However, I think I got the sizes wrong and would now like to change them, but cannot see how to do so. I made the C: drive 50GB and the D: drive 900GB, and now I am receiving messages that the C: drive is full. I know I am supposed to use Disk Management to fix this problem. I understand that I need to increase the size of the C: drive, but when I right click the C: drive area in Disk Management, the Extend Volume... command is greyed out. Also, what is the optimum size for the C: drive? Any advice would be appreciated, many thanks. --Viennese Waltz 16:00, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I expect your problem is that the C: partition is immediately followed by the D: partition, so there is no space available to expand the C: partition in place. What you need to do is to shrink the D: partition, move it further down the drive to open up space between the C: and D: drives, and then expand the C: partition. However, as far as I know, Windows Disk Management does not support partition moves, so you will need to use third party software. If you search for "move partition" you will find lots of suggestions. I have used EaseUS Partition Master in the past. The free edition supports moves and seems straight forward to use. Note that the move operation will likely require a couple of reboots, so that the tool can run in stand-alone mode. Also, depending on the size of your D: drive and how much data it contains, the move may take a very long time. Before running, be sure that you have reliable power and a backup of any critical data. -- Tom N talk/contrib 17:47, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Thanks very much for that, good advice. However, I have still not been able to do what I want to do, and I wonder if you can help me any further. See the screenshot here. I have shrunk the D: drive to 800GB which has given me 95GB of unallocated space which I need to add to the C: drive. However, the unallocated space is sitting to the right of the D:, whereas I know that it needs to sit between the C: and D: in order that I can expand the C: EaseUs does not seem to offer the function of moving the unallocated space to the left. Right clicking it does not give this possibility, and trying to drag it does nothing. Nor is it possible to move the D: partition to the right. The problem seems to be that it is not possible to resize (by dragging) the D: partition starting from the left, only from the right. See the screenshot here. Any ideas? Many thanks, --Viennese Waltz 18:14, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Update: no worries, I managed to work it out for myself using the rather neat workaround at [1]. --Viennese Waltz 19:41, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

One problem is that your C drive has only 57.something gigabytes (not 500). Your D drive has only a small amount on it. I've used EaseUS in the past for things like this, but I don't remember the details. I don't know why it isn't working, but you might copy what is on the D drive to an external drive, delete the D partition, expand the C drive to something a lot bigger than 57GB, and then create the D partition and copy the files back to D: Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:12, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the step that was missed was moving the D: partition, so that the unallocated space would shift to after the C: partition, which would then allow for the C: partition expansion. Using the graphical UI, this can be requested by clicking the center of the partition (not the ends) and it dragging to the right. The alternative that the OP referenced of creating a new partition, copying the data, and deleting the original also works, if drive space permits it. This approach can be done without third party tools, but may have a higher risk of data loss if not done correctly. -- Tom N talk/contrib 21:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Why partition?

I see that the OP above was advised that it is good practice to partition the C: drive into a C: drive and a D: drive. Maybe this is a stupid question, but why should one partition the drive? And if one has been using a computer for a few years, is there still a reason to partition the drive? Robert McClenon (talk) 00:12, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Partitioning the physical drive into multiple partitions allows the computer to treat each partition as a separate hard disk. This might not be related to the OP's question, but for the last two decades, on my own Linux home computer, I have kept the system itself and my home directory on separate partitions. This has made upgrades requiring a full reinstall a breeze. I just reinstall the system partition without having to touch the home partition. The next time I reboot, I have a fresh new system with all my personal files still in place, without having to back up anything. I should think it works the same way in Windows. JIP | Talk 00:30, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

I haven't partitioned drives in days decades. Many years ago the max partition was 32MB. I got a 40MB HD and partitioned it into 30MB for C and 10 MB for D. Then I added a second 40MB drive and had E and F the same way. Then I had a 120MB drive and later a 540MB drive. The 32MB limit went away somewhere along the line, but I kept partitioning, and C was my boot and programs, D was data, E was communications, F was files, etc. There was an advantage to having partitions because a small partition would defrag faster, and files wouldn't be spread out too far. At one time I had partitions C through M. Then I quit doing it entirely. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Also there used to be a smallish limit on the number of folders you could have in the root, something like 163. That limit went away, reducing the benefit of partitioning. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:42, 27 October 2020 (UTC)