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Windows 7 - How to Extend Hard Drive Boot Partition

SYSTEM
Windows 7 Ultimate
NTFS Boot C:\ Drive
Desktop Machine, 5.25 Inch HDD, 500 GB

BACKGROUND
Originally, I formatted the drive with two partitions of about 250 GB each.
One of the partitions is bootable with the OS on it. The other partition was for data only.

I used: Control Panel > Admin Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management
to Remove the Data Partition.

Then I tried to Extend Volume on the Boot partition to include the now empty data partition, but there is a message saying the space is limited.

You can only extend the volume to the available space shown below because your disk cannot be converted to dynamic or the volume being extended is a boot or system volume.

The space shown is only 250 GB total. So no extension is possible using Win 7 Disk Management.

QUESTION
I need to extend the boot partition to include the space just released by the other partition. The total space of the boot partition needs to be 500 GB, the full size of the disk (except for the "Reserved System" space of about 100 MB.) Is there a tool that makes this possible?

NOTE
I will be using Clone Zilla to clone this hard drive as I have done in the past. Not sure if there is a way to extend the size of the boot partition using that tool. I do not want to clone the disk 1::1 at the moment until this is resolved.

Andrew Leniart

Are you seeking a free or paid utility to do this? Almost any quality Partition Manager should be able to achieve this with relative ease.

The one I tend to use is http://www.easeus.com/partition-manager/personal.html

Have yet to strike a scenario that it couldn't handle. I use Pro, but perhaps even the free version will accomplish what you're trying to do.

Grab a copy and check it out.

Hope this is helpful.

Ramin

As noted by Andrew any quality Partition Manager is able to achieve this, Paragon partition manager is my favorite tools for Partition Resizing.

David Johnson, CD

There is a recovery partition after your c: partition you will need a 3rd party partition tool

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Tuan

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nobus

i recommend the free paragon partition manager : https://www.paragon-software.com/home/pm-personal/eshop.html

Jerry L

ASKER

Thanks for all the suggestions, I will give them a try and report back in a couple days.

Jerry L

ASKER

I tried Paragon but was still not able to extend the C: Drive partition into the unallocated space. (See Attached Image)
EE-Partition.jpg

SOLUTION

Ramin

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SOLUTION

Andrew Leniart

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SOLUTION

nobus

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Jerry L

ASKER

SOLUTION
I tried MiniTool Partition Wizard and it did what was needed.
(I did not get a chance to try the Redistribute free space suggestion for Paragon.)

Tuan

Glad it worked out for you.