The same with previous versions, Windows 11 computer also runs low disk space on C drive. Many people ask whether it's possible to extend partition in Windows 11 without losing data. Nobody likes to reinstall operating system and all programs. The answer is yes. To extend volume in Windows 11 laptop/desktop/tablet, you may use either Windows native Disk Management tool or third party software. This article introduces 3 ways to extend volume in Windows 11 computer with both kinds of tools. Select the corresponding method according to your own disk partition configuration.
Extend volume in Windows 11 via Disk Management
The first method is not suggested. This method is only used by the users that don't like to use third party software and the disk partition configuration meets the requirements below:
- There's a contiguous partition on the right of the drive that you want to extend.
- This contiguous partition must be deleted in advance to get unallocated space.
- The partition to be extended must be formatted with NTFS file system.
- The partitions to be deleted and extended must be the same Primary or Logical drive.
Most of Windows 11 computers users want to extend system partition C. In most of computers, C drive is NTFS and primary, that means:
- There's a contiguous partition D (or E) on the right and you must delete it.
- This contiguous drive D: (or E:) must be a primary partition.
If you don't want to delete any volume or the partition layout doesn't meet the requirements, jump to the next section.
How to extend partition in Windows 11 without software:
- Right click Windows logo on the bottom of your screen, select Disk Management in the list.
- Right click the right adjacent partition (such as D:) and select Delete Volume option.
- Right click the left adjacent partition (such as C:) and select Extend Volume option, simply click Next till Finish in next dialog box.
Together with "Extend Volume", there's another "Shrink Volume" function in Disk Management. Some people may ask why not shrink D to expand C drive. Because the unallocated space that got from "Shrink Volume" function can't be used by "Extend Volume". Learn why cannot extend volume in Windows 11 with Disk Management after shrinking partition.
Extend Windows 11 volume with free partition software
With safe partition software, you can shrink partition and make unallocated space on left or right. Therefore, either contiguous partition can be extended easily. If you need to extend nonadjacent partition on the same disk, NIUBI Partition Editor can move unallocated space to be adjacent before extending. With this tool, you can extend volume in Windows 11 computer without deleting partition or losing data. Operating system, programs and all the rest (except size) keep the same with before.
Better than other tools, NIUBI Partition Editor has powerful Virtual Mode, Cancel-at-will, 1-Second Rollback and Hot Clone technologies to protect your system and data. It has free edition for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP home computer users. To shrink and extend partition in Windows 11 computer, you just need to click, drag and drop on the disk map.
Download NIUBI free edition, you'll see all disk partitions with structure and detailed information on the main window.
How to extend volume in Windows 11 without losing data:
- Right click a partition (such as D:) and select "Resize/Move Volume" option. In the pop-up window, drag either border towards the other one. The difference is, if you drag left border towards right, unallocated space will be made on the left.
- If you want to extend C drive, make unallocated space on the left in step 1. Right click C drive and run "Resize/Move Volume" again, then drag right border towards right to combine this unallocated space.
- Click Apply on top left to take effect.
If you want to shrink E drive to extend nonadjacent partition C, there's an additional step to move partition D to the right and make unallocated space next to C drive. Watch the video how to extend partition in Windows 11 by shrinking another volume:
The steps to shrink and extend volume in Windows 11 computer are the same, no matter you use SSD, mechanical HDD, any type of hardware RAID array, or even run Windows 11 in VMware/Hyper-V virtual machine.
Extend Windows 11 partition with a larger disk
If there's no other partition on the same disk, you cannot extend partition by shrinking a volume on another separate disk, because the size of a disk is fixed. In that case, you can clone disk to a larger one and extend partition with extra disk space, follow the steps in the video:
If there are data partitions on the disk but they are full, besides cloning disk, you may move a partition to other disk. Delete it and then add its space to C drive.
Besides shrinking and extending volume in Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista/XP computer, NIUBI Partition Editor helps you do many other disk partition management operations such as move, merge, hide, convert, defrag, wipe, scan bad sectors, optimize file system.
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