Windows won't let me increase partition size even though I have space?

Fat guy hat · 27 Aug 2017 at 16:48

My C drive has only 1GB of space left. I have an "unallocated" space of 160GB free on my hard drive.
Disk management in windows will not let me increase the size of the C drive.
I have tried to use some software called easeus, but it still won't allow me to do it.

Can anyone give me some advice onn what to try next please?

hartgeh3 · 27 Aug 2017 at 20:28

Try https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

HoneyBadger · 27 Aug 2017 at 21:50

It's because your pagefile.sys is on it. You need to move it another drive or disable it first then re-enable.

wesley · 27 Aug 2017 at 22:09

You cannot increase the size of the partition when you are already on it . You need to be offline to increase it.

I'd recommend gparted. Download iso , burn it to CD then boot up CD

JasonM · 27 Aug 2017 at 23:48

Do you have any other partitions on the HDD, say a D drive, or is C Drive the only partition?

wesley said:
You cannot increase the size of the partition when you are already on it . You need to be offline to increase it.

I'd recommend gparted. Download iso , burn it to CD then boot up CD

Are you 100% on this, the year previous I increased the partition on my Windows 10 C drive, I only used the tools that were included with windows.

Fat guy hat · 28 Aug 2017 at 09:20

Thanks for the replies. I have got somewhere (ish). I didn't have any cd's to burn gparted onto disk, however I noticed last night that my C: was at 66GB which considering I only use this PC for browsing I thought was a bit high.
I found there was as using file (in another user I din't know about) using almost 30GB of data. I removed it but it took some systemfiles with it that I don't think I should have deleted because I lost the WIndows start menu amongst other strange things, so I did a fresh Windows install last night - only took an hour & a half.
I'm now back up and running and only using 31GB on my C: now.

I'm going to see if I can put that gparted on USB later and extend the partition.

Thank you for the help again!

HoneyBadger · 28 Aug 2017 at 12:05

wesley said:
You cannot increase the size of the partition when you are already on it

Yeah, you can.

Fat guy hat · 29 Aug 2017 at 13:16

HoneyBadger said:
Yeah, you can.

I tried to do it by stopping pagefile.sys and it still wouldn't let me...

Fat guy hat · 29 Aug 2017 at 16:03

Another update. I tried gparted and it's exactly the same in that it won't let me make the C: any bigger than 60GB...

PiKe · 29 Aug 2017 at 16:08

What type of partition is the current C drive according to diskmgmt.msc?

Bug One · 29 Aug 2017 at 16:20

You can't do it in Windows, whilst windows is running. You need a utility to do it outside of the normal GUI. (You can prepare it, but the software will need to perform the task during a reboot.)

I use Acronis disk director for tasks like this.

PS - how could your drive be at 66gb when your C: is only 60gb?

Fat guy hat · 29 Aug 2017 at 17:22

PiKe said:
What type of partition is the current C drive according to diskmgmt.msc?

Basic

Fat guy hat · 29 Aug 2017 at 17:24

Bug One said:
You can't do it in Windows, whilst windows is running. You need a utility to do it outside of the normal GUI. (You can prepare it, but the software will need to perform the task during a reboot.)

I use Acronis disk director for tasks like this.

PS - how could your drive be at 66gb when your C: is only 60gb?

Sorry drive is 250GB total, C: capacity 60GB with 27GB free. Unallocated 171GB

PiKe · 29 Aug 2017 at 17:56

Bug One said:
You can't do it in Windows, whilst windows is running. You need a utility to do it outside of the normal GUI. (You can prepare it, but the software will need to perform the task during a reboot.)

I use Acronis disk director for tasks like this.

PS - how could your drive be at 66gb when your C: is only 60gb?

Wrong, done it tens of times with no issue on a live windows install, it's only extending the partition table, no actual changes with regards to data take place.

HoneyBadger · 29 Aug 2017 at 20:26

PiKe said:
Wrong, done it tens of times with no issue on a live windows install, it's only extending the partition table, no actual changes with regards to data take place.

Yep, you CAN do it, I've done loads of times. We do it a lot in work on Windows VM's.

lude1962 · 29 Aug 2017 at 21:32

I suspect the disk wasn't wiped before reinstalling and he has a recovery partition still lurking
but why wasn't the full space used on the very original install

wesley · 29 Aug 2017 at 21:35

Any chance you take a photo of the gparted on your phone and post it here?

It'll help massively

Bug One · 30 Aug 2017 at 10:30

HoneyBadger said:
Yep, you CAN do it, I've done loads of times. We do it a lot in work on Windows VM's.

What software do you use to do this?

HoneyBadger · 30 Aug 2017 at 10:35

Windows.

fezster · 30 Aug 2017 at 11:19

https://www.partitionwizard.com/resizepartition/increase-c-drive-partition.html