If for any reason you'll have to extend a volume in your
computer,nothing can be easier than that with Vista new disk manager tool.It
can be done on either the volume where the system is installed
or any other volume.You can shrink it or extend it whenever you want.Just
keep reading and pay attention to the rest of this article.
Right Click on Computer than click manage
and DiskManagement
On the window you'll have the list of your disks with the volumes they have
been divided in.(See fig.1)
Right click on the volume you want to modify and choose the option from the
dropdown menu,like shrink,extend or delete and follow the wizard
Sometimes,however you might find the extend option that is grayed,and
there is a reason for that,keep reading on step 5
Figure
1
One of the most common reason that you
can't extend a volume in Vista is that the volume is on the right of the drive
or it can be on the left but any available free space to expand itself is on the
right of the next volume, therefore unreachable .For example on the scenario
above(See Fig.1) we have disk 0 divided in 2 volumes C and
D,both can't be extended because they have the full disk so extenting one volume
would shrink the other one and that is impossible(see fig 2).Instead,disk
2 ,which has only 1 volume can be extended (see fig 3).There
is a way to extend C.however, go to step 6.
Figure 2
Figure 3
The only way to extend your C volume in this situation is to delete the D
volume.Assuming you have your system installed on C and only data on D,all you
have to do is back up your data somewhere else on the computer or external drive
and delete the volume,after that,right click on the C volume and this time the
extend option will be available,follow the wizard and it's done.Then,you can
create D volume again with the free part of disk,and restore all your data back
again.
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