How to increase the disk capacity with Windows 7. How to increase the size of the C drive with programs using the size of the D drive? Shrinking a volume using Disk Management

If the operating system does not have enough memory, it’s time to think about how to increase the size of the disk (C:). Over time, the OS “grows” - new programs appear in it, updates are downloaded. There is less and less free space on the partition, even if you install all the utilities on another volume. Can be cleaned system disk from junk files or change its size. And you don’t need to format your hard drive or reinstall Windows to do this.

The characteristics of the HDD itself do not change. You are only redistributing existing resources between logical drives. Physical memory remains the same. If you want to expand it, you will have to purchase a new hard drive.

You should not expand the partition if there is still free space on it. If something goes wrong when resizing, you will lose all your data.

During operation, unnecessary information “settles” in the system. These are files left over from deleted applications, outdated cache, registry entries that lead nowhere and do not relate to anything. Separated from each other, they don't weigh that much. But taken together they greatly clog the system and take up large volume memory. You can clean the OS of garbage and free up space for Windows needs.

• Right-click on the disk icon.
• “Properties” item.
• General tab.
• Clean button.

Click on "Cleanup"

• Check the boxes next to the required items. It's better to delete "Temporary Files". You can also erase “Thumbnails” - these are previews (“thumbnails”) of images and videos. With them you see not an ordinary icon, but a picture or frame. But the cache may store thumbnails of drawings that you no longer need. Therefore, feel free to erase all the previews if they take up extra space. As soon as you open a folder with drawings or photos, new thumbnails for icons will be loaded into the cache.

Place a checkmark next to the required files

• You can also use junk removal programs. For example, CCleaner is suitable.

And a few more tips:

• Do not install resource-intensive programs on the system disk. Use other sections to download games, editors, and multimedia programs.
• Do not put videos, photos, archives in subdirectories (C:). Transfer your personal information to another location.
• Don't clutter your desktop with shortcuts and folders.

Cleaning the OS does not change the size of the system disk. But this will increase the amount of data that can theoretically fit on it.

In what cases is it necessary to expand the disk?

If Windows has enough resources to run, you don't need to touch anything. Manually expanding logical partitions involves certain risks. If you do something wrong, the system will stop booting. Change the size of the system directory only as a last resort. For example:

• Windows was initially allocated little space. When “slicing” the volumes, they did not calculate how much memory was needed for stable operation.
• You cleaned the OS of garbage, deleted unnecessary data, moved your files to another partition, but this did not help. The free space in the system partition fills up too quickly, because various updates, extensions, and add-ons are constantly installed.

Computer management

Here's how to increase memory on C drive without third-party utilities:

• Right-click on the “My Computer” icon.
• Item "Management". To open this menu, you need administrator rights.
• Expand the "Storage Devices" list. It's on the left side of the window.
• Select the "Disk Management" sub-item.

Find and launch Disk Management

• Right-click on the system partition.
• You need the "Expand volume" line to increase the size. If this item is not active, then additional volume is needed.
• To get it, right-click on any other drive that has free space.
• Select Shrink Volume.
• Specify the number of megabytes you want to “transfer” to (C:).
• Confirm the action and wait until the system shrinks the partition.
• Now you have unallocated memory. And the “Extend volume” option will be active.
• The computer may restart several times to complete the operation. Do not interrupt the process or turn off the PC.

Do not touch the System Reserved object. Do not change drive labels (“letters”) or paths to them. Do not make active a partition that does not have an OS installed.

Third party utilities

You can change the size of volumes using special programs. They are called "Partition Managers". They have a simple interface. You don't need any special skills to work with them. But you still need to use such utilities carefully. If you do something wrong, you can actually remove all volumes and erase data.

Almost all of these applications have a similar interface. Therefore, for other programs the algorithm of actions will be the same.

Acronis Disk Director window

Here's how to increase disk space (C:) using Acronis Disk Director:

1. Install this utility. You can download it from the official Acronis website. It's paid, but a demo version is available to download. There are also “hacked” versions of the program on the World Wide Web.
2. Launch it. A window will open with a list of logical partitions.
3. Right-click on the volume whose volume you want to increase.
4. “Resize” item. It is the first one in the context menu list.
5. Check the “Add unallocated space” and “Take from other volumes” checkboxes.
6. In the “Leave free space on volume (%)” counter, indicate what percentage of memory to leave in the partition. This value depends on the general parameters of the hard drive and the local disk that you are compressing. If you set it to 80%, 20% of the volume (D:) will be added to the system partition. Don't overdo it. You should not “drag” all free resources to (C:). This way you will have nowhere to put your personal data.
7. In the “Size” field, specify the desired size of the system volume.
8. Click OK. The settings window will close.
9. In the program itself, click on “Apply pending operations”.
10. The utility will prepare and check everything. After you click Continue, your computer will restart (possibly more than once). During system startup, disk space will be redistributed. Do not turn off the PC or unplug the cord from the outlet, otherwise you will lose data from the partitions.

After the download is complete, you will see that the volume (C:) has increased.

You can also do this: free up space by compressing one volume and add this “orphan” memory to another.

Aomei Partition Assistant

Here's how to increase disk size (C:) using Aomei Partition Assistant:

• Download and install the program. You can find it at aomeitech.com. Open home page resource global network and go to the "DOWNLOAD" tab. The standard (“Standard”) license of the utility is distributed free of charge.
• Launch it. A list of available volumes will open.
• First, you need to shrink the drive (D:) to free up space. Right-click on it and select “Edit”.

• Reduce the volume of the section. To do this, enter a numeric value or move the slider that shows how much memory is allocated.

Resizing disk (C:)

• Now change the drive (C:) exactly the same as (D:). Just don't shrink, but expand the volume.
• After setting up and allocating memory, you need to click the “Apply” button in the main window of the utility.
• The computer may restart several times. Don't turn it off, even if the process takes a while.

The program does not have Russian (although you can find versions with amateur translations online). But it’s just as easy to use as previous utilities. It works on both Windows and Linux.

MiniTool Partition Wizard window

• Download the application from partitionwizard.com, install and run. A list of volumes appears.
• Free up memory first. Right-click on the drive (D:) (or any other one if it is not reserved by the system).
• “Move/Resize” item. A window for changing the volume will open.
• You can manually enter values ​​or adjust the slider.

• In the “Unallocated Space After” field, indicate what size of the disk you want to end up with (if you shrink the volume, the number of megabytes will be less than the original).
• Confirm the action.
• Do the same for the (C:) drive. Allocate free memory to it.
• The slider should be adjacent to the left side of the window. If there is a “space” between it and the border, problems will arise with loading the OS.
• Confirm again.
• Click the "Apply" button. She's on the left top corner main application window.
• Wait while the program redistributes resources between volumes. Don't turn off your computer.

How to change disk size when installing Windows?

If you install or reinstall Windows, you can change the size of the system disk directly during initialization. But this will not save system parameters, design, programs and other data. Better create backup copy important information.

• Start Windows from a CD or flash drive.
• When it comes to choosing the installation type, click on “ Full installation" A list of sections will open.

Select “Full installation”

• Don't touch volumes you know nothing about. Most likely, there is important system data there. Work only with people you know (C:) and (D:).
• Select the one whose size you want to change.
• Click on the Disk Setup link.
• And then click on the “Expand” button.
• To use it, you must have unallocated memory. To create it, you can delete one of the partitions that does not belong to the OS. Then add the required volume to the system disk. And from the remaining resources to form a new top.

The option will be relevant:

• If this is your first Windows installation.
• If you decide to “start over” and format the hard drive.

In the first case, there is no unrecoverable data on the computer, in the second, there shouldn’t be any.

You've learned several ways to make your drive (C:) larger. But don't do it without a reason. If the system needs free space for virtualization, paging file, storage of backups and recovery points, then it makes sense to change the size of the main volume. But if everything works fine, and there is still enough memory in the partition, it is better not to touch anything.

This article answers the question: “How to increase space on drive C?” It provides instructions for working in third party utilities, and in the built-in program. It should be noted that increasing the size of the system partition is done by reducing the volume of one of the neighboring ones. Moreover, it is necessary that they be located on the same physical drive. Of course, the attached space of the adjacent partition should not be occupied by files. The instructions are suitable for any version of Windows OS.

Aomei Partition Assistant

Aomei- free utility, which allows you to perform any manipulations with hard drives. During installation, it does not install advertising applications along with it. The interface is completely translated into Russian. The utility supports any version of Windows OS, starting from 7.

Be careful! Any actions in programs of this type may lead to data loss. Make a backup of important documents in case of an unexpected failure or unexpected power outage.

Step-by-step instruction

After installing the program, run it.

The main window will show hard disks and their sections.How to increase space on drive C at the expense of drive Dusing the Aomei app?

Right-click on section D. A menu will open in which you need to select “Resize”.

In the window that appears, you can edit by dragging the borders on the right and left or by entering digital values ​​in the input lines. You need to move the borders so that the unallocated space is located after section C. When you are done with the settings, click OK.

Increase the size of partition C using the new unallocated volume. Click OK.

Now click on the "Apply" button in the main window of the Aomei utility.

Before that how to increase space on drive C

In the same utility you can create bootable USB flash drive. With its help, partition editing is performed outside the OS. With this approach, restarting the PC is not required while performing operations.

The utility can be downloaded from the developer’s official website.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free

Partition Wizard - free application, which will help you perform any actions with sections of hard disk. Its only drawback is the lack of Russian translation.

Once loaded, the utility will display a window with almost the same interface as Aomei. The steps that need to be taken before increasing the space on drive C are also completely similar.

• expand context menu by right-clicking on the image of section D;
• click on the Resize Partition inscription and edit the space so that the area with unallocated space is to the right of the system disk;
• now do the same actions with section C, but do not reduce its volume, but increase it;
• click on OK and then on “Apply”;
• After the program has completed all operations, open Explorer to make sure the space is allocated correctly.

To download Partition Wizard, go to the official website of the utility.

Tools built into the OS

There is a way that will helpeven when the installation third party software impossible. It must be said that the built-in utilities do not allow you to perform the necessary operation without losing data written to the partition adjacent to the system one. Therefore all important information should be saved on a separate drive.

So:

1. Open the Run dialog. Enter the text diskmgmt.msc into the line. Click OK.
2. The main window of the Disk Management application appears on the display. It will show all drives installed in system unit, and the diagram of their sections. Do not do anything with hidden drives unless you understand why they are needed.
3. Open the dialog menu for drive D by clicking on its rectangle in the diagram. Click on the inscription "Delete". After this operation, free space will appear to the right of partition C.
4. How to increase space on drive C? Expand the context menu of section C. Click on the “Expand” inscription.
5. In the window that appears, enter the volume (in MB) by which you want to increase the disk. If you do not make any changes here, the system will automatically take all available space.

When you need to increase it a little system partition, and then create an additional one again, click on the rectangle indicating the remaining unoccupied space. Click the "Create Volume" text and set its size.

Conclusion

In addition to the tools described, there are many utilities that will helpincrease space on drive C.Windows 7 and older versions boast a built-in tool, but its functionality does not reach the level of third-party products.

Always remember that performing low-level operations on any drive is risky. Before each action, it is advisable to make backups of at least important data, and if opportunities allow, then full copies hard drives.

It happens that when installing an operating system, at the stage of dividing the hard drive into partitions, the user is short-sightedly greedy, allocating system files 30 gigabytes of disk space. Particularly greedy individuals allocate even less - they were the ones who read this article first. But it doesn’t matter why it happened that there is not enough space on the system disk (usually drive C). What matters is what to do. Here's what you can do: delete unnecessary programs and clean your desktop. But practice shows that this measure is temporary and tangible relief will not last long - a month or two - at best. The cardinal solution is to format C and repartition physical disk again, without repeating the mistakes made in the past. But as a rule, this process is labor-intensive, this is one, and labor-intensive is two. And three. You will have to restore everything that was installed on drive C (many users unwisely store personal and hard-collected information on the desktop or in the “my documents” folder), search for drivers again, configure the system...

It is better to go the third way, choosing the golden mean. We will tell you how to increase the volume of the system disk using free space on other disks without reinstalling the system or deleting information. Moreover, this operation can be carried out system means without resorting to third-party programs.

For this we need an external HDD, to which it will be necessary to transfer (temporarily) all information from the disk on which we decided to take away free space. But first things first:

The question of how to enlarge drive C is solved identically in two ways. operating systems– in Windows7 and Windows8.

First, we transfer all the information from volume D to another medium, then open Disk Management. For this

in Windows7: click “Start” and enter in the search bar diskmgmt.msc, then click ok. Or: on the desktop, right-click on “Computer”, select “Management” then “Disk Management”.

In Windows8: in the search we write diskmgmt.msc, then ok. Or: on the desktop, right-click on “Computer”, select “Management” then “Disk Management”.

2 Right-click on volume D and select “Delete Volume”.

3. Confirm the deletion.

4. Select volume C with the right key, and select “Extend volume” from the drop-down menu.

5. The “Volume Expansion Wizard” starts, click “Next”.

6. In the dialog box that opens, indicate the capacity by which we want to increase the system disk. Click “Next”.

7. Click the “Finish” button.

8. Done, the system disk has been enlarged. Now you need to use the unallocated space to create disk D (otherwise the system simply will not see the free space and will not be able to use it). Click on unallocated space and select “Create simple volume” from the drop-down menu.

9. Open the wizard again and click the “Next” button.

10. In the dialog box that appears, leave the default settings and click “Next” again.

11. We leave the letter proposed for the new volume (Letter D).

13. To complete the work, click “Finish”.

The process is complete. We have an enlarged section C, and new volume D is smaller. All that remains is to transfer the old information to the new section D.

Hello admin, I want to increase disk space (C:) at the expense of disk (D:) without losing data, but I can’t do anything. Here, look at the "Disk Management" of my computer for yourself. Drive (C:) is 111 GB and drive (D:) is 350 GB and I want to detach 50 GB from drive (D:) and attach them to drive (C:) to increase its space to 160 GB.

First I want to “pinch off” 50 GB from the disk (D:) and attach them to the disk (C:), I click on the disk (D:) and select “Shrink volume”

I set it to 50 GB and click “Compress”

An unallocated area of ​​50 GB is formed on the disk

I right-click on the drive (C:) and want to select “Extend volume,” but as you can see, the button is blurred.

How can I attach unallocated space to the drive (C:) in my situation?

Friends, you can’t do this using the built-in Disk Management utility in Windows 8.1, so you need special program from the partition manager class hard drive.

Therefore, today I suggest you increase the drive (C:) at the expense of the drive (D:) without losing data free program AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition 5.6, moreover, it is in Russian and has a very convenient control interface.

We have already written two articles about working in this program:

• AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard - great program for high-quality management of partitions on your hard drive without data loss. Interestingly, the application is free for home and even commercial use! I tested this program for several months and wrote several detailed articles about it for you.
• Friends, I haven’t done anything with this program and I didn’t have any problems, but it still applies to disk partition managers and if you make a mistake somewhere, you can lose your data, so before working with the program, I recommend making a backup of everything partitions of your hard drive. In my opinion, all users should be able to create a backup copy of Windows and expand it if necessary. Articles to help.

The program is very easy to install without any pitfalls.

After successful installation, launch the program

And in the main window of AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition 5.6, right-click on the drive (D:) and select "Resize partition".

Left click to enlarge image

In the “Moving and resizing partitions” window, click on the delimiter with the left mouse and drag it to the right, thereby freeing up 50 GB of space in front of the volume (C:)

There is 50 GB of unallocated space between drive (C:) and drive (D:). Right-click on the drive (C:) and select "Resize partition"

We grab the delimiter with the left mouse and drag it to the right, thereby attaching the unallocated space of 50 GB to the volume (C:)

and click OK

The AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard Edition 5.6 program works in deferred operation mode and to implement our changes you need to click the "Apply" button

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".

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.

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

Thank you for your attention!