The hard drive is partitioned during the installation of the operating system. But the separation applied is not always optimal. For example, under the main drive C, on which the operating system is installed, not enough space is usually allocated. Fortunately, Windows 7 makes it possible to change the free space allocated between partitions.

Drive expansion

There are three ways to expand and edit the space allotted for a particular hard disk partition for yourself: through built-in utilities, third-party programs, or during system reinstallation.

Through built-in utilities

In Windows 7, a program is installed by default that allows you to make all the necessary settings:

Write and run the diskmgmt.msc command to open Computer Management.
Run the command to open Computer Management

Examine information about all media and hard drives connected to the PC, and about the partitions into which they are divided.
Learn about the main partitions and disks of your PC

Do not delete small partitions weighing around 1 GB because they store information important to the system, such as restore points and other files to support Windows.
Do not delete system reserved drives

Find out if you have unallocated space or not. Unallocated space is the amount of hard disk space that does not belong to any of the volumes. Only this space can be allocated between disks.
Unallocated space is marked in black

If you don’t have this space, then there are two ways out: erase one of the partitions, while losing all the information that is stored on it, or compress the partition for which too much space has been allocated. To delete a volume, right-click on it and select "Delete Disk". Please note that everything on this disk partition will be permanently deleted, so transfer all important data to third-party media in advance.
Click the Delete Volume button

Confirm the deletion by clicking the "Yes" button.
Click the "Yes" button

To shrink a volume, right-click on it and select Shrink Volume.
Click the Shrink Volume button

Read the information in the window that opens: the total amount of memory, free space that can be compressed, and an interactive line, in which you need to specify how much space you want to take away from the partition. All data is in MB. It is not recommended to take all the free space from the volume, as this can cause a sharp lack of memory for programs or other activities, it is better to leave a few GB just in case.
Set parameters for volume compression

Click the Compress button to apply the changes.
Click the "Compress" button

Look for the "Unallocated" block.
Find the "Unallocated" block

Select the disk you want to expand, right-click on it and select "Expand Volume" from the menu that opens.
Click the "Expand Volume" button

The Extend Volume Wizard will open. Skip the welcome message by clicking Next.
Click "Next"

Find three items: the volume that has already been allocated for this section, unallocated space and an interactive line in which you need to manually enter the value of how much of the unallocated space you want to give to that volume. Having set all the parameters, click the "Next" button.
Set volume extension options

Wait for the extension to finish and confirm its results by clicking the "Finish" button.
Click the Done button

Make sure the disk has increased and the unallocated space has decreased. Restart the system so that all applications and processes take into account the changes made. Restart your computer

Video: how to extend a volume through Computer Management in Windows 7

During Windows Setup

If you are in the process of installing Windows 7 and want to change the volume of disks, follow these steps:

Click on the "Full installation" option when you are prompted to select the type of installation. In the "Update" mode, disk settings are not provided.
Select "Full Install"

Do not delete small partitions up to 1 GB in size, as they store information that Windows needs, such as restore points and other files to support the system.
Do not delete the partition allocated to the system

Click on the "Configure Disk" button to open additional features.
Click the Configure Disk button

Check if there is unallocated (unallocated) disk space.
Find unallocated disk space

If you do not have this space, then you will have to remove one of the disks by selecting it and clicking the "Delete" button.
Click the "Delete" button

Make sure the unallocated space appears. Select the disk you want to expand, click on the "Expand" button and specify the amount of memory that will be allocated to the disk from unallocated memory. Done, the disk is enlarged. In the same section, you can delete volumes, expand them, format or create new ones.
Click the "Expand" button

Video: how to repartition a hard drive when installing Windows 7

Using third party software

There are several free programs that replace the Windows utility for working with disks and their partitions. For example, Aomei Partition Assistant. This is a convenient program in Russian, featuring a simple and understandable design.

Click on the desired disk with the right mouse button, being in the main menu of the program, and select "Resize partition".
Click the "Resize Partition" button

Move the slider or change the numbers in the windows to edit the disk dimensions. The process repeats all the steps and conditions described above in the article in the "Through built-in utilities" section.
Override the slider or change the numbers in the windows

Use the "Apply" function in the main menu of the program to save the changes. Click the "Apply" button

Restart your PC so that all applications and processes accept the changes made. Click the restart button

Video: How to use Aomei Partition Assistant

"Extend Volume" feature is not available

Some users encounter the fact that the "Expand Volume" item in the built-in utility or during the installation of Windows 7 is inactive, that is, it is highlighted in a neutral color.

A similar problem appears if you do not have space that can be given to one of the disks. That is, you do not have unallocated memory.

Keep in mind that free disk space and unallocated space are two different things. To achieve the presence of the second one, it is necessary to delete one of the volumes or compress it, overtaking the free space into unallocated space. How to do this is described in the paragraphs of the section "Through the built-in utility" above in the article.

By default, most hard drives are accompanied by two volumes: C and D. These are the main sections on the hard drive (volumes or root directories) that are strictly separated from each other. First of all, they are made so that the system does not have to wander in the wilds of heavy films and games, on the way to vital files. For ordinary users, the ideal placement of programs, games and files: everything that is light and often launched is on the system drive (C by default), everything heavy and secondary is on the second drive, an alternative OS is on the third. And in order to most rationally allocate space between volumes or change their number, you should be able to manage disk space.

How to open hard disk management

Like most Windows settings windows, Disk Management has many doors and there are many ways to get to it. The simplest: right-click on the start menu and find the necessary item there (not available on all versions) or type in the search "Create and format partitions".

In Windows 10, "Hard Disk Management" is called - "Creating and formatting hard disk partitions", but in the window signature the name remains old, and "Disk Space Management" is a completely different window with limited functionality.

If for some reason this method does not suit you, here is the path to disk management, which has not changed since the XP version:

1. Right click on "Start" and open Control Panel. If it's not there, you can find it by searching.
2. Open the "System and Security" category, when categorized.
3. Scroll down and click "Create and format hard disk partitions", under the "Administration" group.

You can't access control from the command line. There is only a separate set of commands for disk management as a fallback, but this is rather complicated and pointless.

If it doesn't open

If the system does not allow you to manage disks, it is a matter of restricting user rights, since you need to have administrator rights to do this. Most likely, the root cause of the problem is a virus on your computer, and after following the instructions, be sure to scan everything and everything with an antivirus.

Before proceeding with the method described below, try disabling your antivirus and try again.

1. Through the start menu search, find and open "regedit".
2. On the left side of the window, navigate to the path "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SYSTEM/CurrentControlSet/Control" and click once on the "Windows" folder contained there.
3. In the right part of the window, open the "CSDVersion" parameter.
4. Set the parameter to zero and confirm the changes.

Disk space management

It is correct to call the so-called disks partitions or volumes (you have only 1 disk, most likely), but taking into account the fact that even Windows calls them disks, this is not important.

To make one volume larger, you first need to make the other volume smaller. You can't take an empty seat out of nowhere and you have to find a donor first. It is worth saying that in Windows 10 there is no volume merge feature. If you want to merge, you will have to use the standard methods described below and copy information from disk to disk.

There is one very important non-obvious rule that imposes a strong limitation on disk management and before you start overtaking space, you need to consider the most popular mistake.

Why is "Expand Volume" greyed out

Pay close attention to the order of the volumes in the bottom half of the window.

In our case, the order is: C, J, D. After we pinch off a piece of space from one of the disks, it will appear behind the donor volume. For example, if we take a piece from disk J, the order will be: C, J, Free space, D. Free space can be filled only on neighboring sections. That is: return to the place of the donor volume (J) or expand the next disk (D). We cannot expand disk C, since there is an obstacle in the form of disk J on the way.

To expand drive C, you need to completely remove J and make it remote space. But if that doesn't seem enough and you want to expand even further with the D drive, you'll have to delete that as well.

The expansion of the first volume is possible only with the help of an individual multi-pass or specialized programs.

For example, in this case, to expand disk C at the expense of D, you can do the following multi-pass:

1. Create a new volume using drive D.
2. Move all files from drives J and D to the new volume.
3. Removing the J drive and expanding the C drive using the freed up space.
4. Removing the D drive and expanding the C drive using the freed up space.
5. We call the new volume disk D.
6. We distill from C to D as much space as necessary.
7. We create disk J at the expense of C and move old files from disk D to it.

It all depends on the order of the disks, their volume and the availability of free space, so the multi-pass is individual.

If the disk with the system is not the first one, then the expansion of those in front of it is impossible, since the disk with the system cannot be removed.

Compression

1. Right-click on the partition you are interested in and select "Compress volume ...".
2. Set the size of the donor space and click Compress.
3. The free space will appear behind the donor volume.

If the volume cannot be compressed, you must either moderate your appetites or delete some of the contents of the volume.

Removal

1. Right-click on the volume and select "Delete Volume...".
2. All its contents will then be deleted.
3. The freed space will appear in place of the deleted volume.

Extension

The system drive expands just like all the others. But due to the above error about the impossibility of expanding the volume, this is not easy to do. Before expanding a disk, be sure to read the first part of this chapter, which deals with the most common disk management error.

Creation

Windows 10 does not recognize the difference between a local disk and a simple volume. Basically, there is no difference between them. The distinction between volumes and local drives was used on older operating systems and was purely a notional limitation. By creating a simple volume, you create a full-fledged local disk.

1. Right-click on the unallocated space and select "Create Simple Volume".
2. Select the amount of space to allocate. You will not be able to use non-adjacent free space.
3. Select a letter for the new volume.
4. It is best to leave all settings at default.
5. The new volume will appear in place of the used space.

Video: Disk Management in Windows 10

defragmentation

The entire contents of the hard disk is divided into many small fragments, and when new information is entered, these fragments are arranged taking into account their best position for sequential reading, one might say side by side. However, as they change, new information is recorded and existing information is transferred, a well-ordered structure gradually tends to become more chaotic. Moreover, broken sectors appear, on which the reading process is strongly stalled. The process of optimizing this entire structure is called defragmentation and is recommended for periodic execution at least once every six months.

Checking the dick for errors is also included in the optimization process.

Defragmentation is designed exclusively for HDD. For SSD, it is not only dangerous, but also harmful. If you don't know what you have:

• HDD - The computer turns on for 10 seconds or longer, and the hard drive looks like a box with a round part.
• SSD - Windows starts up in less than 7 seconds, and the drive is like an electrical contraption, like other components.

Disk C Cleanup

In addition to the banal cleaning of the desktop and removing unused programs, it is worth getting rid of files that are really called junk. Windows 10 has a very specific place to collect trash and junk files - this is the Temp folder. Everything in it can be deleted without any regrets and the slightest risk of harming the system.

Cleaning drive C through its properties in Explorer is less complete and does not affect some of the temporary files.

1. Go to options.
2. Open the "Privacy" section.
3. In the General tab, turn off Advertising ID and Launch Tracking.
4. Click the Speech, Handwriting, and Typing tab and turn off Speech Services if they are active.
5. In the Feedback and Diagnostics tab, select the primary data collection method, turn off the only checkbox, and disable the generation of feedback.
6. In the Background Applications tab, turn off the main toggle.

Programs

As mentioned above, the standard Windows tools for managing hard disk space are very limited in capabilities. If you are faced with an insurmountable problem or just too lazy to bother with multiple space transfers, you can always use the help of a special program that will do all the dirty and mental work for you in just a couple of buttons.

Proper distribution of disk space is a simple and very far-sighted action, and timely defragmentation is a guarantee of order on your computer. Changing the size of volumes or their number should only be well thought out about future plans for using the computer and prioritizing heavy games and programs. Most importantly, always leave at least 10 GB of free space on each volume, especially on the system one, and do not forget about defragmentation.

Good day. Today we will consider a fairly popular topic for beginners, this is working with already created hard disk partitions (have you already bought a new hard disk? :) and we will look at such operations as reducing the volume (compression) of the hard disk and expanding due to the unallocated area. To do this, we will not use any third-party programs, but we will use the Disk Management utility built into the Windows operating system. So why do we need this knowledge? Suppose you are initially on a hard drive, but over time you decide that one is enough to store movies, music and photos, it’s easier to search :) Or another case, you have two local drives on your hard drive (let’s say 2Tb), one under system (local disk C), the second for personal data (disk D), but when you broke them, you left too little space for disk C and this constantly creates discomfort for you. This article is written to deal with such situations.

In this article, I will do, in sequence:
- Shrink (reduce) the local disk,
- Expansion (increase) of the local disk due to the new unallocated area.

Here's what we'll need.

1) The first thing we need is to open the Disk Management utility. For happy owners of Windows 8.1 and 8, just right-click on the Start button (or in the lower left corner of the desktop for Windows 8) and select Disk Management. Everyone else needs to go to "Control Panel → System and Security → Administrative Tools → Computer Management → Storage Devices → Disk Management".

3) Right-click on the section on the right side of the window and select "Compress Volume".

4) A dialog box will open with a choice of volume for compression. This window shows the current size of the partition, the available (unused) space for compression, and the size of the local disk after compression, in megabytes. To maximize disk compression, you must defragment the partition before this operation. I'm using an empty disk, so I have almost all of it available for compression. Enter the required number of megabytes in the line "Size of compressible space" and click "Compress".

6) Now we will expand the section using this unallocated area. To do this, right-click on the partition and select "Expand volume".

7) The "Extend Volume Wizard" will open, click next.

This page shows the available and selected unallocated areas, and you can also specify how much of the unallocated area should be used to expand the local disk ("Select the amount of allocated space"). I use the entire volume, you look according to your circumstances.

Most users working with hard drives and logical partitions in Windows systems, using Explorer or the corresponding disk management section for this, probably paid attention to the presence of the somewhat incomprehensible item “Compress this disk to save space” in the context menu. This innovation was placed in a separate category starting with Windows 7, although it was also in lower rank systems. Let's see what it is, what it can be used for, whether it is worth doing such things, and what should be considered if such an operation is nevertheless supposed to be performed.

Settings item "Compress this disk to save space": what is it?

As you know, before, when hard drives did not have sufficient storage capacity, and some files, most often related to multimedia formats (mainly video and music), were very large, saving hard drive space was a real problem for all users without exception. . That is why at one time the specialists of Microsoft Corporation decided to somehow eliminate it. To save free space when choosing a partition, it was suggested (and is still being proposed) to compress this disk to save space. This, in theory, should mean a reduction in the size of the files, due to which the necessary additional volume is released. As it is already clear, if there is such a function in the system, it is a sin not to use it. And, according to most users, there is nothing critical in this. However, despite the appearance of such a function in Windows, some do not understand the essence of the issue well enough and, without understanding what's what, they immediately try to apply compression to disks and partitions. But this is not worth doing without understanding the essence of what is happening.

How it works?

Yes, indeed, volume compression can be performed. The technology for carrying out such actions is in some ways very much like working with the Zip archiver built into the latest versions of Windows, when you can simply go into the packed archive and view its contents or open the desired file.

Exactly the same here. All files are simply compressed when compression is selected, but only in the percentage that is provided for each specific format. However, in Explorer, all compressed objects are visible in their normal form, and compression itself in no way affects the ability to open files, edit them, save them, or perform copy or move operations. On the one hand, it is very convenient. But not always, because in some cases you can not only encounter unforeseen difficulties, but also get an inoperable operating system.

What disks or partitions can be compressed?

What does it mean to "shrink a disk to save space", figured it out a bit. Now let's see to which partitions such operations can be applied. If we are talking about logical partitions, you can perform compression.

But the main condition is that they must be initially formatted exclusively in NTFS. Otherwise, nothing will work. Another nuance is that when copying a compressed file from one partition to another, the compression is preserved, but when such an object is moved inside the partition, it returns to its original form, in which there was no compression. Thus, if you often perform operations related to copying or moving large files in one partition, the meaning of compression, in general, is completely lost (especially since it will not be possible to re-compress the moved file using means to compress the entire partition).

Now a few words about whether to compress the disk to save space if it acts as a system partition (the one in which the operating system is installed). Most experts are inclined to believe that in this case, despite the presence of such an item in the disk properties, it is not worth using compression under any circumstances, if only for the reason that after its execution, Windows may stop loading at all.

How to perform compression in the simplest way?

As for the compression procedure, there are usually no difficulties even for the most unprepared users. In the "Explorer" it is enough to simply go to the properties section of the section for which the compression operation is supposed to be performed through the RMB menu, then mark the corresponding item on the general tab, confirm your actions and restart the system.

How to decompress a system partition?

But what if the user decided to use such a tool and unknowingly or mistakenly compressed the system partition, after which Windows stopped loading normally?

Immediately note that the rollback of the system, which can sometimes start automatically, will not give any result.

In this situation, you will have to boot from some removable media, then at the very beginning of the installation select the restore point, and at the stage of selecting the location of the drivers (after determining the installed OS) in the window that appears, again select the properties of the system partition through the context menu and uncheck unfortunate point.

Should I compress a drive to save space?

In general terms, as can be seen from the foregoing, there is nothing wrong with compression. The last question remains regarding the use of the "Compress this disk to save space" option. This decision, of course, remains with the user, but as the most practical solution, it can be advised to compress only logical partitions, and only those in which frequent internal movement of files and folders is not provided. It is better not to experiment with the system partition.