How to Extend Partition in Windows 7 without Data Loss🚀

Jean updated on Nov 21, 2023 to Partition Master | How-to Articles

How to expand or extend Windows partition without data loss? We've collected 6 ways to help you safely increase partition size on Windows 10/8/7/xp/vista by using adjacent or non- adjacent unallocated space on the source disk or cloning the old drive with a bigger one.

Go through this page and find the best method to extend partition in Windows 7/8/10 on your own:

Workable Solutions Duration Complexity

1. Windows 7 Partition Manager - EaseUS Partition Master

3-4 minutes Easiest, beginners' choice
2. Disk Management 3-8 minutes Medium
3. DiskPart 5-10 minutes Complex
4 Bonus Tips 10-15 minutes Medium

On this page, EaseUS software will help you extend partition in Windows 7 successfully with 3 tools with 4 practical methods. Most solutions can also be applied to expand the system partition in other Windows systems, such as Windows 11/10/8.

Also Read:

Why Do You Need to Extend Partition in Windows 7

The specific end of support day for Windows 7 was January 14, 2020. Technical assistance and software updates from Windows Update that help protect your PC are no longer available for the product. - by Microsoft

It's sad that many Windows 7 users can no longer get new updates from Microsoft. When problems that occur with Windows 7 become more complex to get the issue resolved. Fortunately, EaseUS software has never stopped supporting all Windows users.

To keep your Windows 7 computer running with high performance, it's recommended that you leave enough space on your computer. So, extending and increasing the Windows 7 partition size is highly necessary. It will also save your PC from the following issues:

Important
Normally, it's recommended that you leave up at least 40% free space on your system partition so as to keep your Windows 7 computer running smoothly. For example, your Windows 7 C drive is 100GB, you'd better keep 40GB free space left.

Continue reading and pick up the easiest or the most suitable way to extend your system partition in Windows 7 or Windows systems immediately.

Tool 1. Extend Partition in Windows 7 with EaseUS Partition Master🏆

  • 📌Difficulty Level: Easiest
  • 👍🏻Pros: No data loss
  • 🧑🏻‍💻Best for: All levels of Windows 7/8/10 users, beginners best choice.
  • 🧰Applies to: Extend system partition, expand data partition in Windows 10/8/10 with or without unallocated space.

As a matter of fact, most Windows 7 users also know very little about how to partition a hard drive on their computers. This is why we would like to suggest you take a reliable partition manager software as the easiest solution. EaseUS Partition Master will help you easily extend Windows partitions with simple clicks.

Option 1. Extend Partition in Windows 7 with EaseUS Partition Manager Software

It fully works to extend a partition to unallocated space regardless of whether the space is next to your target partition. Even if there is no unallocated space, you may still use it to extend a target partition successfully.

EaseUS Partition Master, with its "Resize/Move" feature, breaks the limit, allowing you flexibly extend the partition:

Step 1. Locate the Target Partition.

Go to Partition Manager, locate the target partition and select "Resize/Move".

Step 2. Extend the Target Partition.

Drag the partition panel rightward or leftward to add the unallocated space into your current partition and click "OK" to confirm.

Extra Option: Get Space from Another Drive

If there is not enough unallocated space on your disk, right-click on a big partition with enough free space, select "Allocate space".

Then select the target partition that you want to extend at the allocate space to column.

Step 3. Execute Operations to Extend Partition.

Drag the dots of the target partition into the unallocated space and click "OK".

Then Click the "Execute Task" button and click "Apply" to keep all the changes. 

Option 2. Extend Windows 7 Partition without Unallocated Space

When there is no unallocated space left on your computer drive, you can use the "Allocate Space" feature in EaseUS Partition Master for help. Here, we'll take how to move space from D drive to C drive to show you the whole process:

Step 1. Right-click on the D: partition with enough free space and select "Allocate Space".

Step 2. Select the target partition - C: drive and drag the partition panel rightward to add the free space from D: drive to C: drive. Then click "OK" to confirm.

Step 3. Click the "Execute Task" button and click "Apply" to start the process of moving free space from D: drive to C: drive.

If you successfully resolved low disk space or not sufficient partition size error in Windows 7, feel free to share this method to help more Windows 7 owners online:

 

Tool 2. Extend Windows 7 Partition in Disk Management

  • 📌Difficulty Level: Medium
  • 👍🏻Pros: Free;
  • 🧑🏻‍💻Best for: Experienced Windows 7 users.
  • 🧰Applies to: Expand data partition in Windows 10/8/10 with adjacent unallocated space.

In this part, we'll show you how to extend Windows 7 partition with existing unallocated space - Disk Management. See the detailed steps on how to expand your partition with adjacent Disk Management:

Notice:
Please note that there must be unallocated space behind the partition which you want to expand with Windows' built-in Disk Management utility.
Otherwise, you can't extend volume without adjacent unallocated space.

Step 1. Press the Windows key + R key to open the Run dialog. Type diskmgmt.msc and click "OK".

Windows 7 will automatically open Disk Management for you.

Step 2. Right-click on the partition you want to extend and select "Extend Volume" from the given list.

Step 3. Follow the wizard to set and add more size to your target partition, and click "Next" to continue. 

Step 4. Click "Finish" to complete the extending process in Windows 7.

If there is no unallocated space, you'll need to right-click a neighbor drive and select "Delete volume " or "Shrink volume" to free up unallocated space. Back up data first if you intend to do so:

1. Open Disk Management, locate the partition next to your target one, and check its state:

2. If the partition is empty, right-click on it and select "Delete Volume" > Click "Yes" to confirm.

3. If the partition is not empty but has big enough space, right-click on it and select "Shrink Volume" > Enter the amount of space that you want to shrink and click "Shrink" to confirm.

Then repeat the steps, as shown above, to extend the partition with shrunk unallocated space in Windows 7 Disk Management.

Tool 3. Increase Windows 7 Partition Size with DiskPart

  • 📌Difficulty Level: Hard;
  • 👍🏻Pros: Free; 
  • 🧑🏻‍💻Best for: Experienced & advanced Windows 7 users.
  • 🧰Applies to: Increase partition size when the unallocated space is behind the target volume.

Some advanced Windows users and administrators prefer to use DiskPart command lines to extend their hard drive partition. This might be easy for them but complex for ordinary users. Also, any false operation may cause a serious result.

Warning
Note that if the unallocated space is not behind your target volume, you'll have to use Disk Management to shrink or delete a neighbor drive in advance. Also, be careful, as using the CMD command line is easy to lose data with false operations.

Therefore, follow the operations carefully:

Step 1. Right-click Windows 7 icon and select "Search".

Step 2. Type cmd and right-click on "Command Prompt", then select "Run as Administrator".

Step 4. Type the following command lines one by one and hit Enter each time:

  • diskpart
  • list volume
  • select volume x (Replace X with the target drive number. In my case, the target drive is Volume 1.)
  • extend size =number (Replace the number with the size in MB that you want to add to your target drive.)

The above 3 tools are direct solutions that can help you expand partition in Windows 7. Here, in the next part, we also collected some practical methods that can help you free up disk space, getting more usable space in Windows 7. Let's see:

  1. #1. Clear Useless Large Files
  2. #2. Merge Two Disks as One
  3. #3. Upgrade Disk to A Larger HDD/SSD by Cloning
  4. #4. Delete Temporary Files, System Restore Image

Method 1. Free Up Target  Partition Space - Delete Junk Files/Useless Large Files

Works to: Free up partition space on both system and non-system drive.

The target of this method is to extend the current usable space without changing the partition state on your hard drive. To do so, you can use a disk cleaner software or third-party tool or help.

Here, you can directly use EaseUS CleanGenius for help:

Note: During the cleaning process, please check the scan result carefully before you decide to delete them on Windows 7.

Step 1. DOWNLOAD and install EaseUS Partition Master for free and launch it on your Windows PC.

Free Download

Windows 11/10/8/7100% Secure

On the suite, hover your mouse on "PC Cleaner", click the Download icon to install and launch EaseUS CleanGenius.

Step 2. On EaseUS CleanGenius, select "Cleanup" on the main screen, and click "Scan" to start scanning.

Step 3. When the scanning process completes, select useless large files and click "Clean" to clean large files.

Step 4. When EaseUS CleanGenius completes cleaning the files you choose, click "Done" to finish the process.

If it's a system drive, you can also use its System Drive Cleanup feature for help.

Method 2. Merge Two Disks - Extend Partition with Free Space on the Second Hard Drive

  • Works to: Extend non-system disk partition space by converting two disks to dynamic and extend partition with free space on the second drive.
  • Requirements: 1. You have two or more disks on Windows 7 computer; 2. You need to convert disk to dynamic disk (both two disks).
  • Limit: This method only works on a data disk. If you convert a system disk to dynamic, it may result in OS boot failure issue.

For a step-by-step guide, follow this link for the detailed steps:

How Can I Merge Disk 0 and Disk 1 in Windows 11/10

It is indeed possible to move or merge space from one disk to another with the help of EaseUS Partition Master. Follow the guide below and merge two disks.

Method 3. Clone and Replace Old Drive to A Bigger One

  • Applies to: Upgrade disk to a larger HDD/SSD so as to extend partition with more space.
  • Requirement: 1.  A new and bigger hard drive (remember to initialize the disk after installing it to Windows 7) 2. A reliable disk cloning software
  • Advantages: 1. Faster reading and writing space in Windows 7; 2. Expanding partition with more available space.

To do so, you'll need to buy a new and bigger hard drive in advance. And then use a disk cloning software to clone and replace the old hard drive with the bigger one.

Here, we'd like to recommend you use EaseUS Todo Backup Free for help. You can check and follow the tutorial steps below to replace your hard drive to a bigger new one now:

Step 1. Open your Windows 7 computer case, and install a new hard drive to your computer via a SATA or ATA cable correctly.

(Make sure the computer can detect your new drive.)

Step 2. Follow the video tutorial to clone and upgrade your old hard drive to a new bigger one:

Step 3. Restart Windows 7 if necessary and follow solutions in Part 1 to extend partition with free unallocated space in the new hard drive.

Method 4. Delete Temporary Files, System Restore Image

Works to: Free up space in system C drive

#1. Delete Temporary Files in Windows 7 C Drive

Step 1. Open My Computer, right-click the C drive, and select "Properties".

Step 2. Click "Disk Cleanup" in the disk properties window.

Step 3. Select temporary files, log files, Recycle Bin, and other useless files that you want to delete and click "OK".

How to Recover Deleted Files from Recycle Bin?

Are you looking for a way to perform Recycle Bin recovery? Follow to learn how to recover deleted files from the Recycle Bin immediately.

#2. Back-Up Windows 7 To External Hard Drive and Delete System Image

Requirement: 1. Reliable Windows backup software, like EaseUS Todo Backup; 2. An empty external hard drive;

If you created a Windows system image on your computer, it's suggested that you delete the system image as it would also take up certain disk space in the C drive. To protect your OS, we also suggest you create a backup of Windows 7 first.

Here are the complete steps:

Step 1. Back up Windows to an external hard drive via reliable Windows backup software.

Step 2. Open C drive or other partition where you saved the created system image.

Step 3. Delete the saved system image.

Sometimes, the system image may also be saved in a folder named Windows.old. All you need is to find it and remove it from the C drive.

After this, restart your computer. Windows 7 system drive will get a bigger free space by then.

To Sum Up

This page includes 3 direct tools to help you extend Windows 7 partition and other 4 reliable methods to free up disk space in Windows 7. With the provided solutions, you can easily make full use of Windows 7 disk partition size, getting a stable and fast computer

In conclusion, if you prefer the easiest way to extend partitions in Windows 7/8/10, take EaseUS Partition Master as your first choice. It supports extending a volume regardless of where there is unallocated space on your hard drive.

However, Disk Management and DiskPart cannot extend volume when there is no adjacent unallocated space next to a target drive. Besides, in order to save your energy in extending Windows 7 partition size, we also suggest that you save all large files and even the system backup image to an external hard drive.

FAQs About Increasing Windows 7 Disk Partition Size

Here we list some other topics about increasing Windows 7 disk space, if you are interested, follow to find answers here:

1. Is it possible to increase the C drive partition size in Windows 7 without formatting?

Yes, sure. Increasing the C drive space without formatting in Windows 7 is possible. You can either use a reliable partition manager for Windows 7, like EaseUS Partition Master, or turn to Disk Management to accomplish the task.

2. Why can't I extend a volume on Windows 7 though there is unallocated space?

Multiple reasons could block you from extending a partition volume in Windows 7, for example:

  • The unallocated space is not behind or not next to the target volume in Disk Management
  • The unallocated space and target partition are separated on two disks
  • The file system of the target volume is not supported or not recognized by Windows 7
  • The target volume is locked or write-protected
  • Unknown error or virus infection, etc.

3. How do I split C drive into two partitions in Windows 7?

There are two ways that you can try to partition the C drive in Windows 7 without formatting:

#1. Use Disk Management:

Open Disk Management, right-click on C drive and select "Shrink Volume", then add the volume size that you want to split from C drive, and follow the on-screen guideline to finish the process.

#2. Use Partition Manager Software - EaseUS Partition Master:

Launch EaseUS Partition Master, right-click on C drive, and select "Split Partition". Click "OK" to continue, or you can manually type the volume size that you wish to split from C drive. Last, click "Execute Task" to finish the process and restart your PC.